Today, Explained - AI took your job

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

Hundreds of job applications, but not one call. Young workers are frustrated, scared, and wondering where all the entry-level jobs went. This episode was produced by Miles Bryan and Rebeca Ibarra, edited by Miranda Kennedy, fact checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Andrea Kristinsdottir, and hosted by Noel King. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast. Jobseekers at the Best Hire Chicago Career Fair. Photo by Jim Vondruska/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Something very strange is happening in the entry-level job market, especially for recent college grads who are looking for white-collar jobs. There are these stories about people applying to dozens and dozens of jobs. After graduation, I applied to at least 80 to 100 different jobs. A majority of those jobs haven't bothered in following up or contacting me to schedule an interview. Never hearing anything back. It's just a nightmare. Like, everything's done with...

Computers now. No one wants to talk to each other. And I'm literally having to, like, stalk people online. And I hate doing it. But how is my supposed to get in contact with you and the only way that I can get in contact with your whole company is by talking to a chat about on your website. And wondering what, if anything, AIs got to do with it. But I also wonder, am I just writing something for one AI to talk to another AI? Ahead on Today Explained from Box, why you're having so much trouble getting an entry-level job. Support for today's show comes from Ecoflow. That kind of rhymes. A few things are more frustrating than when you have to charge your device but can't find an outlet.

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I'm Colton Massey. I'm a recent grad with a degree in software engineering. What year? 2025. If anyone should be able to nab an entry-level job, it should be Colton Massey. He went to college fixated on graduating with a useful degree so that he would never run the risk of being unemployed. This is a fixation which goes all the way back to when he was a kid, Growing up in New Jersey, but really actually growing up on a computer. When I was 13, I was online all the time.

I didn't really have hobbies outside of the recreational cross I was doing, so I was really just like on social media, mostly Tumblr at the time. And I was seeing a lot of these currently graduating young adults kind of talk about their struggles with the job market and getting themselves established. and it was really just something that kind of left a seat of like I'm going to be struggling forever if I don't really get it

I'm going to be broke, I'm going to be homeless, I have to like really, really, really make this count. I have to have a goal that I aspire to so I can get a job really easily after graduation, right? And that's not necessarily something that every team goes through,

but it's definitely something that was on my mind very young. So in my mind I'm like, learned these things from these struggling older millennials, and I just felt like, oh, I got it. I did the right thing. I put my eggs in the right basket. What were the Tumblr Post saying? Like, what exactly was triggering you? A lot of it was just lamentation of the current state. During that time, it was a lot of talk about, like, oh, liberal arts degrees, right? people who pursue degrees in history and philosophy,

stuff that they're genuinely passionate about, but don't translate to like the nine to five businessman type job that got a lot of like, oh, you shouldn't have done that. That's not the right direction if you want a successful life. So to me, when my parents brought up the idea of maybe computer science, maybe a cybersecurity, I was like, oh, that's good. Good. I get to be on my computer even more, but like for money this time. Are they computer people? Are they computer nerds? No, they're not.

What do they do? My dad was a police officer for almost 30 years, and my mom was a kindergarten teacher, then guidance counselor. Okay, so you're like, I'm going to get this computer science degree. I will be living a stable and well-paid life, and then you graduate, and then what happens? A whole lot of nothing. Oh. A lot of this has to do with a whole bunch of things happening at once, but a good example is my last internship, I spoke about, like, what can I do to get a full-time position when I graduate, right?

They're like, there's probably going to be a position for you in June. In June, just reached out to us in January. That's when all our positions are made. So reach out in January. There's no position available. Damn. Awesome. Cool.

Back to the drawing board. And then around, I want to say April-ish, I start really looking for jobs, and I hear a bunch of nothing. I'm not sweating it at this point, and it's June now. And I'm like, okay, I haven't heard back. I have to start applying for jobs, like, full-time, basically. So I set a pretty lofty number for myself. I feel like 20 applications a week isn't that bad. 20 a week?

Yeah. You're applying for 20 jobs a week? Some weeks I do a little worse than that, but yeah, I'm trying. Have you gotten an interview yet? I have not. You have not. Okay, my friend. It's rough. It's a lot of staring at the screen. It's a lot of how much at a quick glance does my resume apply to, and then shooting off an application real quick, either through their site, through LinkedIn or Indeed or, you know, any of those other job finding sites, and usually,

not hearing back. Or if you do, it's an automated response that's either, we're very sorry or, okay, I guess we'll keep looking at you a little bit more. What are the feelings associated with all of this rejection? Because I am in a okay spot in every other way outside of the job, Right? Like, I'm very fortunate. I don't feel as bad as someone who has a much tighter deadline would. Does that make sense? Yeah, what's going right in your life? Oh, no. My parents are housing me. Ah, you're living at home? Yes, I'm going to be at home. Are you living in the basement? No, I'm living upstairs. Hell yeah. Okay. All right. Keep going. Keep going. No, it's just, it's one of those things where it's like I don't have this existential pressure.

The reason I move back home is it wouldn't make sense to be spending 1,300 a month in Philly for an apartment to be closer to my friends and where I graduated when I could just move home and just get a part-time job and keep applying until I get a career position and kind of keep it going from there, you know? Is there any internal deadline you have set? Like, if I don't get a job in coding in a year, I will, I don't know, go to grad school, get a PhD in English, or really think about, like, joining the police force or getting a trade school certification. For me, it's a three-month timer, and it's mostly just, I've been not doing a part-time job. I haven't gotten a part-time job. and when September rolls around, I think that's just where I go. Obviously, keep applying, keep it pushing, but I want to try and cut down on my student loans

before interest starts really, really ballooning them so I can start making payments through that. I can start chipping away at the daily things without ever dipping too crazy deep into my savings. Colton Massey, class of 2025, wake him up when September ends. Coming up, guys, it is not just Colton. The entry-level job market is a technicolor mess, and we're going to talk to a reporter who spent months trying to figure out why.

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You're listening to Today Explained. So my name is Lindsay Ellis, and I write about careers in the workforce for the Wall Street Journal. What is actually happening with hiring? What is your job like right now talking to all these people? Yeah, so I set a goal for myself this summer to talk to a job seeker in all 50 states, really trying to get a good. good pulse on what looking is like these days, how much it's changed from a few years ago. And I hear about a lot of rejection from job seekers. Hey there. My name is Nicole Heffey, and I have been job searching for more than a year now. I think I've gone through multiple three rounds of interviews at different places, and I'm still

getting rejected. You see spreadsheets of several hundred rows with each row being its own application. I put in 75, yes, 75 job applications in two months. In the year, I've been looking for work. I've applied to over 1,000 jobs now. I sent out thousands of applications. You know, keeping track of who they don't hear back from, where they are in interview processes. People are hustling really hard to make connections to put their name out there. And they're really hoping for any possible traction in a market that feels kind of stuck to a lot of people. It's been pretty horrendous out there. It just seems, I don't know, kind of like an eye mountain. If I were to guess at what's going on, I would say this must have something to do with

AI. Is that it? That's a factor and I think is layered on top of a bunch of other factors that have caused the white collar market to slow considerably over the last few years. You know, starting in maybe late 2022, early 2023, companies and hiring managers were really pumping the brakes in a lot of sectors. There were the tons of tech layoffs that started in 23. But from inflation to geopolitical conflict to, you know, then the looming election and a lot of uncertainty in terms of policy, which way things were going to go, if a hiring manager is saying, hey, can we hold off on making this hire and maybe have a little bit more buffer in terms of headcount, in terms of payroll costs, you know, they might see how long they can last without making that higher.

We are back with some breaking economic data. The U.S. economy added 73,000 jobs in July. That was less than expected. There was barely any job growth at all in May and June. So we thought the labor market looked healthy, but we just completely misunderstood the state of the labor market. And then you add in AI sort of as a layer on top of all of this. And it's, you know, the calculation is totally different.

So I talked to James Hornick, who's the chief growth officer at the Chicago-based recruiting firm, Hirewell. I like to say kind of jokingly that we focus on placing office dorks. We have a team that does technology, a team that does go-to-market sales and marketing, a team does corporate functions, which is HR and finance. So really kind of anything that you'll find out more. And he told me that clients have all but stopped requesting entry-level staff. those young grads were once in high demand, but their work is now a home run, he said, for AI. When the first iteration of chat GPT came out,

every developer I knew, like immediately said this is like the best tool I've ever used. Everyone can get way more done and less amount of time, which you still need people who are intelligent, software architects, senior level devs, people who are not to create and scope out true enterprise applications. What you don't need as much of is junior people of doing the more basic blocking and tackling of the code work because the AI is very good at that.

The other example where we see this is in the marketing space, and that's the area I think that's been pummeled the most, even more so than software development. So a lot of our business, we have over the years partnered with lots of digital marketing firms, right? So think of not just website development, but things like SEO and content development. And a lot of this stuff has really been in the crosshairs of AI specifically. a lot of agency firms would have the model where they'll hire a one to two year market, like a team of one to two year marketers, some more junior talent to write SEO blogs and things like that.

But like AI is exceedingly good at a lot of that stuff. It's very, it might not write the most interesting. It's not going to write a great novel, but it can write social posts. It can write SEO blog copy. It can do all these things that used to have to build out like large scale teams to do. And it does it for damn near free. We're always trying to figure out, like, what is data and what is anic data? And you can hear one story about someone who applied for three or four jobs a day for a month and got nothing.

And that will be the thing that sticks in your brain forever. But the unemployment rate in the U.S. right now is around 4.2%, which is super low, right? So is there a tension between the one extreme story and the actual trend? behind that number, I think you'll see a couple of other trends that suggest that the picture is a little bit more complicated. Number one is sort of labor data on the time it takes to find a job. And there are two things that my colleagues and I have been looking at. One is for unemployed Americans, it now takes them on average 24 weeks to find a job after losing one. And that's nearly a month longer than a year prior.

So I just got a job recently full-time, but it took me six months, 75 applications, and I would say probably like six interviews at the job that I did finally land. And the number of long-term unemployed Americans, that's people who are unemployed for at least 27 weeks. That figure is now 1.8 million people a year prior, was like 1.5. So that's that's an uptick too. Yeah. The other factor here is, you know, you think about which sectors are hiring in this moment. You know, much of the jobs growth is coming from state and local government or sectors like health care, social assistance, leisure and hospitality, construction, you know, a white collar project manager, you know,

probably wouldn't be qualified for a role in health care or might not be looking for a local government job, you know, in a different state. So I think it's also a question of matching opportunity to skill set and how that goes. You had a job making $130,000 as a sales slash project manager. And I just am starting my second week at a job where I am making $60,000, doing order entry. And I am shocked that this is where I am. I'm grateful that I get to pay my mortgage, but that's about it. So the job application process for a long time has been, you know, there's maybe a portal and you submit your resume or, you know, you send an email to a hiring manager. Is AI changing the way we apply for jobs?

Oh, my God, you have no idea. This has been a total fascinating. of mine. And what the job application process now in many ways can in my mind be described as a robot versus robot arms race, basically. Oh, no. So what you hear from applicants is that they are super frustrated with corporate hiring software, which for many years will scan an applicant's resume and cover letter and basic details and sort of like rank them. based on their qualifications. And they feel like that artificial intelligence basically, like, forces good people to slip through the cracks. I've applied to over 1,000 jobs now, and I've only had dirty interviews counting phone screening. So I'm pretty sure AI is at play here. So in response, they're using AI of their own to both craft cover letters and resumes using the job description and their own.

using the job description and their own stuff to basically, like, incorporate all of the keywords, show how they're responding to specific job responsibilities. I was able to get a job after applying to over 100 different companies. I ended up using a custom GPP to be able to write custom cover letters. And so in the end, it was by using AI that I was able to finally get a job. There are even tools, though, that scan the entire internet for potential jobs and then just, like, spray out a candidate's application in seconds. So the whole thing has left applicants and employers super irritated because employers are totally, like, all of their portals are getting clogged up. And it's really hard to tell, you know, who.

who is actually interested versus who is using really good prompts or keywords. And then applicants are really frustrated because they are, you know, they'll look at a job posting on LinkedIn and it'll say how many people have applied. And it's like, shoot, I have no chance here. Should I even still do this? Then if they do put time into their application, they might get a, you know, a rejection hours later or, you know, at two in the morning on a Sunday. It just feels super impersonal, and both sides of the table are really frustrated.

I mean, you go to college, you get a four-year degree in data science or coding. What are young people being told to do now? Like, go learn to drive a tractor? What are the options? I've been asking executives the same question. I mean, from a what are you talking to universities about? because there's a lot of, you know, correspondence between business and higher ed, but also, like, what are you telling your own kids? So I talked to the chief executive of a consulting firm in Ohio, and he basically said, I'm telling my kids to really focus on jobs that really require in person or, you know, client-facing communication.

one of his children is becoming a police officer. And he said, you know, while AI will affect the way he does his job, you know, nothing replaces those relationships that are, you know, forged face to face in a community. It's been frustrating. I sort of gave up and I have no idea what to do now. Maybe I just, I don't know, maybe I have to go back to school, get a law degree of some sort. It's very frustrating. And I feel like what was what was.

the six years of me trying to get this bachelor's degree worth for. Like, there's like absolutely no value to this anymore. And now, I mean, chief executives are talking openly about AI's immense capabilities and how those might lead to job cuts more so than at the entry levels. I mean, you had executives at Amazon, J.P. Morgan in recent weeks saying that they expect their workforces to shrink considerably. The CEO of Ford said he expects AI will report. place half of the white-collar workforce in the U.S. So, I mean, those are those are figures that

suggest that people in various roles, various experience levels should should expect significant disruption. So you have spent a lot of time all over the country talking to people who are really struggling. And I wonder what you think about how these folks, many of them, young people, are going to deal with all this? Like the cope. What's the cope here? Many people feel quite low. I mean, it's a really hard stretch and it's a hard time to be on the market. And I don't want to sugarcoat that. You know, I talk to some people who say, what's really helped me is to get outside, you know, do some gardening, go for a run, go swimming. Swimming is great because you can't really have your phone in your hand. I will say, though, a lot of them are spending a lot of money. to be able to hopefully speed up this process and stand out to employers and potential employers.

I've been working with a career coach and improving all of my opportunities, changing my resume, using AI to help me get there. And it just seems like there's no way up. You know, I talked to one guy who said he spent $10,000 on basically, you know, a marketing firm that's treating him as the product to, basically get his resume out there, make him a website, you know, try and introduce him to hiring managers and people who might know of jobs that aren't posted publicly. So I think for some people it helps when they can funnel their frustration into, I'm going to do this, I'm going to really push myself hard. Other people have been telling me, look, like, this is a marathon, not a sprint.

I, you know, need to make sure I'm taking time outside of this hunt to really, like, keep my mental health steady. Thankfully, I still have a job, but it's not a job that I like. But, hey, whatever pays the bills, right? Thanks. Whatever pays the bills? That was Lindsay Ellis there from the Wall Street Journal. Today's episode was produced by Miles Bryan and Rebecca Ebarra. It was edited by Miranda Kennedy, in fact checked by Laura Bullard.

Our engineers are Patrick Boyd and Andrea Kristen's daughter. Before I go, thank you to all of you who called in and told us about the trouble you're having, finding work. Your stories are frustrating and in some cases quite chilling. And I really appreciate you sharing them. Thanks for that. I am Noelle King. It's today Explained. Thank you.