[iambateman]

I had a friend with plenty of experience in HR get laid off.

He looked for a job for 13 months. One of the top 3 smartest people I’ve ever known looked for seven months and had to take a big step back in his career, despite having Amazon and Home Depot on his resume.

Both of them said that even getting an interview was almost impossibly hard.

These are people in different parts of the county, and in different industries.

I think we have a serious problem on our hands with employment that’s probably not getting better any time soon.

[doomkaiser21]

Don't want to discredit or invalidate your/your friend's experience, but I do want to offer some hope during these times where a lot of what you see on the web is doomer posts.

From Google: The Jevons paradox occurs when technological improvements increase the efficiency of a resource, but the resulting drop in cost causes demand to rise so much that total consumption of that resource increases rather than decreases.

The message being, it may seem now that because the friction for creating software is so minimal now that there will be no need for software engineers in the future. But historically when friction has been reduced, we have seen an increase in demand that outweighs the efficiency gain, increasing total consumption. I believe that software won't be an exception to this millennia-old pattern.

While what "software engineering" may look like might change, I still believe strongly that people who understand software will actually be in higher demand than ever in the future.

[bluecheese452]

To paraphrase Keynes, in the future we are all dead. His friend is suffering now, not in some theoretical far off future where the magic market had been blessed by the invisible hand.

[nm980]

Most software is not price elastic so Jevon's Paradox will not matter

[paulpauper]

So much pre-employment screening and automated filtering. Getting to the interview stage is like having your paper refereed instead of desk rejected.

[Esophagus4]

Cold applications are very difficult, especially because of the sheer volume of applicants.

Unless I have a referral, it’s such a low probability exercise it’s not worth it for me.

Whenever I see “100+ candidates have applied” on LinkedIn, I just ignore the job posting.

[NBJack]

HR, particularly recruitment, was one of the biggest hit departments when the blood-letting started at Meta in 2022. The hiring freeze that followed didn't help.

[yarrowy]

if he was responsible for Home Depot's app, I can understand why it took him so long to find another job.

[garbawarb]

When was he looking and when did he get the job?

[iambateman]

Two different friends…

First spent most of 2025 looking.

Second started last week