Name: The $10,000 job search.<\/p>\n
Age: Depressingly modern.<\/p>\n
Appearance: The bleakest, most soul-destroying thing you can imagine.<\/p>\n
Hey, a job\u2019s a job, even if it pays only $10,000 (\u00a37,400). Oh dear, you\u2019ve misunderstood the situation. This isn\u2019t about people looking for jobs with a\u00a0$10,000 salary.<\/p>\n
What else could it be about? It\u2019s about spending $10,000 to get a job in the first place.<\/p>\n
Oh no, I do not like this at all. And yet it appears to be becoming the standard. According to the Wall Street Journal<\/a>, jobseekers are finding work so scarce that they\u2019re being driven to spend greater and greater sums to stand out from the crowd.<\/p>\n What are they spending it on? The $10,000 figure is what Josh Morgan, 45, paid for six months of work with a career strategist, who offered regular meetings, a personal website and access to recruiters.<\/p>\n But why? Because the time people spend looking for work is growing. In the US, it\u2019s now an average of 24 weeks, a month longer than a year ago. But there are other expenses.<\/p>\n Of course there are. Some people shell out for courses to keep their expertise up to date. Others pay for premium LinkedIn accounts that allow better networking. There are expensive job databases to subscribe to, CV-sharpening services and AI\u00a0programs that train you to do better in interviews.<\/p>\n And if you don\u2019t pay for them, you get lost in the crowd. Exactly. At least until everyone starts doing it, at which point the services will jack up their prices to help jobseekers stand out from that crowd. And so on and so on, for ever.<\/p>\n Do you ever lose faith in humanity? Hey, buck up! You\u2019re supposed to be the optimistic counterpoint to my gloomy explanation. It could be worse.<\/p>\n No, it couldn\u2019t. Yes, it could. The economy could be so dire that jobseekers have to pay companies to pose as employees.<\/p>\n Thank God that isn\u2019t happening. You really walked into that one.<\/p>\n