Why Applying to Jobs No Longer Works

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**SPEAKER_2** (0:30)
No one goes to Hanks for his spreadsheets. They go for a darn good pizza. Lately though, the shop's been quiet. So, Hank decides to bring back the $1 slice. He asks Copilot in Microsoft Excel to look at his sales and costs, help him see if he can afford it. Copilot shows Hank where the money's going and which little extras make the dollar slice work. Now, Hanks has a line out the door. Hank makes the pizza, Copilot handles the spreadsheets. Learn more at m365copilot.com/work.

**Patrick Akil** (1:00)
How bad is the job market right now?

**Keki Mwaba** (1:01)
In 2026 alone, they've been over 120,000 people who've been laid off. That's about 1,000 people a day.

**Patrick Akil** (1:09)
This is Keki Mwaba, career and recruitment expert, and we discuss the state of the tech job market and what you could do about it.

**Keki Mwaba** (1:17)
I think almost CVs are too good these days.

**Patrick Akil** (1:20)
How do I not seem fake?

**Keki Mwaba** (1:21)
Did I just automate myself out of a job? Was this my fault? What did I do? If I was an engineer who wanted to work at Anthropic, OpenAI or similar sort of companies, this was the step I would take. Number one.

**Patrick Akil** (1:35)
I wanted to talk about the job market. And from your perspective, how bad is the job market right now?

**Keki Mwaba** (1:41)
Job market's not great, quite frankly. I think it just depends on different industries, different roles. But if you sort of look at it in general, hiring in 2026 isn't what it used to be, compared to the pandemic boom or even 2023 So there's significantly less roles available, particularly within tech than other sectors. So for example, if you're a care worker working in nursing or old age care, yes, there'll be an abundance of jobs, but for people within tech, there's significantly less opportunities and it's a more competitive market, I think.

**Patrick Akil** (2:15)
Specifically for software engineers or also for some of the other roles, like product or architects, designers.

**Keki Mwaba** (2:21)
Yeah, across different roles, I think engineering has changed in terms of what kind of engineer. So for example, I've worked at Reddit and Uber and Disney Plus, and when I was sourcing, it was heavy on like backend, Android, iOS engineer. But of course, with AI, we're looking for more AI specific engineers. So the type of engineer has changed, as well as within the space of design. For people who are like product designers, UX, UI designers, they also are significantly less roles available than it was even for product roles. So I think we are seeing quite a shift within the market.

**Patrick Akil** (2:56)
And is this specifically from your perspective due to AI? Because that's what I've seen in the market.

**Keki Mwaba** (3:02)
A lot to do with AI. So for example, in 2026 alone, they've been over 120,000 people who've been laid off. That's about a thousand people a day. And it has been within sort of larger tech companies. So for example, OpenAI is still hiring. They plan on doubling their workforce before the end of the year. So small, medium sized AI based companies, they're still growing. But if we look across larger tech, we've seen significant layoffs. However, there's still almost 60,000 software engineer vacancies available at the moment. So it almost kind of doesn't make sense when you look at it in the surface. How can so many people be laid off? But a lot of hiring managers and companies are still saying that they're struggling to find the right talent.

**Patrick Akil** (3:45)
What's your hunch because those two don't really add up?

**Keki Mwaba** (3:48)
Yeah, right. The math is not math-ing.
So I think my hunch is a lot of companies do layoffs initially to do cost-saving. So it seems like a cost-saving initiative at first. And then sometimes I've even seen those same companies who's laid off people rehire them back. And this is after they've given them a package and everything. And then they realize, oh, we thought AI could do everything, but actually we still need people. We still need engineers, designers, product people to do the work. So they've been rehired in a few companies as well. So it's sort of like a little bit of a wave. It's like layoffs and hiring, layoffs and hiring. So, and it's happening more at an accelerated rate, I think in the last year or two than ever before.