Founder's Story - Why Applying for Jobs Is a Waste of Time (And What Actually Works Instead) | Ep 301 with Julia Arpag Founder of Aligned Recruitment

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

Julia Arpag, the founder of Aligned Recruitment, joins Founder’s Story to explain how hiring actually works behind the scenes in today’s AI-driven job market. She shares why most resumes disappear into a black hole, how recruiters and founders really find talent, and why networking, LinkedIn optimization, and human connection still outperform every automated system. Key Discussion Points Julia argues that most people should stop applying for jobs entirely and instead focus on relationships, manual outreach, and visibility. She breaks down exactly how recruiters search LinkedIn, what makes a profile instantly compelling, and why candidates must clearly communicate their value instead of hiding behind vague titles. The conversation also explores how AI has increased noise in both hiring and sales, making authentic human skills more valuable than ever. Takeaways Jobs are not disappearing, but the path to landing them has changed dramatically. Candidates who rely on resumes and automated applications are losing, while those who optimize their LinkedIn presence, prepare their personal “brag book,” and build real connections continue to win. Julia emphasizes that AI is a tool, not a shortcut, and the future belongs to adaptable, human-first professionals who know how to sell themselves with clarity and confidence. Closing Thoughts This episode offers a reality check for anyone frustrated with today’s job market. Julia Arpag’s insights reveal that despite all the noise around AI, hiring still comes down to people, relationships, and clarity. For job seekers and founders alike, the message is simple: stop chasing systems and start showing up where real decisions are made. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

So, Julia, something I keep reading about in the news lately has been jobs. And obviously, we can go in later around what's the future of jobs. But I'm really curious because I haven't applied for a job, nor have I had a traditional job in quite some time. But I hear a lot of negativity around jobs and applying now that supposedly AI is doing a lot of the filtering. So people are like, okay, I need to like game the system to make sure my resume or something when I apply because AI is going to see it not a human. To me, the whole thing seems very confusing. So what like what should people do when they're applying for a job?

People should actually not apply for jobs. I know that's an insanely hot take. But hear me out. So in my experience, I've been recruiting for about 10 years. I have myself applied for jobs. It almost never works. Like if the goal is to get a job, that is almost never the avenue through which you actually get a job. More often than that, I would estimate probably about 70 to 80% of the time, the way you're going to get a job is good old fashioned manual outreach.

Ideally, to someone you actually know who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone, right? Like networking has never gone out of style. Not for one second with all the new tech we have available to us. that is still more often than not the way that people are going to get jobs. Or if you're me, a headhunter, you're going to get a job because your LinkedIn profile is optimized to the teeth where I'm like, okay, I need a B2B SaaS product manager who's worked in FinTech for five years. Let me see that you are that person, right? Don't spend all this time AIing your resume just to send it into a black hole where AI will reject it. Stop doing that.

Optimize your LinkedIn. retouch to the people you actually know and pound the pavement. You've got to do it the old-fashioned way. Now, okay, so somebody in your position, obviously, you need to make sure that somebody like yourself, you stand out to people like yourself. So if I want to make sure that I stand out to someone like you, you mentioned LinkedIn. What specifically makes people stand out? Great question.

Number one, you've got to optimize your headline. those words that are right next to your picture when you just see the little thumbnail. Make it so easy. When people are like, I optimize systems and processes, I'm like, what the freak is your actual job? Just give me your job title or the job title you're aiming for. Make it super clear. Don't make me pour through your LinkedIn to understand who you are and what you do.

Just make it super clear. So that's number one. Optimize that headline. Secondly, when you're listing out all the jobs that you've had, just give me like three bullets of when you absolutely killed it. Like you improved site visibility by 89%. You drove 1.2 million in revenue. Like whatever you did make like that's your brag book. Your LinkedIn is your brag book. And I need to see the bullet points of what you've done. Because my job is to make my client happy. Right. So my client will be happy if I bring them you who has this beautiful description of

everything you've done. You and I have gotten a phone call because I was so impressed by your profile. and now I can brag about you to my client. We both win. The client wins. I win. You win. Okay. So what do you do in terms of getting people ready?

Or do you suggest, are there certain things that somebody should get ready before an interview? Oh, my gosh, 100%. So whatever your job is, you have to have soft skills. That's obvious. It should be so obvious. But I can't tell you how many candidates I get on the phone with where I'm like, did have you never, am I the first person you've spoken to? Like, what is going on? Like, you just need to have this really comes down to EQ. You need to be able to read the room. You need to have prepared

talking points about what you've done, even just for that initial recruiter interview, even if you got head hunted, again, for us to be able to present you in the best possible light to our client, make your own life easier, right? Like, make your own chance of getting the job easier. Just prepare your talking points. Prepare your. energy, right? Like come in, excited to have the conversation and then do the same thing for every step in the interview process. And it doesn't have to be crazy, right? Like, again, if you've got that brag book ready to go on LinkedIn, just review it. Just remind yourself of what you've accomplished and then come ready to talk about it and bring the energy and enthusiasm so we can see

that this is a role that you're actually interested in. What are you finding companies are coming to you for? Is it a specific type of role? Or are you finding there are certain traits or Is it like certain skills that these companies are looking for? Great question. So we're a tech recruitment firm. So we recruit solely in the tech sector. But we work across departments within tech companies. So people will come to us for engineers.

They'll also come to us for product managers. They'll also come to us for salespeople. So the type of role we recruit for is broad. The type of company we recruit for is tech companies, typically tech startups that are between seed and series B. That's our most common focus. I will say, though, within that world, the most common roles that we're being approached for right now are sales. I think because, to your point earlier about AI kind of like making the application process a madhouse, AI has also made the sales process a madhouse because people have such AI fatigue. Like they're getting bombarded

with automated emails, messages, phone calls. Like nothing's authentic. Nothing's human. So the demand for sellers has only gone up because you've got to use AI as a tool, not as a replacement for your actual ability to talk to people and to understand what they need and match it with what the company can offer them. I've seen this before. Anytime you democratize something, it's great because you give the ability for almost anyone to try to do something. The only thing is you create massive competition and like you said, the fatigue. So it's great that you, you know, a small company with no budget can spend $50 a month with a tool that can now send 10,000 emails a month. But now you have a million companies sending 10,000 emails a month. And now we're like

bombarded with messages. So it's good to know that, you know, sales, which I've seen growing up myself, like I knew when I dropped out of college, I learned sales and I knew I would always have a job if I knew how to sell. Is there a certain range of salaries that these type of tech companies, if you're allowed to talk about it, that there are, do they tell you, like the salary ranges that they are looking at? Oh, of course. Yeah, I can't head hunt if I don't know the dollars that we're talking about. So yeah, for a seller with, let's say, five to eight years of experience, we're looking at around 150K base. And then you're on target earning. So the bonuses and commissions, you earn on top of that is going to be double that. So your overall earning potential

is going to be 300k, if not higher. So, yeah, sales, I mean, is the oldest professional in the world, it's still one of the most lucrative. And if you can master the art of sales and not lean on the crutch of AI, because like you just said, it's really not helpful when you're one of a billion messages in their inbox, you're going to freaking crush. What was the craziest or most fascinating interview that you've personally been to? Where I was the one being interviewed. Yeah, maybe you're being interviewed or maybe even someone that, you know, maybe that you know, someone that you've heard like a story around. Oh, gosh, that's such a good question. You know, know what? I heard, so this is a friend of mine. This wasn't one of my clients. But she went to a

sales interview where it was like a walk and talk interview. And the goal was to see, like he just threw these crazy lobs at her. Like questions you wouldn't think of would be in an interview. Like he asked her just, I can't remember the specific details, but I do remember that they walked laps around the lake. And afterwards she was like, I feel like I just got haze for a sorority. Like it was just the most random bizarre experience ever. So yeah, sales interviews tend to be kind of off the cuff because they want to see can you handle kind of weird outlanded situations because you have to do that as a seller so crux me up so one time my man i was an assistant manager my manager i said look i want to do a test let's put ourselves really high on chairs and put a chair really really low for the

people that were interviewing and let's see what happens and it was hilarious like there was one guy who was like six foot of five and the chair is really low and he sat down the chair and he made a comment like whoa this chair is really, really low. But he's not used to being much lower than people. And so we were like probably two feet higher than him. It was hilarious. Like it really did get to people. But talking about Did it work? I can't even, I don't think we hired him. I'm not, I can't remember exactly. I had so many stories. Did you hire anyone? I can't, I do remember this. Okay, I got a resume one time when I was the store manager. And the resume talked about how this person lifted weights and he was like fitness competition, Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt. Like the most random things for a sales job. And I'm like,

I want to, I want to interview this guy. Like I've never seen this on a resume. He comes in. I'm not even kidding. He was like four foot five. And you would think he was like in his 20s. He was like in the 60s. And he was not any good shape that I would think from what his resume. And everyone at the story, I ended up hiring him. He lasted a week. Why did you hire him? If you clearly lied out. I don't know. I just thought he had so much confidence. Like he he thought he was 20, but it didn't, it didn't work out. But that's hysterical. So anyways, less about me. I, what I wouldn't know from you and thank you for sharing all this. Now I understand like how is the market and the tech scene and sounds like, you know, pretty, pretty good paying jobs still exist.

For you, what made you go from being in a job to saying, I want to be my own boss? That's such a good question. So similar to sales, the beautiful thing about recruitment is that if you have a phone and a computer and drive, you can do it. You can crush it. You don't need a company. You don't need this youth institution. So I'd been recruiting for several years.

I'd been thinking about going out on my own for about a year. I was like, oh, it feels so scary. I don't know the first thing about it. And then I had my second son. So I'm on maternity leave. And my CEO calls me out of the blue five weeks into my mat leave. I have a literal five week old infant. And he's like, hey, I'm so sorry.

The money's gone. I'm laying everyone off. Like, we're on the verge of bankruptcy. I haven't paid myself in months. I have no money for you. Like, this is the end of the road. So it was the best thing ever because it kicked me out of the nest. Like, it was no longer an option to see.

stay at that W-2 job, right? So he did me a huge favor. I was very fortunate that I kind of put feelers out in my network and a bunch of people came and offered me jobs because I'd been recruiting for so long. They knew what I was capable of. But I was like, you know what? If I start my own firm, I can say yes to all of you. And I can work as a consultant and I can hire other recruiters to work under me to recruit for you. So that's what we did. It took off. It's been a freaking wild ride. And I've loved every second. Sometimes we need that push, right? Like you're thinking about it. you want to do it, but you're scared because now you don't have the guaranteed paycheck. But in the end, many times it works out.

So I know you've built a seven-figure business. And what would you say are maybe two or three things along the way? When you look at like the beginning, let's say the first six months, the first year, was there two or three things that you had to make sure that you did in order to continue to scale? Absolutely. The number one thing I did was I hired an executive coach to teach me how to sell. Exactly what we're talking about here today. If you can't sell, your business is going to fail, period.

It doesn't matter what your job is, quote unquote. Your job has to become that you're a seller. So I didn't know how to sell. I wasn't like you. I had never sat in a sell-me-a-pen interview a day of my life. So I hired an executive coach who had sold and scaled her own recruitment companies very successfully. And she taught me every single thing I know to this day about sales. She is still in my corner.

She's still absolutely a spitfire. Such a blessing. So she taught me everything. I kind of journeyed through that process that first year, got my feet under me. And that really was the difference between success and failure. I'm glad you bring up the hiring of a business coach, but somebody who specializes in a very specific thing that you want to learn.

I think that's something that you don't hear a lot of people talk. Obviously, you hear like life coach and there's like business coach. But I don't think people understand hiring. a coach for a specific thing who's an expert in that specific thing. I've had a lot of success doing the same thing. Like when I want to learn something, I hire a student as an expert in that one thing versus like a general coach who like knows a little bit about a few different things. When you when you looked at scaling, because you know, you go to zero to a hundred thousand, a hundred thousand to a million when you, when you exceeded the million revenue mark.

And I think it's only like four or five percent of women, something very low. It's like single digits will ever create a business in the U.S. at least that does over a million in revenue. What did you see that needed to change within you? Oh my gosh, that's such a good question. And that's an ongoing journey because I've run the business for about two and a half years now. Like I said, I have the baby who was born right at the layoff. I have another baby who was born before that.

So my sons are now two and four. I'm married to this magical, delightful man who also. also works full time. So it's an ongoing seasonal navigation of I need to honor my commitments in multiple areas, right? I'm a mom, I'm a wife, I'm a founder, I'm a Christian. Like I have all these categories that I'm not willing to let these balls drop. So I have to constantly be in this kind of juggling act to figure out who I need to become, how I need to grow and what I need to to master, what I need to learn so that I can continue to succeed. And honestly, the answer is, It depends, right?

Like who I've had to become has really changed season to season. Year one, I was like, foot on the gas. I'm going to freaking figure out this sales thing. I'm going to freaking kill it. I'm going to take over the world. I did it, right? Quote, right? Like, I figured it.

I did figure out how to sell. Here I am today selling. Year two, though, was about getting back into balance where I was like, okay, I feel like I'm in a good place. I feel like I know what I'm doing. I've got my feet under me. There's always more to learn, more to grow, more to master. but I want to lean back into kind of this more balanced posture where I'm not that founder

who's checking their phone all the time, who can't turn their work brain off, who's just like married to my business. I never wanted to be that person. So year two was really about honing that balance. And now going into year three, it's continuing to scale up in both of those areas, both in strategic intentional sales and also in not losing myself and losing my priorities of faith and family while I do so. So while you're juggling all these things, was there a moment where you said to yourself,

you know what? I think I'm going to go get recruited myself back to a job. Of course. Every founder thinks that all the time. Because right, there's the lure. It feels, it sounds easy. It sounds easy. Oh my gosh.

I wouldn't have to make as many decisions. I wouldn't have to be in charge of literally every single thing. But then when I think about it, I'm like, but then someone else gets to tell me what to do and where to go and what hours to work, right? Like for me, the freedom and flexibility of business ownership is worth all the costs. That has been so, so clear to me from the two and a half years of running the business. So yeah, any founder who denies that they've thought longingly of the ease of a W-2, if they tell you they're not thinking about it, they're lying.

But ultimately for me, I just come back to my why and I come back to the benefits of doing this and it keeps me on the map. I think about it once a month. Like when I, if somebody like yourself, reaches out to me and they're like, hey, you'd make a great role, I think, for this. I'm like, you know what? Maybe I should go to this interview. And I would tell my wife, and she was last, because she's much stronger-willed than I am. She's way more resilient and business than I am. And she'd be like, one, you're not qualified to do that job. And two, like, is that, like, why?

Are you going to quit? So it's, she's been like my backbone for sure. When you look at, talk about, relationships and you know I think a lot of people say you know entrepreneurship is a very lonely place do you find that you have friends who are also either in the same industry in business are there are there organizations or other groups or are there places that you've joined in order to not be in a you know a lonely place because I think we all need to rely on others that that know what we're going through 100% yes I have not walked to sing step of this founder journey alone. So I hired that executive coach literally the first, the first check I got, like the first money in the bank, I gave to her. Like I took no, I was like, here you go, let's go.

So that was step one. Step two, I've been in a executive circle since I started two and a half years ago. So the circle, what it is has changed. Like one year it was, because it's like one year intensive basically for recruitment founders who wanted to scale to a million. Now I'm in this two actually different executive circles. Both are faith-based. So like I said, my Christian faith is very important to me. So that's kind of where I'm leading into this year is Christian founders who are out that journey specifically. But yeah, every single step is so much lighter and your load is so much lighter. If you can carry it with other people who get, you're not in a W-2 job. You don't get to clock out at the end of the day. You do have to make hard decisions. You do. You do.

do have to forecast and look down the road and see what's coming good and bad. So yeah, that's been huge. My final question for you is, will jobs exist in the near future? Gosh, I wish not, right? I wish we could go retire to Bali. That'd be ideal. Yeah, unfortunately, I'm kidding. Yes, jobs will always exist. What they are will shift, right? This cracks me up. You know, anyone who studied history knows that this panic comes around whenever there's a new technological advancement, right? It happened with the printing. press. It happened with the Industrial Revolution. It's been happening with AI since the 50s, right? AI is not new. Just the way we're using it keeps changing because it's such an iterative tool.

So, no, jobs will always exist. They will change. And the people who are able to land under feet are the ones who are adapting. I was talking to somebody about this yesterday. And he was mentioning to me around purpose, like having purpose. Like having purpose. in life, but without profit. So it's like having a purpose that's not tied to money. He was talking about longevity. He's a doctor talking about longevity, like humans need to basically have a purpose, but it's not just the purpose that's tied to some sort of money or monetary gain, right?

And it got me thinking about younger generations and how we look at like Gen Z or maybe, I don't know if Alpha's in the workforce yet or that's too young. I'm not sure. but at least for Gen Z, what I've seen or younger people, they are really big on purpose, but the purpose that is not necessarily tied to money and aligning themselves more with a company who has like the same morals, values, purpose, where like when I was in my 20s, I took any job that somebody was willing to give me money for. I could have sold like anything. I would have sold like toilet paper, like whatever it was, I didn't really care because I didn't, like,

what do I care about purpose? Like, I'm here just to make money. But it seems like these new generations of people are looking at things differently. How do, how does a recruiter like yourself, how do you see that with these companies who are trying to hire these people? Yeah, I think that that's huge. I think you've got to resonate with the mission, even if it's not, to your point, like maybe it's not like an explicitly values based company. Um, I, I think, I definitely see. And founders want that too. Founders want people who look at their mission and care about their mission. Like they want it to matter to them individually. So one of our clients, for example, is a cybersecurity company. They want people to care about cybersecurity, right? Like maybe it's not the thing they talk to their husband about during Kilotocat night when they're falling asleep. But like they do want it to be something that matters to them, something that they see the value of in the world, that they want it to matter to them that they're protecting their clients from ransomware attacks. Right. Like they want to see the value of that. They want to see the value of that. They want to. to see why they're doing that. They want to see why they get them out of bed in the morning. So I think it goes both ways. And I think it's a good thing. I think it does matter that you care what

you're spending the majority of your life doing. And I think it does matter that a founder knows they're hiring someone who's bought in to what they're trying to build. Well, maybe they'll live happier, longer, healthier life because they do care about these things where other people like myself at that age did not care about those things, although I care about them now in my life. So I did. Okay, you got there. I did. Yes, six years ago, I said I'm going to move away from a life that's purpose driven of money to a life that's purpose driven, not related to a business or any monetary thing.

But Julie, this has been really great. I'm sure people need to impress you. So they're going to have to go look up your LinkedIn profile. So if you can share what that is and your website, because they want to crush it in a new tech job. I also want you guys to crush it in a new tech job. of. So you'll find me on LinkedIn. I am the only Julia Arpad on LinkedIn. So you're going to have a really easy time finding me. And then my website is just the name of our business, aligned recruitment.com. So again, super easy. You'd have to try not to find me, honestly.

There you go. So if there's a tech company who's got a seed plus series A, B, C, D, E, F, Z, if they have any of those, they should reach out to you because you can obviously find them the best talent. But Julie, this has been great. I learned a lot today. I'm more hopeful and positive for the future. And I hope the audience learns a lot because I think they're going to take away. And I know there are a lot of people that did get laid off sadly, you know, from Amazon and other companies right now. And maybe they can get a job at Google or these other tech start. I love the tech startups. Like, don't work for a big corporation. Work or a tech startup. Maybe you get shares, equity. I don't know. Maybe you get bonuses. Like if I, if I, if I, if I, if I, if I,

I was in my 20s and 30s going back. Instead of working at corporations, I would have rather worked at tech startup. I could be like a billionaire right now. But Julia, thank you so much for joining us on Founders Story. My pleasure. Thank you for having me.