Career Trends
Why Is It So Hard to Get Hired in 2026? Job Search Reality with Tank Rhodes, Part 1
Podcast Audio Only:
If you’ve been looking for a job for a while, you’ve probably heard some version of the same advice: fix your resume, network more, tailor your applications, reach out to recruiters, build your personal brand, and make sure you’re applying strategically.
All of those things can be useful, but what happens when you’ve done them and you’re still not getting hired?
That question came up repeatedly in my latest conversation with Francis “Tank” Rhodes, a talent acquisition professional who has spent years working within hiring and is now experiencing the process as a candidate. When Tank joined me previously, he had already been unemployed for more than 800 days. A year later, he’s still searching.
His experience gives us an interesting way to examine hiring in 2026 because there are legitimate problems with the process, but there’s also a lot of misinformation about why they're happening.
Job Search Advice Needs Context
When someone has been looking for a job for months, we tend to start troubleshooting. Maybe the resume needs work, they aren’t networking enough, they’re applying to the wrong positions, or their interview skills need improvement.
Sometimes the strategy does need to change, but we also have to acknowledge that a job seeker can be doing many of the right things and still struggle.
I know Tank has worked on his strategy because I’ve been part of it. I’ve reviewed his resume, made introductions, sent opportunities his way, and watched other people in his network do the same.
The resume review itself reinforced something I talk about often: career advice comes through someone else’s lens. Some of the accomplishments I encouraged Tank to add back to his resume had previously been removed based on someone else’s advice.
Neither recommendation exists in a vacuum. A recruiter, career coach, hiring manager, and someone working directly within your target industry may look at the same resume and notice different things.
That’s why blindly collecting more advice isn’t always helpful. You need to consider who is giving it, what experience informs their perspective, and whether it makes sense for your specific situation.
Candidate Experience Has Become Part of the Problem
Tank and I also spent a lot of time talking about how candidates are being treated throughout the hiring process.
Ghosting is an obvious example. Some application confirmations now tell candidates they may not receive another response, while job seekers report recruiters or hiring managers arriving late to interviews, failing to show up, or disappearing after multiple rounds.
There are legitimate reasons communication can break down. Recruiters may be managing enormous candidate volumes, teams are understaffed, priorities change, and people have emergencies, but those explanations don’t remove the responsibility to communicate.
Most recruiting platforms have tools that allow hiring teams to communicate with candidates at scale. The technology exists, which makes the candidate experience as much an organizational and process issue as a technology issue.
When applications become records inside a system and recruiting teams are managing volume, deadlines, metrics, and competing priorities, it becomes easier to lose sight of the person on the other side of the application.
That person may have rearranged work, childcare, or other responsibilities for an interview. They may have spent hours preparing or may already be months into a difficult job search. A hiring process can be efficient without treating candidates as disposable.
Authenticity Gets Complicated in Hiring
I asked Tank whether he believes his social media presence has affected his job search. He does.
Tank speaks publicly about recruiting, HR, workplace culture, and corporate behavior, and he believes there are biases involved in how someone like him is expected to present himself professionally.
That raises an interesting question for companies that say they value authenticity, different perspectives, and employees who challenge assumptions. Those values can become harder to practice when someone’s communication style, appearance, opinions, or personality doesn’t match a decision-maker’s expectations of professionalism.
Professionalism is important, but how we define it can also be influenced by company culture, leadership preferences, industry norms, generational expectations, and personal bias.
Are We Expecting Too Much From Gen Z?
That conversation also connects to some of the criticism directed at Gen Z in the workplace.
Younger professionals need to learn how to communicate effectively, receive feedback, navigate different personalities, and develop professional judgment. But companies have reduced training and development, mentorship isn’t always available, and remote and hybrid work have changed some of the informal learning that used to happen alongside more experienced colleagues.
At the same time, employers increasingly expect colleges and universities to prepare graduates to enter the workforce already knowing how to operate within a professional environment.
So when Gen Z questions workplace norms, some of it may come from inexperience, but some of those questions may also be worth asking. We need room for both possibilities instead of reducing an entire generation to a stereotype.
No, the ATS Probably Didn’t Reject Your Resume
We ended Part 1 by digging into one of the most persistent hiring assumptions: “My resume was rejected by the ATS.”
Tank describes an applicant tracking system, or ATS, as essentially a digital filing cabinet. It stores candidate information and helps employers manage applications and hiring workflows.
Employers can configure knockout questions based on requirements such as work authorization, location, or licensing, and certain responses can remove a candidate from consideration. That’s different from an ATS independently reading your resume and deciding you aren’t qualified.
Technology and AI are influencing hiring, and there are legitimate concerns about how those tools are being used. But understanding what the technology is actually doing matters because otherwise job seekers may spend time trying to solve the wrong problem.
Your Experience Isn’t the Entire Hiring Market
Someone can be immediately rejected after applying, but someone else can rewrite their resume and suddenly start getting interviews. Both experiences are real, but neither tells us how the entire hiring market operates.
Research helps us identify broader patterns, while individual experiences can reveal problems or nuances that larger data sets may not capture. Looking at both gives you better information than assuming your experience, or the experiences dominating your social media feed, represent everyone.
Focus on the Parts of the Job Search You Can Influence
A difficult job search deserves evaluation. Review your resume, networking strategy, target positions, interview performance, and overall approach, then make changes where warranted.
Hiring also involves budgets, organizational priorities, internal candidates, changing requirements, competition, individual decision-makers, and market conditions. You can influence many parts of the process without controlling the final decision.
Hiring feels so complicated right now because there usually isn’t one explanation for why someone is struggling, and reducing every outcome to a resume problem, an ATS problem, a networking problem, or a candidate problem doesn’t give job seekers particularly useful information.
There’s a lot more to unpack, which is why this conversation became two episodes.
In Part 2, we continue examining common hiring assumptions, including whether companies know exactly who they’re looking for, whether employers hire the most qualified candidate, how much networking really matters, and what’s happening with ghost jobs.
RESOURCES MENTIONED
Tank’s Previous Control Your Career Episode:
https://ridethetidecollective.com/2025/07/16/season11episode10/
How Applicant Tracking Systems Work in 2026:
https://huntr.co/blog/how-applicant-tracking-systems-work
Tank on TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@hrsagentofchaos
Tank on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhodes19/
Other Links for Tank:
https://beacons.ai/hrsagentofchaos
https://www.tankshrcorner.com
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