There is a reason it is increasingly difficult to find work

In recent years, Western companies have experienced significant employee and collaborator turnover, whose effects continue to influence the current job market. Much of this is due to the experience of the pandemic and lockdowns, which have led many people to reconsider certain aspects of their working lives. Today, the most sought-after companies are not necessarily those that offer higher salaries, but those that guarantee more flexibility and a proper work-life balance. The same human resources sector is adapting to dynamics that were less considered a few years ago. In general, companies are paying more attention to the quality of life of employees, as well as being more aware of the importance of investing in human resources. However, all this has also made selection processes more complex and intricate.

Today, applying for a job typically requires much more time and effort than a few years ago. Interviews are now almost always structured in multiple steps, consisting of individual and group meetings, exercises, or video presentations – also useful for testing the candidate's ease in speaking in front of a camera, with a view to remote working. Furthermore, it is quite common to be asked for a cover letter, or in some cases even a reference letter from previous employers. So-called soft skills have become even more sought after: companies are more interested than before in evaluating candidates based on skills that do not fall within technical abilities, but that facilitate the candidate's integration and growth within the work group. Yet assessing these characteristics is more difficult, which has contributed to making selection processes even more intricate. All these new dynamics are, overall, changing the job market itself from the inside, making it more intricate.

How to Job Hunt Today

More and more often, when applying for a specific position, you are redirected to the company's website, where there is a form to fill out from top to bottom, which can take a lot of time. For individual companies, but especially for larger ones, this method is preferred because they can have a database to consult and compare different profiles more easily, rather than having many different resumes. The practice of publishing job offers solely to collect as many resumes as possible has also become more widespread, to draw from in the future if needed. This is also why many applications receive no response. Certain highly technical roles, such as developers, are constantly in demand, so companies tend to keep these positions open even if they are not actively seeking to fill them. However, it is also true that job seekers today have many more tools at their disposal to understand – "from the outside" – how a company operates, especially if it is small. For some years now, it has become very popular to use Glassdoor, a site that allows individuals to anonymously review companies and disclose the salaries of those who work there.

In many countries around the world, the most used platform for job searching remains LinkedIn, whose paid version – which among other things allows you to send private messages to profiles with whom you are not already connected – is particularly used by those determined to change jobs. But LinkedIn Premium is also widely utilized by companies themselves, who use it to give more visibility to their job postings or to directly contact the most interesting candidates and propose an interview – which happens much more often than you might think. Finally, it is likely that many applications would not be made if the salary information was disclosed in the job posting, which would ease the selection process for companies. This principle has been successfully adopted in some countries, while in others – such as Italy – it is still not very common, mainly due to cultural barriers. However, in 2023, the European Union approved a law that requires all member states to include the annual gross salary in job postings by 2026.