Voice of the Job Hunter: The Overachiever’s Crisis

“When I was laid off, my dad said, ‘I’m not worried about you, you’ve always been scrappy.’ … That was six months ago.”

That comment, from a recently laid-off customer success manager, hit me hard. The word “scrappy” is our shorthand for a certain kind of professional: the resourceful, the resilient, the Type-A overachiever.

The one in the family nobody is worried about.

After personally speaking with over 500 job seekers, let this be known: Our modern job market is quietly crushing even the most accomplished professionals.

There are roughly a billion people today who provide most of their value from using a computer. Now, with AI, the tasks that make up those jobs are being automated and rebundled. This is already one of the biggest disruptions to work in our lifetimes. I call this the crisis of the overachievers because this new model is making those who have succeeded by every past standard fail. Workers who have never struggled to find work before are suddenly hitting more than a wall. It's a crisis of meaning.

“I have 60 days to get a job, or I lose my student visa and will be deported.”

This was from a Tier-1 MBA graduate who founded a multi-million-dollar startup.

“I just told my family I’ll have to move to Mexico to retire early.”

A woman in her late 50s, laid off from a senior role at the height of her earnings, lost hope after nine fruitless months. She decided moving to Mexico would stretch her savings until she could withdraw from her 401(k) without penalty.

"I got laid off from my company after nine and a half years. Out of the blue... I was working 80-hour weeks... And now that I want to get back into things. Like it's been impossible.... I've probably submitted 300, 400 applications."

This came from a seasoned tech veteran who realized that loyalty and a relentless grind no longer guarantee safety.

These stories span every demographic. Immigrants, older workers, and younger candidates with pristine degrees. They all share the same chilling realization: being driven doesn't feel like enough right now.

Ten years ago, as a Pell Grant recipient on scholarship, I went to a tech career fair with a resume listing “Line Cook” as my latest experience.

I grew up in a household where my parents fought over money, and it made me want to work hard so I would never have to worry about bills.

I landed a hallway interview with a CEO who asked for one word to describe me.

“Driven,” I said.

He followed up, “And where are you driving to?”

I wanted to say, “Away from not having money”.

As Head of Career Strategy at Huntr.co, I now build tools to help people navigate their search. I want to actually help. So I've met with over 500 job seekers for free 1:1 job search strategy sessions. Job hunting is one of the most vulnerable times in someone's life, and becoming detached from the users behind the software didn't seem right. These calls ground me and teach me what we need to be building.

But as I meet with candidates every week, I have to share that I also have a selfish interest: A curiosity about my own future.

I met an account executive with a decade more experience in tech sales than I have. He had generated over $100 million in revenue over his career and had a Fortune 100 company on his resume. He was also seven months into his search, with a family and a mortgage to pay.

He’s as impactful as I could possibly aspire to be, and the ground was crumbling beneath his feet. I realized that being driven isn't enough. Even a lawyer who negotiated billion-dollar contracts told me she was struggling to get callbacks for junior-level roles.

You may be reading this as an accomplished professional in a comfortable career. What you must understand is that so were they. We are living in unprecedented times.

The many eager-to-please students who were told by their parents and teachers that they’d change the world are feeling cooked. This is scary. But it will pass. Things will get better.

“I’ve applied for 700 jobs and still haven’t heard back. I think my resume isn’t passing the ATS.”

When the search stalls, candidates inevitably look for an external scapegoat. The infamous Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is widely used. The reality, though, is that most rejections are made by humans, or more often, applications are simply never read. Try to be among the first to apply.

My 500+ job search support calls revealed that 90% of job seekers were not following data-backed best practices. Most weren’t tailoring their resumes. They were exclusively using LinkedIn, where the volume of applicants makes it a lottery. They were listing responsibilities on their resumes, not the impact associated with the role they were applying for.

My goal is to share Huntr as the data-backed resource for job seekers in the job search space that earns your trust. In a landscape full of snake oil salesmen and fear-mongers trying to exploit this technological disruption and time of economic uncertainty, I want to be as transparent, open, and helpful as possible.

Our latestJob Search Trends report showcases insights from analyzing over 1.7 million applications that can help.

The data proves that when you tailor a resume to match a job description, it has a massive impact: On average, it takes 17 tailored applications to land one interview.

We are actively working to improve that and get it down to 10 or fewer by the end of the year using our AI-Powered resume builder. It's tricky. There are many scammers exploiting candidates on job search platforms and in the tools space. We will always do our best to do right by the job seeker.

Tech leaders insist AI will create more jobs than it destroys. This macroeconomic theory offers cold comfort if you're the one caught in the transition without a safety net.

What distinguishes this technological wave from all others is the underlying crisis of meaning. The Ford production line offered a brutal, but clear, deal: 40 years of repetitive motion (acting like a robot) in exchange for a pension and stability. It created the middle class.

What's today’s deal? Even for many I spoke with who have steady paychecks, it doesn't feel like enough. They are deeply unsatisfied, looking for purpose.

They wanted less of what anthropologist David Graeber called “Bullsh@# jobs”. Duct-taping, box-ticking, and task-mastering for enterprise resource planning in the cloud. We will get to this in future newsletters. I have a few ideas.

For now, my concern is helping folks keep their homes and not maxing out their credit cards on rent. My focus is on helping you get a job. For your health, the health of your family, and your community.

Because unemployment, now more than ever, is not an individual failing. It is a collective one.

We are entering a new world that requires us to work together to navigate safely. Helping each other is not a fix for the system, but it's the only place we can start.

Let's get to work.

Sam Wright

Sam Wright is the Head of Career Strategy at Huntr. Drawing on proprietary data from 1.7 million applications, 1 million job postings, 243,000 résumés, and a 1,049-respondent survey, Sam provides actionable, data-driven blueprints to help professionals navigate today's fractured hiring landscape. He has conducted over 600+ free support calls with job seekers, giving him frontline insight into today's job market. His work and insights have been featured in Business Insider, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and The Seattle Times.

Outside the tech world, Sam is a part-time farmer from a five-generation legacy of organic vegetable farming. He is a passionate advocate for farmland preservation.

More from Sam Wright