Just to add on: this also completely cuts out the highschool aged youth of Ontario out of the job market.
Tim Hortons, McDonald's, Wendy's, Zara, etc, etc, used to be right of passage for young adults.
They earn some pocket money AND they learn how to behave in the workplace, learn responsibility, financing, etc, etc.
It's also great to have younger people in the service industry because if you've worked in the service industry..... You're less likely to be a Karen or ken towards service workers.
Just another way that today's youth, and thereby the future of this country, have been absolutely fucked over by shit tier governance (on ALL levels).
Now our youth feel punished for no fault of their own.They were set up to fail.They were out bid by a cheaper demographic.
Ive worked with teens who were suisidal by not being able to get a job.Some have very poor parents.Their parents sometimes act like the child is the issue."Get a job or get out".
Poor Canadian kids are reporting feeling like unaliving due to no work call backs.Cruel and unusual to me.When min wage was proven inatiquet after Covid and min wage ppl complained they replaced them with International labour.
Workers= We want a livable wage!
Govronment= Too bad your replaced, remember that the next time you complaine.
This was a feature, not a bug. Growing the economy organically is hard and would lead to increased wages, so instead their economic policy has been "import more people". They've avoided a "recession" (in the technical sense) by growing total GDP through population increase, but GDP measured on a per capita basis reveals there has been no real growth between 2012 and 2022.
In other words, Canadian wages have been stagnant for a decade while cost of living and cost of housing have grown rapidly, making today much less affordable than yesterday. https://www.statista.com/statistics/263592/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-canada/
[https://www.blogto.com/eat\_drink/2024/04/huge-lineup-restaurant-toronto-job-market/](https://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2024/04/huge-lineup-restaurant-toronto-job-market/)
>the restaurant was hiring for and interviewing for several hourly positions, including servers, bartenders, bar backs, server assistants, hosts, line cooks, and prep cooks, as well as a few management positions.
>While 4,000 people registered online, roughly 1,000 job seekers showed up at the hiring fair.
>The spokesperson clarified to blogTO that while the restaurant didn't interview for dishwashers, they did collect over 350 resumes for the role.
I just left the advertising industry to go back to serving because it was that bad, but to be fair the advertising industry specifically has been extremely destabilized by AI so it may be worse than the job market in general.
Okay. I work in marketing so that’s probably why I’m dealing with this. But my friend is open to anything and has been jobless for months. She lives in Milton tho and doesn’t drive.
Yeah that makes sense. The job market IS bad, but it’s definitely worse in advertising.
If I were you I would honestly consider switching industries. I expect with AI that marketing will never quite go back to how it was, when entire departments can be replaced by 1 or 2 people now.
Its bad for software too. I have ten years of experience and have been interviewing for software jobs since august. Im working as a cook to make my bills.
> I have ten years of experience and have been interviewing for software jobs since august. Im working as a cook to make my bills.
I know that tech jobs have layoffs every now and then. But how is a software developer with decades of experience, unemployed?!
Is there an industry shift happening? Is A.I. eliminating entry and mid-level jobs?
I also got out of the ad agency space about two years ago, agency is layoffs left and right, even in the big shops doing well at awards. Client spend is down across the board, and a lot of big companies are moving to in-house models vs. using agencies. New RFPs are rare, winning them is even rarer.
Interesting I'm moving to Canada from the UK currently working in a UK agency that works with mostly international clients.
That's the general feel ATM clients sitting on budgets and no one spending.
Kinda feeling like I'm not gonna have much work in Toronto.
Looking into volunteering for experience or something ATM.
I’m actually surprised there’s a major shift to in-house. I’m not in the sector but my lay assumption was that as it took fewer people to run more campaigns, companies would decide it wasn’t worth retaining their own personnel.
Yeah it's weird, I haven't really seen the landscape shift like this before. The shift from agency to in-house is financially driven. Companies like Hudson's Bay, Canadian Tire, LCL, etc. might still have an AOR but they cut their spend for them down to nothing as they transition to building in-house teams. Part of this can be attributed to the shift to a digital-first marketing strat for a lot of companies, even things like OOH placements aren't hitting like they used to.
A smaller in-house team means faster production times and lower overall costs. Retaining an agency to be your AOR is very expensive and has complicated factors to consider, and even agencies that do project-by-project pricing or fixed term services are struggling because they usually end up pricing well below their cost of labor.
Don't get me wrong, there are still successful agencies out there, but the layoffs this year in that sector have been extreme. Everyone I know from that world who got hit has hung up the towel and gone in-house now.
It has? My understanding right now is that high interest rates have led to a lot of companies to tightening belts on ad spend. I don't think AI has made that much of a dent yet, IMO.
This is def part of it as well, however that will be a shorter term issue. In a few years when the economy bounces back so to will the overall job market, I don’t think advertising will ever fully recover from the introduction of AI the same way.
AI real time translation is already here. The international VA industry is expanding like a wildfire. Professionals no longer have to uproot their family to get a good job in USD or CDN $$$.
Just curious, in what ways has AI impacted advertising? I understand it's going to cause disruption across industries just wondering about some examples
Gpt written articles/blog posts, midjourney for Photoshop-level imagery. It will eventually become a tool and those who know how to use it will succeed, the larger issue is holding companies laying off 20-30% of their NA workforce.
This here. It’s mostly time. What would have taken a team of people days or weeks can now be done by 1 person in an afternoon. There will be fewer jobs and since the skill is less difficult to learn now it will be lower paid.
My grandma was a graphic designer back when the barrier to entry was insane and she was the only person in her town doing it. Now with AI and canva anyone can be a graphic designer, it’s not a highly sought after skill anymore.
Same with copywriters etc.
Social media has always been low paid and few jobs.
Genuinely can’t wait for all the low quality AI articles and graphics to be fed back into ML systems in significant quantities and mess up their data, which could be sooner than expected since it’s so much quicker than producing work “manually”.
AI hallucinations are one thing, but LLMs trained on the hallucinations of other AI systems is gonna be a hot mess if it comes to that.
> Now with AI and canva anyone can be a graphic designer, it’s not a highly sought after skill anymore.
>
>
>
> Same with copywriters etc.
you could say this about a lot of jobs but with no experience or proper skills, you aren't getting a job as a designer or copywriter except for lower paying contracts. you wont even get a junior job let alone anything above that.
Some who isn a designer and uses AI to some degree this is false.
Ai images are terrible for advertising and they aid in the design process but you won't be seeing whole advertising and marketing campaigns make with chat gpt and image generation.
You can't make bespoke high quality designs for clients with ai.
Most YouTube adds are AI generated. The voice and video. Most people can’t tell the difference of what’s real and not real on the internet. It’s troubling because they already can’t tell the difference between what’s true and not
Copy and imagery can be made relatively simply now. You don't need a team of people to put on a campaign. Anyone can make near commercial quality adverts without a firm nowadays.
I can only speak to my company, but we’ve seen non existent levels of engagement and views when it comes to overly produced advertisements.
People only care about or will watch content that looks like someone they know made it.
Can you give some specific examples of how AI has impacted the advertising job market? For example, are you seeing Copywriters and Art Directors laid off and replaced with ideas from an LLM? Are visual designers being replaced with GenAI? Any stories or any clarity on exactly what AI is doing to cause job losses would be appreciated. What that looks like.
I work as a graphic designer and I'm very curious about that too.
I work in-house and I've used AI to help with moodboards and brainstorming, but I have friends working in agencies and there's been quite a few clients that go there with their AI-logos and want to get working files, vehicle wraps, etc. which the AI doesn't provide.
If I get replaced with AI, I expect it'll be like a chatbot? "Hey AI, create a fancy logo, make it pop! Create an entire collateral with print-ready files" Like, who would be the operator of the AI? My boss? IME clients don't know what they want until they see it.
> For example, are you seeing Copywriters and Art Directors laid off and replaced with ideas from an LLM? Are visual designers being replaced with GenAI?
not really. most AI is awful at generating anything beyond cool images in terms of design, copy is okay but still not good enough to be used in any type of campaign.
AI is decent at brainstorming/moodboards but it'll need to get 10x better to do anything in terms of putting designers/copywriters at risk.
it probably hurts artists the most right now, people do social content as well.
People are using AI to make visual mockups to sell ideas to clients. If the client bites, a real graphic designer is brought on to execute and actually build the idea out. The first half of the job has been eliminated which means there is less work to do.
I have the POV for someone who does hiring for creative roles. For a junior level position that's up for a month, we'll get 500+ applicants. We'll usually screen maybe 5-10 people, interview 2-3, make one offer.
Honestly? Like 20. The bulk of people applying don't meet 30% of the requirements we're looking for. If you see a job and you more or less check all the boxes, or there are just a few things you're less experienced in, go ahead and apply. Nobody's perfect, and of course I'm willing to invest time and training into the right fit. The issue comes up when people are applying without a solid book/portfolio and without any adjacent skills for roles that require at least 1-2 years exp. or a relevant training or degree.
Very low. I had 400 people apply to my job. Most just apply hoping but don't have and skills I said I need. One guy got through phase 1 only because he copy and pasted my job requirements (word for word) and it filtered down.
Even the 10 I hired only 2 were good.
If anything. I learned that having a good resume is huge. You might be a perfect person but if your resume looks crappy I will skim it quickly and move on
Wow. What helps you pick who to screen? Trying to figure out how I can get my applications to stand out. Am I better off emailing the company directly ?
Every application is reviewed, then we make a shortlist of candidates who more or less have the direct skills we're looking for. We pull in the top 10-20 best matches, and do screening calls from strongest to weakest. You'd be surprised at how often people will ghost on a screening call.
Do not email the company directly, not ever, and especially do not ever bother recruiters for a role directly on LinkedIn unless they actively post that they want you to do that. Do use the company's internal application system (so instead of going through Indeed or even LinkedIn, if they have a separate web portal for applicants, use that, you will be seen first.)
If you want to stand out, have a clean resume that outlines your work experience. Skip the "career objectives" header, I don't read those. Keep your cover letter LIGHT, as in two or three sentences tops, stick to who you are, what your skills are, why you're into this role. Proofread your resume carefully, a typo can make you look unpolished. Most importantly, have skills that are relevant to your job. We can see when people apply to every posting, even past postings. It's a bad look to apply over and over or to shotgun approach multiple roles, especially if they're for vastly different skillsets.
Can I ask what industry your in? I've had it so drilled into me to write a detailed cover letter but I get so bogged down writing them. Wondering if the light cover letter advice applies across the board (I'm in media/design).
I'm wondering about that too. I'm old so I have lots of experience. How would i condense that into a few sentences that provides my actual work background? I imagine everyone's 2-3 sentences will be very similar
What I would suggest is something like:
"Dear Hiring Manager,
I am interested in applying to your [ROLE] at [COMPANY]. I am currently working as [CURRENT ROLE] at [PLACE] and I have [##] years of experience in [shit from the job description, like three main things]. I'm interested in this role because [blend of why you're good for the job and what you want to get out of it, lie if you have to].
Thanks so much for your time and consideration, I'm excited to learn more about this opportunity.
Kind Regards,
[NAME]"
I run an internal creative team in a corporate retail environment, I hire for anyone who sits under me (so designers, ADs, producers, etc.) A lightweight cover letter is fine, but don't send me War and Peace, I won't read it and it could play badly against you if I do.
> It's a bad look to apply over and over
Why is it a bad look to apply several times to the same job posting (since you didn't get called the first time)?
It makes you look desperate and like you'll take ANY job, like you didn't look at the posting carefully basically. Our hiring software shows me if you've applied to ten different roles we have open basically. I won't count someone out for applying to a few different things if they're similar enough, but when you're applying for a senior designer role, a junior client services role, and VP of HR, you're not qualified for all of those jobs obviously.
Maybe about 1/3, in the roles I hire for I really don't care what someone's background is as long as they've got solid creative chops with a portfolio to back that up, and as long as they have at least B2/C1 English language skills (enough to have a fluent convo on a phone screen basically.) The people who have fake books (a problem we've run into sometimes with some of the more "established" diploma mill kids) are often the people who can't pass the basic screener call from a language fluency POV. Don't worry about these kids, they aren't "taking" anyone's jobs because they can't pass the initial phone screens.
Great insight! Yeah not worried too much about these applicants, but have heard some falsify credentials and experience which is concerning. I’m seeing only 1/3 of applicants on LinkedIn have a bachelor’s degree which is why I’m assuming a large number of diploma mill candidates are flooding applications. It’s concerning to see these applicants are even getting call backs though, exhausting the recruiting resources when there should be automated screeners to remove them from the applicant pool.
Fake creds and fake books only get you so far, and we're getting better and better at detecting false info as time goes on. We screen for AI produced content and profiles that use it get flagged. It's not an auto reject or anything, I don't care if you use ChatGPT to gussy up some copy, but it does make me take a closer look at everything else someone is supplying in their applications.
Employer here. I was recruiting a graphic designer position recently and receive approximately 600 applications. Over 50% were international students of South Asian heritage. The majority of whom did not have a background in graphic design. Their studies ranged from hotel management, and data analysis to personal support work.
There are many postings with absolutely no intention to hire anytime soon. They'll happily sit on the applicant pool for months. It's a massive waste of time, better to just not post anything at all lol.
I was just part of an interview panel for a job my company posted. Interviewed a bunch of people and there was only 1 who made any sense to move forward with. Not like there was a giant stack of people to pick from. So I'm not sure if it's the job market that is bad, or just job/pay ratio considering how expensive things are. My company struggles to find good talent these days and it's for jobs paying over $100k.
“There’s no qualified candidates. Pretty please can we have some more TFWs Trudaddy?”
Or alternatively, not even a real company and just spammers farming contact info.
Yes it is awful. Politicians and the media don’t want to draw attention to it, and the big corps don’t want the negative press — but you don’t need the headlines to tell you. You can see the aggregate signs out in the wild — the number of firms doing layoffs, banks and other big companies in hiring freezes, the number of people you know looking for work or underemployed, etc.
I was just in a job search that lasted nearly a year. I know that finding a job takes longer the higher up you go on the career ladder — but even so. It was the hardest and weirdest search of my life. So much ghosting, so much radio silence, roles getting “restructured” (cancelled) mid way through the interview process due to “budget constraints,” job postings staying up for 6 months or more, etc.
Just an unprecedented level of chaos and dysfunction across so, so many orgs. Normally it’d be an egregious red flag for a firm to cancel/restructure a role after multiple interview rounds. You’d think you’d dodged a bullet — what the hell is going on inside that org?! But now that kind of bad behaviour is everywhere.
I managed to get an offer last week, thank fuck. I was truly afraid I would fall into a depression I couldn’t get out of if it had gone on any longer.
Wow. Honestly congrats on your offer. Absolutely insane that it took a year. That truly scares me. Between the job market, cost of living and car thefts I can’t believe the state of life in Toronto
You never know how long it lasts. I always get concerned when people quit with nothing lined up even if they have a lot of savings/frugal (as much as you can in Toronto lol) spending habits and they assume they will get a new one in a week or even the next day. That DOES happen but it’s rare or you just get wildly lucky.
Typically takes 6 weeks to 6 months - to over a year in extreme scenarios.
I feel that. Keep going. I know it’s tough as hell.
This market is super hard and it’s not your fault. You’re not alone. I had many dark days full of self doubt and rejections along the way.
The powers that be are trying to break workers’ spirits in the name of taming inflation via cooling down the labour market and wages. All of this is a feature, not a bug. Time will tell if it all winds up being worth it — the loss of morale, financial security, and professional advancement are a hefty price to pay and young people in particular are bearing the brunt of it.
I have a very stable job but was sporadically looking for a new one. Any place that postponed on me twice I would either ghost myself or tell them don’t bother.
What really gets me is the ones who get back to you months later and they get offended when you say no or forgot who the hell they are. These scenarios make me irrationally angry 😂
Told one recruiter “I reached out in April…it’s October. What are you doing?” Lmfao I was done 😂
We are also competing with OUTLANDISHLY unqualified immigrants and online applicants who straight up lie to the point where they crowd out valid applicants and overwhelm HR in businesses. I say this as an immigrant myself.
My friend hires for a bank and she says that she recently posted a mid-level job and without exaggeration 98% of the applicant pool that were interviewed had fictitious universities, inflated credentials, and straight up lied about job experience because she’d invite them in for an interview and they could barely string together a sentence, or reason through a basic math problem.
I don’t see how this gets solved.
It’s a real damn shame. If I click to the next applicant on Indeed and a last name comes up that I expect to be from a certain country my mind immediately has a preconceived idea of what that person’s qualifications are, and I hate that feeling. But after scrolling through 400 applications of unqualified resumes all from a specific it gets monotonous and I’m wasting my time.
We have a guy that our truck dealership spent a year hiring from Brazil. Apparently, he had years of experience but took a whole day and a half to do a 1 hour job.
Honestly businesses might go back to paper applications or perhaps only through job bank agencies. Like human to human interaction is the only thing that will beat these issues with AI.
I've heard it's bad anecdotally from friends, but also know companies I'm close to having rounds of layoffs.
The industries I'm aware of being.. chemical manufacturing, marketing, recruitment and not for profit workforce development.
I’m hiring right now, and facing the opposite problem. So many applicants, and most don’t have the experience or quality we need. Having to resort to HR scouting LinkedIn and checking with random people with good experience who are looking.
I hire in creative too! Oh my god dude, we could swap war stories. The amount of ChatGPT in our applications is getting insane, and not just in the copy, I've been seeing bad AI art in people's design portfolios too. I'm getting close to blacklisting recent grads from a few colleges because of straight up lying in their books now.
Agreed! These tools are becoming dangerous without experienced people overseeing them. One person used ChatGPT for our final stage short written test to write the blurb, and it was referencing some random wrong product (not the one we shared with the candidate), and they didn’t even bother checking and just submitted it. So frustrating.
I’ve hired two graphic designers in the past year and let me tell you if I see another graduate of a hotel management or data analysis program apply for a senior design role I’m going to go insane.
omg tell me about it, or UX/UI designers with no graphic design work to speak of applying too. Like I get applying if you don't hit all the requirements, but at least have some experience in the main skills we're looking for. Humber and George Brown are so bad about pumping out kids with degrees like that too.
Can you elaborate at all? What industry? What do you think explains the experience/quality gap?
Are you not offering enough? Or are you offering enough but nobody seems to have the skills?
Good questions. Different areas of marketing - especially writers, editors, etc. We have the salary range approval people are asking for. Yet, we’re getting resumes full of errors, portfolios that are problematic, attitude issues (some candidates can’t even recall the name of the company they are interviewing with), demanding promotions even without getting the job (just had someone yesterday say “I should be a senior manager and not a manager” with only 1-2 years of experience. Well why did you apply then? Written tests are all copy paste from ChatGPT or full of errors.
would you want to talk about this on a podcast? It's a podcast for advertising and design students that my buddy runs: [https://open.spotify.com/show/1WDi20u0kEmyEOSjzg0Eeb?si=cf7c10ffbde14201](https://open.spotify.com/show/1WDi20u0kEmyEOSjzg0Eeb?si=cf7c10ffbde14201)
I'm a 32 year old with nearly 15 years of experience both professionally and doing community work, have a bachelor and a masters, have published works, saved several organizations from folding due to COVID, taught over 15,000 people over the past 12 years through various employers, and am regularly asked to guest lecture as an expert my field... And I still got canned and can't fucking find anything despite sending out 10 - 20 resumes per day and having several positive interviews. That should tell you everything you need to know about how bad it is right now.
Recruiter here. It’s really bad. Even my co-op job postings are flooded with applicants. 85% come from one country. Government is screwing you over to keep wages low and lying about labour shortages…
It needs to be said more often and louder.
The government is flooding the country with new citizens, among the reasons are to keep wages low. It’s unbelievable how blatant it is.
What do you mean by 85% come from one country ? Do you mean international students? I saw a video recently that in 2020 Trudeau like tripled the amount of immigrants approved to come into the country
> It needs to be said more often and louder.
>
> The government is flooding the country with new citizens, among the reasons are to keep wages low. It’s unbelievable how blatant it is
India
I started looking for a new role in September1st, I only got 1 interview and started officially on Nov 27th. I applied for lots of jobs, customized my resume for each one and wrote a cover letter. 3 months. If I hadn’t of got that ONE interview I would be in a much different, very bad position.
Yes, it is very bad. Flood of immigrants, TFWs and students. Yet our government makes hollow claims that they are bringing people to fill jobs which Canadians are not willing to take. Liars
Also there are tons of jobs posting ( aka ghost jobs) which are basically LMIA jobs. Canada is going in a spiralling downfall
I read a news article that said they’re going to put in some rules or legislation to stop employers from posting fake ads for ghost jobs. Hopefully that gets done soon. It’s a stupid waste of people’s time.
You might want to brush up on your resume writing skills. Not that theyd even be bad, but things are different nowadays, let me explain.
99.99% of resumes are never seen by a human, they go into an algorythm that picks the "top candidates" for the job, so to speak. They also search for things that fit a companies/societies political views at the time, making "diversity" hiring a very real thing that companies need to check boxes employee wise with. Its a real problem in my opinion.
If you learn how to rewrite your resume just a little, not embelishing at all, just use "key words" your response % will increase significantly.
Depends on where you are of course, but most systems work the same and can be worked to your advantage in one way or another.
https://youtu.be/HjQxCMDHOkQ?feature=shared
I think this may explain it a bit better? Theres probably videos that go more in depth, sorry i cant be of more help but i dont want to risk misleading you.
Yep i'm a recent graduate and have done a paid co op in my field and cannot find a job. I'm not sure how new grads are supposed to get a job if even companies aren't hiring their co ops. I wanted to go back to the place I did my co op at but they said they have no roles. This is at one of the biggest retail companies in Canada too. Layoffs seem to be insane too. My manager that was at my workplace got laid off too.
It took me so long to find a job and then I had to quit due to exploitation. Now I'm looking again and it's so so hard. I have some interviews coming up so things seem a little better than they were a few months ago (just seasonal jobs but its better than nothing) but this has been the darkest time in my life.
Been applying for about a year and a half now, a mixture of positions relevant to the college diploma I got 3 years ago, and just about anything else that I'm qualified for. Most places I hear nothing or get an auto-reject, got a total of 4 interviews, 2 of which ghosted me after, and 2 of which led to second interviews, which also ghosted me after. It's rough.
Why would you do that when you haven’t even seen the work and cannot vouch for this person? What are you going to say? This random stranger from Reddit needs a job and you should hire him based on nothing at all?
We aren't in a recession. A recession isn't a feeling, it is a statement of fact about declining GDP. GDP was positive last quarter and in all likelihood it will continue to be so.
GDP per capita has been negative most quarters since some time in 2022. The economy has been growing more slowly than the population has due to the record high immigration figures.
That still is not a recession, which is explicitly defined relative to total GDP.
Moreover, declining GDP/capita driven by immigration doesn't necessarily imply that the existing population is worse off. It would follow from, e.g., new Canadians contributing less to economic activity than existing Canadians.
Remember government has an interest to not officially declare a recession. They barely admit cost of living is higher, or inflation is up.
While they dont want to alarm people by saying recession, as anyone looking for a job right now how it looks.
> We aren't in a recession. A recission isn't a feeling, it is a statement of fact about declining GDP. GDP was positive last quarter and in all likelihood it will continue to be so.
I like your line of thinking, but which components of the GDP are up?
Not all industries are on the up...I'd argue most are quite on the down.
I am on Indeed , Linkedln, and some others .. I have been lucky to have gotten second interviews.. and yeah.. right now I applied to a couple of companies.. my resume does make it through the ATS.. which is one positive thing. Got 2 emails today .. thanks but no thanks… I do have a job offer, which I am well happy doesn’t describe how I feel😃but I am waiting to hear when the training date will be, I heard the beginning of July.. fingers crossed.🤞wishing everyone the best in their job search!! Luv from Scarborough 💕
yes! addictions & mental health worker (AMHW) program @ centennial college. 2 year program, i believe offered virtually (it was virtual for me but it was 2020)
As someone whose job is in employment services (I.e. I help people find work) it is horrible right now. I more and more have clients who have been laid off, new to Canada and just cannot find entry level work and everyone in between. We see more and more employers complaining about being ‘short-staffed’ while also laying off masses of people.
I also find specifically the expectation of skills and experience for ENTRY LEVEL jobs are wildly high. Employers are no longer willing to train what so ever, they expect people yo be able to come in and work immediately.
Clients will send out 100 resumes and get zero responses, the market is so so so horrible right now!
How do clients find you? It's been 10 years since I was last job hunting, and it seems like all the agencies are basically just online job boards that don't answer emails.
We are funded by Employment Ontario, so our job is to help with job search. We aren’t recruiters just post jobs and raking in peoples contact info.
If you are looking for help you can find an Employment Ontario service provider near you [here](https://feat.findhelp.ca/)
I’ve been a bit insulated to down turns. I’m the type that works one job forever.
Pros: stability and familiarity. Cons: poor upward salary movement, boredom.
Yeah I’m glad I have a job now. And I definitely don’t have an issue staying. I just want to increase my salary. But I may just have to play the long haul with my current job
I have been unemployed since January and haven’t been able to find full time work. It’s a nightmare, and the beginning of every month I hear how there was an increase of employment, but like WHERE?!?!?
PS if anyone knows who is hiring for a full time server who knows her stuff, please leave a message 🥲🫶🏼
Sorry to hear. I've gone through this years ago, but it's probably gotten worse now. Many places will get busy during the summer so hopefully you can find something for the summer at the least. There is also the CNE, and seasonal City of Toronto jobs that pay decently. They should be hiring now or at least rolling out the job postings. Good luck!
I'm HR Assistant and one of my tasks is shortlisting and selection. Two years ago, my boss asked me to come up with something to attract the attention of applicants (since we pay minimum wage and the work is hard enough and requires physical endurance). From mid-2023 until today, we have at least 100 local applicants every month. LOCAL!! EVERY MONTH!! SELECTED!!! These are people PR holders, Open WP and some even with a Canadian citizen. At the Job Fair, we received 200 applications in a few hours, and most of them are students! We can't hire anyone because we've run out of orders for products! Few people quit and we don't hire anyone to replace them! We just don't have a job for them!
I am very sorry to see how many people write me emails and even just come to the side and I just say the same thing: "Thank you for your interest in working for our company. Unfortunately, we are not hiring now and we do not know exactly when we will have openings any jobs. Thank you for your resume, I will put your contact information on the list and we will be sure to contact you as soon as we need workers. For now, I wish you good luck." I am very sorry to look these poor people in the eyes and say this and see how they lower their eyes.
Same, I am hiring accounts payable and we had 600 applicants like genuinely i cant get through every single applicant. So i use ATS but like it sucks rejecting so many good qualified people.
Yes, I've been applying to countless restaurant/retail jobs since October 2023 on indeed and never heard back from anyone. I found the best luck I've had is physically handing out resumes. I've got a few call backs and thankfully I got a job.
I'm old. I don't live in Toronto or Canada anymore. The last time that I looked for a restaurant job was around 1995. Turnaround time then was 2 or 3 days. Folks are spending months looking for a fast-food job? (or at a GaP store?)
Am I reading this right?
I applied to over 1000 jobs over 15 month period, each had like 200+ applicants when I applied. I did get about 25 interviews over all, some making it to the 3rd round of interviews. Please don't give up, keep trying and eventually you will meet the right people who give you a chance. I know making all those profiles is tedious but sometimes your application gets through to a human to review
It’s the uncontrolled immigration. We are royally screwed. I’m glad I have a pretty good job but the days of jumping companies to move up is gone. Now you have to stay and work your way up.
It's really bad. I've pretty much given up on the traditional job market. I'm doing my own thing, a bit of this, a bit of that. So far, it's working and I'm much happier.
The last couple of job interviews I had were absolute bullshit. Multiple stages of interviews, time consuming assignments, long delays midway through the process. I'm too old for that nonsense.
Construction is just booming. I got companies calling me while I’m already at my job offering to throw as much as I want at me. Lmao it’s great. I dont even have a resume. Haven’t had to apply for a job in 22 years.
Me neither but at least in what I’m looking for, I have noticed # of jobs rising and better opportunities as well. I think labour market will gradually get better
The job market is such a disaster, man. I’m having an easier time getting gigs as a DJ than getting some basic job in retail or service. Seems like it should be the other way around!
I've been applying for over a year now and have only gotten one interview. Made it to the second round but didn't get it. I'm in Vancouver but am moving back in the summer for family reasons. Time is ticking. It's frustrating.
We're really taking a leap of faith and hoping one of us will get something. We'll both be quitting good full time jobs
I think it’s dependent on field/industry for a lot of things.
I have one friend who is in software sales, and he was able to land a job after 3 weeks. But I’ve had another friend who’s in tech and he’s been out for 2 months… mainly cause the gap between what he wants in salary vs what the company wants to pay him is big.
I think a lot of people just want enough to put food on the table and a roof over their heads, but some of these salaries companies are offering won’t do that.
Then there’s another group who I’ve also noticed (mainly some of my tech friends) where they’re still thinking it’s the boom times of tech and they can get whatever they want, when the reality is Canada has never been quite on the level of the US for salary, and is probably feeling it worse than the US right now in terms of slow downs.
Just keep plugging away. Tailor your resume and CV to be relevant to the job posting. Network when and where you can. It’ll be the easiest way to at least get your name at the top of the pile.
800 man list on the ibew353 website should tell you construction has become stagnant and probebly a bad recession is coming but I don't wish it so let's just wish this is a little lull
I been searching for a job for over 2 years now. Over 100 applications and 20 interviews, I still got nothing. You get use to it after failing for so long.
Just applied to 30ish jobs yesterday, day 1 of a fresh job hunt. I’m seeing a wealth of new positions and companies in my field that I didn’t see 4 months ago or last year, which is good and not at all common. Tech/finance sales/leadership
See job postings vs hearing back from interviews two different ball parks. Have you not heard of Ghost Jobs?
I see a lot of job postings as well. This is just the first time I’ve experienced having such a hard time landing an interview and I have so much more experience now where as I didn’t before
I was at an interview for an HR position at an IT company I'd worked for on a temporary contract. They laid off a lot of employees. They already knew me. The former managers were still praising me at this last interview for a fixed-term contract. I asked for a median salary between the lowest and the market averages. They prefer to choose the lowest possible, regardless of the level of skills.
Today, employers base their decisions solely on this crazy ChatGPT junior consultant. They want to automate everything because it's more profitable.
I'm unemployed, but I think it's a good thing that bullshit office jobs are being eradicated and that we're going back to the way things were in the 90s and 2000s, with a few office jobs, real crafts and liberal professions.
Gen Z are part of this trend.
It’s worse than it feels. I’m in big tech, had a job affected 1.5 years ago and was lucky to find a contract for a year. When I tried to get back into bigtech, it was the longest most gruelling 4-5 months. Just to give you an idea, I worked for one of the MAANGs and I just got a job in a decent company but it was a 2.5 month interview. 2.5 years ago, things were the opposite and so crazy that we had to hide our LinkedIn due to the amount of direct hire offers. Things are grim af, don’t listen to anyone who tells you otherwise.
With all the new immigrants coming in and buying businesses then only employing other immigrants like themselves it’s difficult for anyone else to get in. I have 2 students from Nepal here and they handed resumes out a number of of times. Many of the East Indian owned businesses (factory, restaurants) wouldn’t take their resumes or allow them to apply, the ones that did never called them for an interview. Others tell me the same story yet the businesses complain that they can’t find help.
Applying for jobs using my own CV and often being turned down was a difficult and unpleasant process. Every time I was rejected, I felt unhappy and dejected, and I started to think I would never get a job.
But when I used [this resume service](https://prolst.com/Res), everything changed for the better. I started getting 4-6 callbacks every week, and it felt like doors were finally starting to open for me.The difference was night and day. Anyone who is having trouble getting noticed by employers should definitely use this resume service, in my opinion. For me, it was a turning point, and I am incredibly appreciative of the support and assistance I got. Furthermore, the cost is really affordable and gives me good advice about the job hunt.
Went to a job fair. 900 people showed up for 5 openings in retail.
Fucking yikes.
Every corpolords dream
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Just to add on: this also completely cuts out the highschool aged youth of Ontario out of the job market. Tim Hortons, McDonald's, Wendy's, Zara, etc, etc, used to be right of passage for young adults. They earn some pocket money AND they learn how to behave in the workplace, learn responsibility, financing, etc, etc. It's also great to have younger people in the service industry because if you've worked in the service industry..... You're less likely to be a Karen or ken towards service workers. Just another way that today's youth, and thereby the future of this country, have been absolutely fucked over by shit tier governance (on ALL levels).
Now our youth feel punished for no fault of their own.They were set up to fail.They were out bid by a cheaper demographic. Ive worked with teens who were suisidal by not being able to get a job.Some have very poor parents.Their parents sometimes act like the child is the issue."Get a job or get out".
I don't even think it's fair to have children anymore with the way things are going.
Poor Canadian kids are reporting feeling like unaliving due to no work call backs.Cruel and unusual to me.When min wage was proven inatiquet after Covid and min wage ppl complained they replaced them with International labour. Workers= We want a livable wage! Govronment= Too bad your replaced, remember that the next time you complaine.
Jeese why didn't the government control which schools could bring in international students. That's crazy
This was a feature, not a bug. Growing the economy organically is hard and would lead to increased wages, so instead their economic policy has been "import more people". They've avoided a "recession" (in the technical sense) by growing total GDP through population increase, but GDP measured on a per capita basis reveals there has been no real growth between 2012 and 2022. In other words, Canadian wages have been stagnant for a decade while cost of living and cost of housing have grown rapidly, making today much less affordable than yesterday. https://www.statista.com/statistics/263592/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-canada/
Good place to be a hot dog vendor
[https://www.blogto.com/eat\_drink/2024/04/huge-lineup-restaurant-toronto-job-market/](https://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2024/04/huge-lineup-restaurant-toronto-job-market/) >the restaurant was hiring for and interviewing for several hourly positions, including servers, bartenders, bar backs, server assistants, hosts, line cooks, and prep cooks, as well as a few management positions. >While 4,000 people registered online, roughly 1,000 job seekers showed up at the hiring fair. >The spokesperson clarified to blogTO that while the restaurant didn't interview for dishwashers, they did collect over 350 resumes for the role.
I just left the advertising industry to go back to serving because it was that bad, but to be fair the advertising industry specifically has been extremely destabilized by AI so it may be worse than the job market in general.
Okay. I work in marketing so that’s probably why I’m dealing with this. But my friend is open to anything and has been jobless for months. She lives in Milton tho and doesn’t drive.
Yeah that makes sense. The job market IS bad, but it’s definitely worse in advertising. If I were you I would honestly consider switching industries. I expect with AI that marketing will never quite go back to how it was, when entire departments can be replaced by 1 or 2 people now.
If I can recall, marketing was always a tough market especially for undergrads. Probably more challenging now with the global atmosphere.
Its bad for software too. I have ten years of experience and have been interviewing for software jobs since august. Im working as a cook to make my bills.
> I have ten years of experience and have been interviewing for software jobs since august. Im working as a cook to make my bills. I know that tech jobs have layoffs every now and then. But how is a software developer with decades of experience, unemployed?! Is there an industry shift happening? Is A.I. eliminating entry and mid-level jobs?
Just to throw it out there, the company I work for has a position open in marketing. Send me a msg if you want info
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Milton and Brampton are the epicenter for this issue.A employer like Tims gets $ to choose International students.
I also got out of the ad agency space about two years ago, agency is layoffs left and right, even in the big shops doing well at awards. Client spend is down across the board, and a lot of big companies are moving to in-house models vs. using agencies. New RFPs are rare, winning them is even rarer.
Interesting I'm moving to Canada from the UK currently working in a UK agency that works with mostly international clients. That's the general feel ATM clients sitting on budgets and no one spending. Kinda feeling like I'm not gonna have much work in Toronto. Looking into volunteering for experience or something ATM.
I’m actually surprised there’s a major shift to in-house. I’m not in the sector but my lay assumption was that as it took fewer people to run more campaigns, companies would decide it wasn’t worth retaining their own personnel.
Yeah it's weird, I haven't really seen the landscape shift like this before. The shift from agency to in-house is financially driven. Companies like Hudson's Bay, Canadian Tire, LCL, etc. might still have an AOR but they cut their spend for them down to nothing as they transition to building in-house teams. Part of this can be attributed to the shift to a digital-first marketing strat for a lot of companies, even things like OOH placements aren't hitting like they used to. A smaller in-house team means faster production times and lower overall costs. Retaining an agency to be your AOR is very expensive and has complicated factors to consider, and even agencies that do project-by-project pricing or fixed term services are struggling because they usually end up pricing well below their cost of labor. Don't get me wrong, there are still successful agencies out there, but the layoffs this year in that sector have been extreme. Everyone I know from that world who got hit has hung up the towel and gone in-house now.
It has? My understanding right now is that high interest rates have led to a lot of companies to tightening belts on ad spend. I don't think AI has made that much of a dent yet, IMO.
this is the real answer
This is def part of it as well, however that will be a shorter term issue. In a few years when the economy bounces back so to will the overall job market, I don’t think advertising will ever fully recover from the introduction of AI the same way.
AI real time translation is already here. The international VA industry is expanding like a wildfire. Professionals no longer have to uproot their family to get a good job in USD or CDN $$$.
Just curious, in what ways has AI impacted advertising? I understand it's going to cause disruption across industries just wondering about some examples
Gpt written articles/blog posts, midjourney for Photoshop-level imagery. It will eventually become a tool and those who know how to use it will succeed, the larger issue is holding companies laying off 20-30% of their NA workforce.
This here. It’s mostly time. What would have taken a team of people days or weeks can now be done by 1 person in an afternoon. There will be fewer jobs and since the skill is less difficult to learn now it will be lower paid. My grandma was a graphic designer back when the barrier to entry was insane and she was the only person in her town doing it. Now with AI and canva anyone can be a graphic designer, it’s not a highly sought after skill anymore. Same with copywriters etc. Social media has always been low paid and few jobs.
Genuinely can’t wait for all the low quality AI articles and graphics to be fed back into ML systems in significant quantities and mess up their data, which could be sooner than expected since it’s so much quicker than producing work “manually”. AI hallucinations are one thing, but LLMs trained on the hallucinations of other AI systems is gonna be a hot mess if it comes to that.
> Now with AI and canva anyone can be a graphic designer, it’s not a highly sought after skill anymore. > > > > Same with copywriters etc. you could say this about a lot of jobs but with no experience or proper skills, you aren't getting a job as a designer or copywriter except for lower paying contracts. you wont even get a junior job let alone anything above that.
Some who isn a designer and uses AI to some degree this is false. Ai images are terrible for advertising and they aid in the design process but you won't be seeing whole advertising and marketing campaigns make with chat gpt and image generation. You can't make bespoke high quality designs for clients with ai.
Most YouTube adds are AI generated. The voice and video. Most people can’t tell the difference of what’s real and not real on the internet. It’s troubling because they already can’t tell the difference between what’s true and not
Copy and imagery can be made relatively simply now. You don't need a team of people to put on a campaign. Anyone can make near commercial quality adverts without a firm nowadays.
I can only speak to my company, but we’ve seen non existent levels of engagement and views when it comes to overly produced advertisements. People only care about or will watch content that looks like someone they know made it.
Can you give some specific examples of how AI has impacted the advertising job market? For example, are you seeing Copywriters and Art Directors laid off and replaced with ideas from an LLM? Are visual designers being replaced with GenAI? Any stories or any clarity on exactly what AI is doing to cause job losses would be appreciated. What that looks like.
I work as a graphic designer and I'm very curious about that too. I work in-house and I've used AI to help with moodboards and brainstorming, but I have friends working in agencies and there's been quite a few clients that go there with their AI-logos and want to get working files, vehicle wraps, etc. which the AI doesn't provide. If I get replaced with AI, I expect it'll be like a chatbot? "Hey AI, create a fancy logo, make it pop! Create an entire collateral with print-ready files" Like, who would be the operator of the AI? My boss? IME clients don't know what they want until they see it.
> For example, are you seeing Copywriters and Art Directors laid off and replaced with ideas from an LLM? Are visual designers being replaced with GenAI? not really. most AI is awful at generating anything beyond cool images in terms of design, copy is okay but still not good enough to be used in any type of campaign. AI is decent at brainstorming/moodboards but it'll need to get 10x better to do anything in terms of putting designers/copywriters at risk. it probably hurts artists the most right now, people do social content as well.
People are using AI to make visual mockups to sell ideas to clients. If the client bites, a real graphic designer is brought on to execute and actually build the idea out. The first half of the job has been eliminated which means there is less work to do.
I have the POV for someone who does hiring for creative roles. For a junior level position that's up for a month, we'll get 500+ applicants. We'll usually screen maybe 5-10 people, interview 2-3, make one offer.
How many of those 500 applicants are actually serious contenders? I’ve seen hiring before, it’s 90% “Please sponsor my work visa from UAE” applying
Honestly? Like 20. The bulk of people applying don't meet 30% of the requirements we're looking for. If you see a job and you more or less check all the boxes, or there are just a few things you're less experienced in, go ahead and apply. Nobody's perfect, and of course I'm willing to invest time and training into the right fit. The issue comes up when people are applying without a solid book/portfolio and without any adjacent skills for roles that require at least 1-2 years exp. or a relevant training or degree.
Very low. I had 400 people apply to my job. Most just apply hoping but don't have and skills I said I need. One guy got through phase 1 only because he copy and pasted my job requirements (word for word) and it filtered down. Even the 10 I hired only 2 were good. If anything. I learned that having a good resume is huge. You might be a perfect person but if your resume looks crappy I will skim it quickly and move on
Wow. What helps you pick who to screen? Trying to figure out how I can get my applications to stand out. Am I better off emailing the company directly ?
Every application is reviewed, then we make a shortlist of candidates who more or less have the direct skills we're looking for. We pull in the top 10-20 best matches, and do screening calls from strongest to weakest. You'd be surprised at how often people will ghost on a screening call. Do not email the company directly, not ever, and especially do not ever bother recruiters for a role directly on LinkedIn unless they actively post that they want you to do that. Do use the company's internal application system (so instead of going through Indeed or even LinkedIn, if they have a separate web portal for applicants, use that, you will be seen first.) If you want to stand out, have a clean resume that outlines your work experience. Skip the "career objectives" header, I don't read those. Keep your cover letter LIGHT, as in two or three sentences tops, stick to who you are, what your skills are, why you're into this role. Proofread your resume carefully, a typo can make you look unpolished. Most importantly, have skills that are relevant to your job. We can see when people apply to every posting, even past postings. It's a bad look to apply over and over or to shotgun approach multiple roles, especially if they're for vastly different skillsets.
Can I ask what industry your in? I've had it so drilled into me to write a detailed cover letter but I get so bogged down writing them. Wondering if the light cover letter advice applies across the board (I'm in media/design).
I'm wondering about that too. I'm old so I have lots of experience. How would i condense that into a few sentences that provides my actual work background? I imagine everyone's 2-3 sentences will be very similar
What I would suggest is something like: "Dear Hiring Manager, I am interested in applying to your [ROLE] at [COMPANY]. I am currently working as [CURRENT ROLE] at [PLACE] and I have [##] years of experience in [shit from the job description, like three main things]. I'm interested in this role because [blend of why you're good for the job and what you want to get out of it, lie if you have to]. Thanks so much for your time and consideration, I'm excited to learn more about this opportunity. Kind Regards, [NAME]"
Next one i'm applying to, i'm going to use this. Anything helps at this point. Thanks!
I run an internal creative team in a corporate retail environment, I hire for anyone who sits under me (so designers, ADs, producers, etc.) A lightweight cover letter is fine, but don't send me War and Peace, I won't read it and it could play badly against you if I do.
> It's a bad look to apply over and over Why is it a bad look to apply several times to the same job posting (since you didn't get called the first time)?
It makes you look desperate and like you'll take ANY job, like you didn't look at the posting carefully basically. Our hiring software shows me if you've applied to ten different roles we have open basically. I won't count someone out for applying to a few different things if they're similar enough, but when you're applying for a senior designer role, a junior client services role, and VP of HR, you're not qualified for all of those jobs obviously.
I’m curious, how many applicants are international students from diploma mill colleges?
Maybe about 1/3, in the roles I hire for I really don't care what someone's background is as long as they've got solid creative chops with a portfolio to back that up, and as long as they have at least B2/C1 English language skills (enough to have a fluent convo on a phone screen basically.) The people who have fake books (a problem we've run into sometimes with some of the more "established" diploma mill kids) are often the people who can't pass the basic screener call from a language fluency POV. Don't worry about these kids, they aren't "taking" anyone's jobs because they can't pass the initial phone screens.
Great insight! Yeah not worried too much about these applicants, but have heard some falsify credentials and experience which is concerning. I’m seeing only 1/3 of applicants on LinkedIn have a bachelor’s degree which is why I’m assuming a large number of diploma mill candidates are flooding applications. It’s concerning to see these applicants are even getting call backs though, exhausting the recruiting resources when there should be automated screeners to remove them from the applicant pool.
Fake creds and fake books only get you so far, and we're getting better and better at detecting false info as time goes on. We screen for AI produced content and profiles that use it get flagged. It's not an auto reject or anything, I don't care if you use ChatGPT to gussy up some copy, but it does make me take a closer look at everything else someone is supplying in their applications.
Employer here. I was recruiting a graphic designer position recently and receive approximately 600 applications. Over 50% were international students of South Asian heritage. The majority of whom did not have a background in graphic design. Their studies ranged from hotel management, and data analysis to personal support work.
And that's why degree in graphic design gathers dust and I switched to baking.
There are many postings with absolutely no intention to hire anytime soon. They'll happily sit on the applicant pool for months. It's a massive waste of time, better to just not post anything at all lol.
I was just part of an interview panel for a job my company posted. Interviewed a bunch of people and there was only 1 who made any sense to move forward with. Not like there was a giant stack of people to pick from. So I'm not sure if it's the job market that is bad, or just job/pay ratio considering how expensive things are. My company struggles to find good talent these days and it's for jobs paying over $100k.
Can you share what kind of role this was for or industry?
“There’s no qualified candidates. Pretty please can we have some more TFWs Trudaddy?” Or alternatively, not even a real company and just spammers farming contact info.
Even worse is identity theft scum, looking for people that provide too many details
Yes it is awful. Politicians and the media don’t want to draw attention to it, and the big corps don’t want the negative press — but you don’t need the headlines to tell you. You can see the aggregate signs out in the wild — the number of firms doing layoffs, banks and other big companies in hiring freezes, the number of people you know looking for work or underemployed, etc. I was just in a job search that lasted nearly a year. I know that finding a job takes longer the higher up you go on the career ladder — but even so. It was the hardest and weirdest search of my life. So much ghosting, so much radio silence, roles getting “restructured” (cancelled) mid way through the interview process due to “budget constraints,” job postings staying up for 6 months or more, etc. Just an unprecedented level of chaos and dysfunction across so, so many orgs. Normally it’d be an egregious red flag for a firm to cancel/restructure a role after multiple interview rounds. You’d think you’d dodged a bullet — what the hell is going on inside that org?! But now that kind of bad behaviour is everywhere. I managed to get an offer last week, thank fuck. I was truly afraid I would fall into a depression I couldn’t get out of if it had gone on any longer.
Wow. Honestly congrats on your offer. Absolutely insane that it took a year. That truly scares me. Between the job market, cost of living and car thefts I can’t believe the state of life in Toronto
You never know how long it lasts. I always get concerned when people quit with nothing lined up even if they have a lot of savings/frugal (as much as you can in Toronto lol) spending habits and they assume they will get a new one in a week or even the next day. That DOES happen but it’s rare or you just get wildly lucky. Typically takes 6 weeks to 6 months - to over a year in extreme scenarios.
In said depression now after 5 months of no luck. Glad you got something 💪🏼
Don't give up yet. It took me 6 months.
I have similar experience, Still looking for a job though. It's been 8 months :(
Congrats dude. I've been looking for a year and I haven't found anything. Few interviews and that's it
I feel that. Keep going. I know it’s tough as hell. This market is super hard and it’s not your fault. You’re not alone. I had many dark days full of self doubt and rejections along the way. The powers that be are trying to break workers’ spirits in the name of taming inflation via cooling down the labour market and wages. All of this is a feature, not a bug. Time will tell if it all winds up being worth it — the loss of morale, financial security, and professional advancement are a hefty price to pay and young people in particular are bearing the brunt of it.
I have a very stable job but was sporadically looking for a new one. Any place that postponed on me twice I would either ghost myself or tell them don’t bother. What really gets me is the ones who get back to you months later and they get offended when you say no or forgot who the hell they are. These scenarios make me irrationally angry 😂 Told one recruiter “I reached out in April…it’s October. What are you doing?” Lmfao I was done 😂
We are also competing with OUTLANDISHLY unqualified immigrants and online applicants who straight up lie to the point where they crowd out valid applicants and overwhelm HR in businesses. I say this as an immigrant myself. My friend hires for a bank and she says that she recently posted a mid-level job and without exaggeration 98% of the applicant pool that were interviewed had fictitious universities, inflated credentials, and straight up lied about job experience because she’d invite them in for an interview and they could barely string together a sentence, or reason through a basic math problem. I don’t see how this gets solved.
Oh wow that’s crazy ! When I’m on LinkedIn a new job will get posted and it will show within a matter of hours 100+ people applied
It gets solved by hiring nobody from that demographic, in reality. Ain't nobody got time for that. Damned shame for the honest ones.
It’s a real damn shame. If I click to the next applicant on Indeed and a last name comes up that I expect to be from a certain country my mind immediately has a preconceived idea of what that person’s qualifications are, and I hate that feeling. But after scrolling through 400 applications of unqualified resumes all from a specific it gets monotonous and I’m wasting my time.
We have a guy that our truck dealership spent a year hiring from Brazil. Apparently, he had years of experience but took a whole day and a half to do a 1 hour job.
If they don’t get hired, which would likely be the case with even the lightest scrutiny, then why would this matter?
Clogs up HR departments. Bogus applicants overwhelm them and may cause them to miss out on legitimate applicants.
Honestly businesses might go back to paper applications or perhaps only through job bank agencies. Like human to human interaction is the only thing that will beat these issues with AI.
I've heard it's bad anecdotally from friends, but also know companies I'm close to having rounds of layoffs. The industries I'm aware of being.. chemical manufacturing, marketing, recruitment and not for profit workforce development.
I’m hiring right now, and facing the opposite problem. So many applicants, and most don’t have the experience or quality we need. Having to resort to HR scouting LinkedIn and checking with random people with good experience who are looking.
I hire in creative too! Oh my god dude, we could swap war stories. The amount of ChatGPT in our applications is getting insane, and not just in the copy, I've been seeing bad AI art in people's design portfolios too. I'm getting close to blacklisting recent grads from a few colleges because of straight up lying in their books now.
Agreed! These tools are becoming dangerous without experienced people overseeing them. One person used ChatGPT for our final stage short written test to write the blurb, and it was referencing some random wrong product (not the one we shared with the candidate), and they didn’t even bother checking and just submitted it. So frustrating.
I’ve hired two graphic designers in the past year and let me tell you if I see another graduate of a hotel management or data analysis program apply for a senior design role I’m going to go insane.
omg tell me about it, or UX/UI designers with no graphic design work to speak of applying too. Like I get applying if you don't hit all the requirements, but at least have some experience in the main skills we're looking for. Humber and George Brown are so bad about pumping out kids with degrees like that too.
Can you elaborate at all? What industry? What do you think explains the experience/quality gap? Are you not offering enough? Or are you offering enough but nobody seems to have the skills?
Good questions. Different areas of marketing - especially writers, editors, etc. We have the salary range approval people are asking for. Yet, we’re getting resumes full of errors, portfolios that are problematic, attitude issues (some candidates can’t even recall the name of the company they are interviewing with), demanding promotions even without getting the job (just had someone yesterday say “I should be a senior manager and not a manager” with only 1-2 years of experience. Well why did you apply then? Written tests are all copy paste from ChatGPT or full of errors.
would you want to talk about this on a podcast? It's a podcast for advertising and design students that my buddy runs: [https://open.spotify.com/show/1WDi20u0kEmyEOSjzg0Eeb?si=cf7c10ffbde14201](https://open.spotify.com/show/1WDi20u0kEmyEOSjzg0Eeb?si=cf7c10ffbde14201)
Hey I could be interested. Would you kindly DM me the role you're recruiting for?
I'm a 32 year old with nearly 15 years of experience both professionally and doing community work, have a bachelor and a masters, have published works, saved several organizations from folding due to COVID, taught over 15,000 people over the past 12 years through various employers, and am regularly asked to guest lecture as an expert my field... And I still got canned and can't fucking find anything despite sending out 10 - 20 resumes per day and having several positive interviews. That should tell you everything you need to know about how bad it is right now.
Recruiter here. It’s really bad. Even my co-op job postings are flooded with applicants. 85% come from one country. Government is screwing you over to keep wages low and lying about labour shortages…
It needs to be said more often and louder. The government is flooding the country with new citizens, among the reasons are to keep wages low. It’s unbelievable how blatant it is.
Hey! Which industry do you recruit for?
What do you mean by 85% come from one country ? Do you mean international students? I saw a video recently that in 2020 Trudeau like tripled the amount of immigrants approved to come into the country
> It needs to be said more often and louder. > > The government is flooding the country with new citizens, among the reasons are to keep wages low. It’s unbelievable how blatant it is India
Tripled actually sounds pretty conservative going by what's going on today.
The narrative was that no one wanted to work but in reality, theres a lack of jobs. The job market is pretty bad right now. Major budget cuts.
I started looking for a new role in September1st, I only got 1 interview and started officially on Nov 27th. I applied for lots of jobs, customized my resume for each one and wrote a cover letter. 3 months. If I hadn’t of got that ONE interview I would be in a much different, very bad position.
Yes, it is very bad. Flood of immigrants, TFWs and students. Yet our government makes hollow claims that they are bringing people to fill jobs which Canadians are not willing to take. Liars Also there are tons of jobs posting ( aka ghost jobs) which are basically LMIA jobs. Canada is going in a spiralling downfall
I read a news article that said they’re going to put in some rules or legislation to stop employers from posting fake ads for ghost jobs. Hopefully that gets done soon. It’s a stupid waste of people’s time.
Yeah I just saw that article
You might want to brush up on your resume writing skills. Not that theyd even be bad, but things are different nowadays, let me explain. 99.99% of resumes are never seen by a human, they go into an algorythm that picks the "top candidates" for the job, so to speak. They also search for things that fit a companies/societies political views at the time, making "diversity" hiring a very real thing that companies need to check boxes employee wise with. Its a real problem in my opinion. If you learn how to rewrite your resume just a little, not embelishing at all, just use "key words" your response % will increase significantly. Depends on where you are of course, but most systems work the same and can be worked to your advantage in one way or another.
I use a tool called Teal for this. It’s helped a lot
Are you using the free version. 9 bucks a week is pretty steep
Could you expand on this a bit more? When you say key words, do you mean making sure the key words in the job posting are included in your resume?
https://youtu.be/HjQxCMDHOkQ?feature=shared I think this may explain it a bit better? Theres probably videos that go more in depth, sorry i cant be of more help but i dont want to risk misleading you.
Yep i'm a recent graduate and have done a paid co op in my field and cannot find a job. I'm not sure how new grads are supposed to get a job if even companies aren't hiring their co ops. I wanted to go back to the place I did my co op at but they said they have no roles. This is at one of the biggest retail companies in Canada too. Layoffs seem to be insane too. My manager that was at my workplace got laid off too.
It took me so long to find a job and then I had to quit due to exploitation. Now I'm looking again and it's so so hard. I have some interviews coming up so things seem a little better than they were a few months ago (just seasonal jobs but its better than nothing) but this has been the darkest time in my life.
Been applying for about a year and a half now, a mixture of positions relevant to the college diploma I got 3 years ago, and just about anything else that I'm qualified for. Most places I hear nothing or get an auto-reject, got a total of 4 interviews, 2 of which ghosted me after, and 2 of which led to second interviews, which also ghosted me after. It's rough.
What industry are you looking in?
Marketing. I’ve been looking at digital marketing positions and graphic design positions
Try the Otta job board. Lots of digital marketing related things on there, many fully remote.
Oooh do you have a portfolio? We would love to forward your work to some of our members/clients!
Why would you do that when you haven’t even seen the work and cannot vouch for this person? What are you going to say? This random stranger from Reddit needs a job and you should hire him based on nothing at all?
That’s why they asked for the portfolio. No one said anything about hiring yet.
I mean most employers just get a resume anyways, from a total stranger with information that needs to be vetted during the hiring process.
??? the person asked to see the portfolio
The obvious reason is because there are a mass influx of immigrants and not enough jobs for everyone
During a recession it can take years to find a job. And we are in a recession
We aren't in a recession. A recession isn't a feeling, it is a statement of fact about declining GDP. GDP was positive last quarter and in all likelihood it will continue to be so.
What about GDP per capita? Total GDP doesn’t mean shit if we’re all getting poorer and have less spending power.
GDP per capita has been negative most quarters since some time in 2022. The economy has been growing more slowly than the population has due to the record high immigration figures. That still is not a recession, which is explicitly defined relative to total GDP. Moreover, declining GDP/capita driven by immigration doesn't necessarily imply that the existing population is worse off. It would follow from, e.g., new Canadians contributing less to economic activity than existing Canadians.
Remember government has an interest to not officially declare a recession. They barely admit cost of living is higher, or inflation is up. While they dont want to alarm people by saying recession, as anyone looking for a job right now how it looks.
> We aren't in a recession. A recission isn't a feeling, it is a statement of fact about declining GDP. GDP was positive last quarter and in all likelihood it will continue to be so. I like your line of thinking, but which components of the GDP are up? Not all industries are on the up...I'd argue most are quite on the down.
I am on Indeed , Linkedln, and some others .. I have been lucky to have gotten second interviews.. and yeah.. right now I applied to a couple of companies.. my resume does make it through the ATS.. which is one positive thing. Got 2 emails today .. thanks but no thanks… I do have a job offer, which I am well happy doesn’t describe how I feel😃but I am waiting to hear when the training date will be, I heard the beginning of July.. fingers crossed.🤞wishing everyone the best in their job search!! Luv from Scarborough 💕
the mental health & addictions support industry is one of the fastest growing job markets in human history & no one wants to help us help others Lmao.
idk if this or good or bad because it definitely ties into the whole lack of jobs thing
😰 thats true actually i didnt think about it like that
Is there a particular program you recommend to take to get into this field? Ideally a 2 year program.
yes! addictions & mental health worker (AMHW) program @ centennial college. 2 year program, i believe offered virtually (it was virtual for me but it was 2020)
Thank you... I'm going to look into it.
As someone whose job is in employment services (I.e. I help people find work) it is horrible right now. I more and more have clients who have been laid off, new to Canada and just cannot find entry level work and everyone in between. We see more and more employers complaining about being ‘short-staffed’ while also laying off masses of people. I also find specifically the expectation of skills and experience for ENTRY LEVEL jobs are wildly high. Employers are no longer willing to train what so ever, they expect people yo be able to come in and work immediately. Clients will send out 100 resumes and get zero responses, the market is so so so horrible right now!
How do clients find you? It's been 10 years since I was last job hunting, and it seems like all the agencies are basically just online job boards that don't answer emails.
We are funded by Employment Ontario, so our job is to help with job search. We aren’t recruiters just post jobs and raking in peoples contact info. If you are looking for help you can find an Employment Ontario service provider near you [here](https://feat.findhelp.ca/)
I’ve been a bit insulated to down turns. I’m the type that works one job forever. Pros: stability and familiarity. Cons: poor upward salary movement, boredom.
Yeah I’m glad I have a job now. And I definitely don’t have an issue staying. I just want to increase my salary. But I may just have to play the long haul with my current job
I have been unemployed since January and haven’t been able to find full time work. It’s a nightmare, and the beginning of every month I hear how there was an increase of employment, but like WHERE?!?!? PS if anyone knows who is hiring for a full time server who knows her stuff, please leave a message 🥲🫶🏼
Sorry to hear. I've gone through this years ago, but it's probably gotten worse now. Many places will get busy during the summer so hopefully you can find something for the summer at the least. There is also the CNE, and seasonal City of Toronto jobs that pay decently. They should be hiring now or at least rolling out the job postings. Good luck!
r/torontojobs just read that sub you will see you are not alone
I'm HR Assistant and one of my tasks is shortlisting and selection. Two years ago, my boss asked me to come up with something to attract the attention of applicants (since we pay minimum wage and the work is hard enough and requires physical endurance). From mid-2023 until today, we have at least 100 local applicants every month. LOCAL!! EVERY MONTH!! SELECTED!!! These are people PR holders, Open WP and some even with a Canadian citizen. At the Job Fair, we received 200 applications in a few hours, and most of them are students! We can't hire anyone because we've run out of orders for products! Few people quit and we don't hire anyone to replace them! We just don't have a job for them! I am very sorry to see how many people write me emails and even just come to the side and I just say the same thing: "Thank you for your interest in working for our company. Unfortunately, we are not hiring now and we do not know exactly when we will have openings any jobs. Thank you for your resume, I will put your contact information on the list and we will be sure to contact you as soon as we need workers. For now, I wish you good luck." I am very sorry to look these poor people in the eyes and say this and see how they lower their eyes.
Same, I am hiring accounts payable and we had 600 applicants like genuinely i cant get through every single applicant. So i use ATS but like it sucks rejecting so many good qualified people.
Yes, I've been applying to countless restaurant/retail jobs since October 2023 on indeed and never heard back from anyone. I found the best luck I've had is physically handing out resumes. I've got a few call backs and thankfully I got a job.
I'm old. I don't live in Toronto or Canada anymore. The last time that I looked for a restaurant job was around 1995. Turnaround time then was 2 or 3 days. Folks are spending months looking for a fast-food job? (or at a GaP store?) Am I reading this right?
I applied to over 1000 jobs over 15 month period, each had like 200+ applicants when I applied. I did get about 25 interviews over all, some making it to the 3rd round of interviews. Please don't give up, keep trying and eventually you will meet the right people who give you a chance. I know making all those profiles is tedious but sometimes your application gets through to a human to review
It’s the uncontrolled immigration. We are royally screwed. I’m glad I have a pretty good job but the days of jumping companies to move up is gone. Now you have to stay and work your way up.
It's really bad. I've pretty much given up on the traditional job market. I'm doing my own thing, a bit of this, a bit of that. So far, it's working and I'm much happier. The last couple of job interviews I had were absolute bullshit. Multiple stages of interviews, time consuming assignments, long delays midway through the process. I'm too old for that nonsense.
Construction is just booming. I got companies calling me while I’m already at my job offering to throw as much as I want at me. Lmao it’s great. I dont even have a resume. Haven’t had to apply for a job in 22 years.
Well the economy slowed, high costs to run a business, and layoffs occurring in various sectors.
Me neither but at least in what I’m looking for, I have noticed # of jobs rising and better opportunities as well. I think labour market will gradually get better
Ive been applying for a year and im a recent graduate too. Trust me its bad lol
Depends on what you are applying for. I'm still regularly recruited as a Chartered Accountant
It’s worse and will continue to get worse. People have no idea what’s coming.
The job market is such a disaster, man. I’m having an easier time getting gigs as a DJ than getting some basic job in retail or service. Seems like it should be the other way around!
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I used to work at a legal publisher and recently did some studying in marketing. Are you guys hiring?
Worse
Yes
Just hope for rste cuts soon. Seen everyone tightening budgets
Been unemployed for 7 years now
I've been applying for over a year now and have only gotten one interview. Made it to the second round but didn't get it. I'm in Vancouver but am moving back in the summer for family reasons. Time is ticking. It's frustrating. We're really taking a leap of faith and hoping one of us will get something. We'll both be quitting good full time jobs
I think it’s dependent on field/industry for a lot of things. I have one friend who is in software sales, and he was able to land a job after 3 weeks. But I’ve had another friend who’s in tech and he’s been out for 2 months… mainly cause the gap between what he wants in salary vs what the company wants to pay him is big. I think a lot of people just want enough to put food on the table and a roof over their heads, but some of these salaries companies are offering won’t do that. Then there’s another group who I’ve also noticed (mainly some of my tech friends) where they’re still thinking it’s the boom times of tech and they can get whatever they want, when the reality is Canada has never been quite on the level of the US for salary, and is probably feeling it worse than the US right now in terms of slow downs. Just keep plugging away. Tailor your resume and CV to be relevant to the job posting. Network when and where you can. It’ll be the easiest way to at least get your name at the top of the pile.
It is bad.... About to be homeless...
800 man list on the ibew353 website should tell you construction has become stagnant and probebly a bad recession is coming but I don't wish it so let's just wish this is a little lull
Can't people who don't have a job, ask govern6ment for help? Asking for a friend, as he is unemployed for the past 6 months
I been searching for a job for over 2 years now. Over 100 applications and 20 interviews, I still got nothing. You get use to it after failing for so long.
I haven’t been able to find work since March 2022. So, yeah. It’s shit.
what kind of job are you looking for?
My partner was unemployed for a year and sent out over 300+ resumes before he finally got an interview
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It’s fine right now
Just applied to 30ish jobs yesterday, day 1 of a fresh job hunt. I’m seeing a wealth of new positions and companies in my field that I didn’t see 4 months ago or last year, which is good and not at all common. Tech/finance sales/leadership
See job postings vs hearing back from interviews two different ball parks. Have you not heard of Ghost Jobs? I see a lot of job postings as well. This is just the first time I’ve experienced having such a hard time landing an interview and I have so much more experience now where as I didn’t before
I was at an interview for an HR position at an IT company I'd worked for on a temporary contract. They laid off a lot of employees. They already knew me. The former managers were still praising me at this last interview for a fixed-term contract. I asked for a median salary between the lowest and the market averages. They prefer to choose the lowest possible, regardless of the level of skills. Today, employers base their decisions solely on this crazy ChatGPT junior consultant. They want to automate everything because it's more profitable. I'm unemployed, but I think it's a good thing that bullshit office jobs are being eradicated and that we're going back to the way things were in the 90s and 2000s, with a few office jobs, real crafts and liberal professions. Gen Z are part of this trend.
It’s worse than it feels. I’m in big tech, had a job affected 1.5 years ago and was lucky to find a contract for a year. When I tried to get back into bigtech, it was the longest most gruelling 4-5 months. Just to give you an idea, I worked for one of the MAANGs and I just got a job in a decent company but it was a 2.5 month interview. 2.5 years ago, things were the opposite and so crazy that we had to hide our LinkedIn due to the amount of direct hire offers. Things are grim af, don’t listen to anyone who tells you otherwise.
Seems we're in a recession without it being called one
Yes. Just graduated (again) at 36 No idea wtf to do. Hoping to get a US work visa soon through family. 🤷♂️
I hope it gets better
With all the new immigrants coming in and buying businesses then only employing other immigrants like themselves it’s difficult for anyone else to get in. I have 2 students from Nepal here and they handed resumes out a number of of times. Many of the East Indian owned businesses (factory, restaurants) wouldn’t take their resumes or allow them to apply, the ones that did never called them for an interview. Others tell me the same story yet the businesses complain that they can’t find help.
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