The Great Job Illusion: Why Hiring Feels Fake

Simon Carver

[warmly] Welcome to the show. This is The Great Job Illusion: everyone is hiring, job boards are packed, headlines say the economy is humming along... and somehow real people still cannot get hired. If this kind of conversation helps you make sense of the mess, like, share, and subscribe. I’m Simon Carver, with Lachlan Reed and CJ Murphy.

Lachlan Reed

[matter-of-fact] G’day. And yeah, this one feels personal. You scroll through LinkedIn, Indeed, whatever else, and it looks like a buffet. Hundreds of roles. Then you talk to actual humans and they’re on application number 147 getting absolute radio silence. It’s like being told the pub’s open, then finding the door’s locked and the lights are just on for show.

Chris J. Murphy

[calm] Let’s talk about what’s actually happening. A lot of those openings create the appearance of momentum more than the reality of hiring. Companies post roles, leave them open, raise the requirements, and signal expansion without necessarily adding people. That matters because to investors, analysts, and boards, hiring activity can read as confidence.

Simon Carver

[curious] That phrase “signal expansion” is the part I want to sit with. Because if a company posts ten roles and fills, say, one or none... the public sees ten. The applicant sees ten. The market sees ten. But only one job was ever real in a practical sense.

Chris J. Murphy

Exactly. And sometimes not even that. You’ll see “entry-level” positions asking for five years of experience, specialized tools, cross-functional leadership, maybe even management exposure. Well, that isn’t entry-level. That’s a company saying, “If the perfect unicorn appears, we’d like to meet them.” It’s less workforce planning and more corporate theater.

Lachlan Reed

[chuckles] Five years for entry-level is the bit that fries me. Even a kangaroo could trip over that logic. If the rung on the ladder starts five years up, where’s anyone meant to put their foot? And it’s not just software jobs anymore. Retail, hospitality, admin, customer support — the old stepping-stone gigs are getting weirdly clogged.

Simon Carver

Right, and that’s what makes this feel so disorienting. We’re not talking only about elite knowledge work. We’re talking barista roles, shop-floor roles, the kind of jobs people used to use to get moving, get rent paid, get a little dignity back after a setback.

Lachlan Reed

[reflective] Yeah. And then you pile on the mechanics. You upload your resume, retype the same resume into forty little boxes like some cursed homework assignment, answer knockout questions, do a personality test, and then... poof. No person, no callback, no clue. Qualified folks are getting binned by software before a hiring manager even lays eyes on ‘em.

Chris J. Murphy

That’s a crucial point. The system says it has a talent shortage while simultaneously filtering out talent at scale. Applicant Tracking Systems and screening tools are optimized for throughput. Efficiency, not judgment. Speed, not context. So the company experiences the market as “we can’t find the right people,” while applicants experience it as “I can’t get seen.” Both feel true because the system between them is broken.

Simon Carver

[questioning tone] Let me try to say that back. The shortage may not be people. The shortage is actual human attention inside the hiring process.

Chris J. Murphy

[warmly] That’s well put. Human attention has become scarce. And when attention is scarce, employers can become more selective, more performative, and frankly more detached from the people applying.

Lachlan Reed

And applicants feel that detachment in their bones. You can spend an hour tailoring a resume, writing a cover letter, doing the whole dance, and still feel like you’ve tossed it into a wood chipper. After a while it’s not just discouraging — it starts messing with your sense of whether the market sees you as a person at all.

Simon Carver

[serious] And this is where AI enters the picture, because it’s not the whole story, but it sure feels like an accelerant. CJ, when executives talk about AI in boardrooms, what changes first?

Chris J. Murphy

[measured] Often, the first thing that changes is not the work itself. It’s the assumption about the future of the work. That distinction matters. AI is not replacing every role overnight. But leadership teams are making decisions now based on the belief that AI will soon absorb portions of those roles. So they freeze hiring, consolidate teams, delay backfills, and ask fewer people to carry more. It’s speculative workforce reduction.

Lachlan Reed

[responds quickly] “Speculative workforce reduction” — that’s the phrase. Not because the tool can fully do the job today, but because someone in a meeting reckons it might do half of it tomorrow. So they cut first and sort it out later. Bit like selling your ute because you’ve seen an ad for a flying car.

Simon Carver

[laughs softly] Right. The flying-car version of workforce strategy. But the consequence is very real: fewer openings posted with genuine intent, and more workers chasing them.

Chris J. Murphy

Yes. And when more applicants flood a smaller pool of real opportunities, leverage shifts dramatically toward employers. They can ask for more experience, lower compensation, more interview rounds, faster start dates, broader responsibilities. Not because those demands are healthy, but because the market will bear them.

Simon Carver

The phrase “the market will bear them” is chilling, because it sounds abstract until you picture a recent graduate competing with a laid-off mid-career professional and maybe a senior person taking a step down just to stay afloat. Three very different lives colliding in one application queue.

Lachlan Reed

That queue is brutal. You’ve got fresh grads, people with ten years under the bonnet, and specialists from other sectors all diving at the same role. Of course wages get squashed. Of course the process stretches out. If there are hundreds — sometimes thousands — behind one posting, the employer holds all the cards and half the deck from next week too.

Chris J. Murphy

And then automation compounds it. Screening tools look for keywords. Ranking systems score resumes. Sometimes candidates are rejected for not matching a pattern closely enough, even when they could do the job well. Evidence gets flattened into formatting. Experience gets flattened into search terms. That sounds efficient — but at what cost?

Simon Carver

[softly] At the cost of people disappearing inside the process.

Chris J. Murphy

Exactly. Which is why the old strategy — apply online and wait — is increasingly unreliable. Not impossible, but unreliable. The practical response has to change. Build direct connections wherever you can. That doesn’t mean fake networking or transactional coffee chats. It means find actual humans adjacent to the work: former colleagues, alumni, industry groups, hiring managers, community circles. A warm path is often more visible than a perfect resume.

Lachlan Reed

And tailor the application. I know, I know, everyone hates hearing that because it’s slow and annoying. But generic resumes are basically camouflage now. If the role says customer operations, don’t bury that under three paragraphs of vague “results-driven professional” waffle. Say the thing. Mirror the language honestly. Help the system, then help the human.

Simon Carver

[curious] And the third piece, CJ — visible proof. This feels bigger than resumes now.

Chris J. Murphy

It is. In a crowded market, evidence beats claims. A portfolio, a case study, a certification, a body of visible work, a thoughtful post, a project you shipped, a freelance engagement, even a clear demonstration of how you think — these things signal capability beyond a bullet list. The real question isn’t just “What have you done?” It’s “Can someone see your value quickly?”

Lachlan Reed

[encouraging] Yeah. Show your workings, basically. Don’t just say you can fix bikes — roll one into the shed and take the engine apart where people can see it. Same deal professionally. If you can write, write. If you can design, show the work. If you can organise chaos, give people a neat example. Proof hits harder than promises.

Simon Carver

There’s also a bigger sadness here. Because when companies treat hiring like a signal and workers like variables, something deeper starts to fray. Trust goes first.

Chris J. Murphy

[reflective] Trust, yes. And alongside it, institutional knowledge. When organizations cut preemptively, over-automate, or hold people at arm’s length, they lose more than payroll. They lose context, mentorship, continuity, judgment — the very human capacities that make work functional and meaningful. We’ve seen this pattern before with other waves of technology. The tools arrive with promise, but the transition costs get pushed onto individuals.

Lachlan Reed

And that’s the bit people feel in their gut. It’s not just “the market is tough.” It’s, “I’m being told opportunity is everywhere while I’m standing in a queue that doesn’t move.” Makes you feel crook, honestly.

Simon Carver

[warmly] So maybe that’s the cleanest way to say it: if the system feels broken, that feeling is not irrational. You’re reacting to something real. The opportunity hasn’t vanished, but it has shifted — and the people who adapt fastest will probably be the ones who stop treating hiring like a vending machine and start treating it like a human visibility problem.

Chris J. Murphy

[calm] And while the system keeps changing, hold onto this: your value is not determined by whether an automated filter recognized it.

Lachlan Reed

Too right. Keep going, keep adjusting, and don’t let a dodgy process convince you you’re the problem.

Simon Carver

If you liked this episode, subscribe and share it with someone navigating the same fog. We’ll see you next time.