How job hunting became an expensive business

Giovanna Ventola, 35, of North Carolina, reckons she has spent close to $6,000 on job huntingjob hunting: the activity of looking for a new job — 求职；找工作. Software for polishing her resume, interview-training courses, recruitment site subscriptionsrecruitment site subscription: a paid plan that gives full access to a job-search website — 招聘网站会员订阅, premiumpremium: Superior in quality; higher in price or value — 高端的；优质的 accesspremium access: a paid level of service that gives more features than the free level — 高级会员权限；付费访问 to job-search platforms: each line item felt like a sensible investment in a market where applicants are increasingly turning toturning to: starting to use (something) for help — 转而使用；求助于 paid tools to secure worksecure work: successfully obtain a job — 获得工作. “I was doing more than just submitting applications,” explains Ventola, who has been chasing roles in commercial real estatecommercial real estate: the business of buying, selling, and renting property used for businesses (offices, shops, etc.) — 商业地产. With jobs hard to come byhard to come by: difficult to find or obtain — 难以找到；不易得到 on both sides of the Atlanticon both sides of the Atlantic: in both North America and Europe — 在大西洋两岸（即北美和欧洲）, she is one of a growing cohortcohort: A group of people supporting the same thing or person — 支持者群体 of jobseekersjobseeker: a person who is looking for a job — 求职者 learning that to stand out from the crowdstand out from the crowd: be noticeably better or different from the many other people doing the same thing — 脱颖而出 now carries a real price tag.

Recruiters trace the trend to a sluggishsluggish: Habitually idle and lazy; slothful; dull; inactive — 懒散的；迟钝的 labour market. In the United States, the average unemployed worker now needs roughly six months to land a new role, up from five last year. Canada shedshed: to get rid of something unwanted; to cause blood, tears, or light to flow or fall — 去除；流（泪）；脱落；散发（光） 66,000 jobs in a single August, lifting its unemployment rate to 7.1%. British job vacancies fell by another 9,000, or 1.3%, in the three months to September, the thirty-ninth consecutiveconsecutive: Following each other continuously without interruption; in unbroken sequence. — 连续的；不间断的 quarterly decline. The knock-on effectknock-on effect: an indirect result that follows from one event causing another — 连锁反应；间接影响 is visible on the platforms themselves: LinkedIn told the BBC that its premium subscriberpremium subscriber: a person paying for the higher-tier paid plan of a service — 付费会员 base has grown almost 50% in two years, and roughly 40% of those subscribers now lean on AI featuresAI features: tools inside a product that use artificial intelligence — AI（人工智能）功能 to refine their profiles.

Across the Atlantic, Kaycia Duncan, 30, has spent more than a year hunting for marketing work from her home in Buckinghamshire. She finds the silence dishearteningdisheartening: making someone lose hope or confidence — 令人沮丧的；让人灰心的, evidence of how punishing the market has become. Like Ventola, she invests roughly £30 a month in tools she hopes will sharpen her job prospectsjob prospects: the chances of getting a good job in the future — 就业前景: a premium service that lets her message HR managersHR managers: people in charge of hiring at a company; HR stands for Human Resources — 人力资源经理（HR） directly, plus a graphic-design subscription for producing polished CVs and portfolioportfolio: a range of investments held by a person or organisation, or a collection of work samples demonstrating ability — 投资组合；作品集；公文包 workportfolio work: examples of past projects shown to potential employers — 作品集；展示作品. While she waits, she has taken on temp worktemp work: short-term jobs that fill a gap until a permanent job is found — 临时工作；零工 and launched a YouTube channel chroniclingchronicle: to record in or as in a chronicle — 记录；编年史般记述 her search. Two hundred applications in, she still believes the spending was justified.

With interviews proving elusiveelusive: Evading capture, comprehension or remembrance — 难以捉摸的；难以理解的proving elusive: turning out to be hard to get or achieve — 难以求得；屡屡碰壁, Ventola took to TikTok last year, partly to externaliseexternalise: to make something external or objective — 使外在化；具象化 her own troubleshooting and partly because she suspected, correctly, that she was not alone. Her clips quickly began to rack uprack up: build up a large number or amount of (something) — 累积；攒下（数量） hundreds of comments from other jobseekers in the same bindbind: A troublesome situation; a problem; a predicament or quandary — 困境；窘境. That response provided the sparkprovided the spark: gave the first push that started something — 成为契机；点燃了灵感 for Rhize, the not-for-profitnot-for-profit: (of an organization) run for a purpose other than making money — 非营利的 community she founded so job hunters could swap notes on which paid tools actually deliver. Membership has climbed past 4,000, roughly 80% in the US.

Industry observers read these stories as symptoms of a deeper rebalancingrebalancing: The act or process of restoring balance — 再平衡；重新调整. “We have seen the shift from a candidate marketcandidate market: a job market in which workers have the upper hand because employers compete for them — 求职者市场（求职者占主导） in the past three years, to more of an employer-driven marketemployer-driven market: a job market in which employers have the upper hand because there are more workers than open jobs — 雇主主导的市场,” says Nancy D'Onofrio, a Toronto-based director at Randstad, the multinational HR and staffing companystaffing company: a company that helps other companies find workers — 人力资源外包公司；人才招聘公司. “There are far less opportunities and far more available talent, so it's a really competitive job searchcompetitive job search: a job hunt with many other strong candidates competing for the same roles — 竞争激烈的求职.” D'Onofrio points topoints to: names (something) as a cause or example — 指出；归因于 advances in AI as a key driver, an analysis echoedecho: To repeat or reflect an idea, opinion, or sound, often in agreement or as a reverberation. — 回响；附和；重复 by Nicole Gable of LHH North America, who attributesattribute: To ascribe (something) to a given cause, reason etc — 归因于；归咎于 the volatilityvolatility: The state of being volatile — 不稳定性 to “the rapid explosion of technologyrapid explosion of technology: the very fast growth and spread of new technology — 技术的迅猛发展”. Few employers, Gable adds, can confidently name the skills they will need five years out.

The uncertainty has been good for career coachescareer coach: a trained professional who advises someone on their career and job search — 职业教练；职业顾问. Miriam Groom, who runs a practice in Canada, says her client roster has expanded exponentiallyexponentially: Rapidly, greatly — 急剧地；飞速地. Once dominated by burnout candidatesburnout candidates: people who feel exhausted and unhappy from too much work — 身心倦怠的求职者；工作疲惫的人, her caseloadcaseload: The workload of a person or group that handles cases; the relative volume of cases expected to be worked upon — 案件量 now splits roughly 50/50 between the burnt-out and those displaceddisplace: To force someone or something from its usual place or position; to take over the role of something. — 取代；使流离失所；移位 by layoffslayoff: A period of time when someone is unavailable for work — 休工期；停工期. She is also seeing a spike ina spike in: a sudden sharp increase in (something) — （数量的）激增；骤增 clients trying to retrainretrain: learn new skills so as to do a different job — 重新培训；转岗培训 for roles less likely to be replaced by technology, mapping current skills against jobs expected to be in demandin demand: wanted by many employers; needed in the market — 受市场欢迎的；有需求的 for the next two decades. Sometimes, she says, the kindest advice is to abandon a target role and steer toward a different sector with stronger demand.

D'Onofrio doubts that paid tools are the answer. Her advice is unflashyunflashy: Not flashy — 不张扬的；朴实的: contact hiring managershiring managers: people inside a company who decide who to interview and hire — 招聘经理（决定面试和录用的人） directly, attend networking eventsnetworking events: events where people meet to make professional contacts — 职业社交活动, and use the free resume-strengthening utilitiesutility: A software program designed to perform a single task or a small range of tasks, often to help manage and tune computer hardware, an operating system or application software already online. She also urges candidates to watch for scamswatch for scams: stay alert for dishonest schemes — 警惕骗局 when approached by career coaches or self-styled CV experts, and to investigate anyone thoroughly before handing over money. Ventola herself ends on a similar hedge. “Honestly, I don't think any of my investments were worth it if I measure them strictly in dollars,” she admits. “But what they did do was open my eyes to adjacentadjacent: Lying next to, close, or contiguous; neighboring; bordering on — 相邻的 opportunitiesadjacent opportunities: chances in related but different fields or roles — 相邻领域的机会, and push me to think outside the boxthink outside the box: think in a creative way that goes beyond the usual approach — 跳出固有思维；创新思考.”