Job Hunting in 2025: The Olympics Nobody Signed Up For

If you haven’t looked for a job in 2025, buckle up — because this isn’t a job search anymore. This is an extreme endurance sport. It’s part Ironman triathlon, part “The Hunger Games,” part bad reality dating show, and somehow still less organized than a group project in college where you do all the work, get ghosted by your teammates, and still fail.

Once upon a time, job hunting meant you saw a posting, sent your resume, maybe had an interview or two, and got a yes or no. Simple. Civilized. Now? It’s like running through a corporate escape room where the clues are written in HR jargon, the rules change every 15 minutes, and the final prize is an email telling you they’ve “moved forward with other candidates” — in a font that somehow feels smug.

Step one: Apply.

This begins with creating an account on their website, which requires one capital letter, two numbers, a special symbol, your grandmother’s favorite soup recipe, and the blood of your firstborn. After uploading your resume, you must then re-type every detail of it into their online form like a medieval scribe — just in case their system wants to make your “Marketing Manager” role autocorrect to “Margarita Manager.”

Step two: Survive the screening call.

It starts innocently: “We just want to see if you’re a fit” (translation: making sure you’re not a chaos gremlin). But this is followed by a personality quiz to figure out if you’re a “visionary falcon,” a “strategically cautious turtle,” or — my personal favorite — “not what we’re looking for.”

Step three: The “quick” take-home assignment.

Corporate translation: “Please solve a problem we’ve been stuck on for six months, create a 50-page PowerPoint, and have it back by Monday morning. No, we will not be paying you for this, but we’ll absolutely be using your ideas.”

Step four: The final boss — the Zoom panel interview.

Seven people. All muted. All staring. Someone with “Culture” in their title will inevitably ask, “Tell us about a time you overcame a challenge,” and you’ll fight the urge to say, “Right now. This. This is the challenge.” Meanwhile, the CFO is pretending to take notes but is actually answering emails, and the “Innovation Lead” is nodding so slowly you start wondering if their Wi-Fi is broken.

And then — ghosting.

Days pass. Weeks. You refresh your inbox so often your email app develops trust issues. Then, at 11:58 p.m. on a Friday, you get it: “We were impressed with your experience… but we’ve decided to move forward with other candidates.” You stare at it, sip your cold coffee, and notice they’ve already reposted the exact same job with a slightly different title — as if renaming it is going to magically attract a different kind of applicant.

Here’s the truth — if you’re still here, still applying, still answering questions like “If you were a salad dressing, which would you be?” without throwing your laptop into the sun, you’re already ahead. Job hunting in 2025 isn’t about who’s the most qualified anymore. It’s about who can survive the most hoops without losing their will to live or accidentally telling a recruiter what they really think.

So keep going. Keep showing up. And when that “yes” finally comes, celebrate like it’s the shocking series finale plot twist you’ve been waiting for. Because in this absurd, corporate reality show we’re all trapped in, that moment is pure gold.