What prevents an employer from recognizing a person’s value?
When a job seeker has been struggling with the job market for some time, a common frustration I’ll hear usually centers around feeling undervalued in some way.
“Why can’t I get these recruiters to see how valuable I am?” - Common when a job seeker fits the bill perfectly with a job posting’s wants and asks, but nobody calls.
“How do I communicate my value on my application?” - Common when a job seeker knows that they bring a lot to the table, but struggles with writing about themselves.
Then there’s the frustration about needing to feel valuable at all, when survivability is on the line.
“Don’t these people realize that if I can’t find a job, I’m going to lose my home? I’m going to lose my car?”
So, I want to take a few minutes today and do a few thought experiments with you on how I approach the problem of recognizing value.
Let’s set the stage.
With the continuation of AI’s grip on the corporate world - and particularly within hiring - it’s been eye-opening to see how many of the little things we took for granted in job searches have been affected.
The mass recruitment and talent acquisition layoffs we saw in 2023 and 2024 never fully recovered, and it’s likely that they never will. Fewer hiring decision-makers are around, and yet they’re being asked to do more than ever before. What’s more, hiring decision-makers are being asked to incorporate AI into their tasks and workflows as much as possible, adding layers of complexity to their day-to-day.
Hiring rates are not what they used to be. A common theme of 2026 is that employers are now hiring “cautiously,” especially in white-collar sectors. Employers will post jobs just to test the waters. Employers will take a candidate through an interview process and never reveal that the job doesn’t exist.
Workday and Greenhouse have leaned hard into predictive intelligence across their platforms, all to make candidate ranking and sorting easier than ever. Applicant screening is faster and more decisive than ever before, yet hyper-realistic bot applicants with AI-written applications continue to flood the dashboard.
The little things - having enough people around to support the candidate journey, believing that a job posting is real, and believing that you’ll be getting a reasonable, human-centric evaluation from an employer - all look very different today thanks to AI.
Now, let’s go back to the problem of an employer recognizing value.
Let’s say that you are a fantastic, highly qualified candidate, with a flawless resume, filled with metrics and accomplishments and awards, and all typed out by your human hand. And let’s say that you do all the right things - you’re an early applicant, you’ve written a real cover letter, and you’ve properly typed out all the application questions. (No “see resume” answers!)
But in spite of all the value you bring and you display in your application, nobody gives you a call.
Why - in the world - would you think that your value is the thing that’s lacking in this situation?
I’ve just shown you a sampling of the hurdles that you need to overcome - all the things that need to be aligned in your favor - in order to land a simple phone screening, let alone a job.
I’ve also just shown you how impersonal hiring has become thanks to AI - and which will likely get worse with time.
And yet you’re beating yourself up - and even questioning your value, your worthiness, your employability - over systems and structures that were never designed to support you.
So, where do we go from here?
There will be times when I’ll look at a job seeker’s job search tools - their resumes, cover letter templates, portfolios - and I’ll recommend changes for communicating value or positioning themselves more effectively for the roles they’re after.
But there are also times when I’ll look at the job search tools and think, wow, this is great work.
To those individuals, I do my very best to not let them dwell over their value, or fret over tiny details on their resume, or think less of themselves because they aren’t getting a callback for a job.
Instead, I spend our energies in redesigning their job search strategies from the ground up. I’ll ask about their online job application history, but I’ll also ask questions about their network, their online presence, and how they’re utilizing LinkedIn. We’ll look at opportunities for referrals, opportunities to connect with decision-makers, and ways that we can put our expertise on display.
Employers gravitate to candidates that they feel they can know, like, and ultimately trust - and it’s that know/like/trust factor that we want to exploit to the best of our abilities.
Perhaps we decide that giving value to your industry or target profession could be the right way to bring visibility to your job search. Maybe sharing your professional story in a series of LinkedIn posts could be the right first step in creating interest from hiring decision-makers. There’s also an emotional layer to hiring that doesn’t get talked about enough. (The next time you get a chance, ask one of the senior leaders at your company how often they rely on “gut instinct” when making a hiring decision. You’ll be surprised by the answer.)
There’s so much to explore regarding job search strategy - and once a job seeker starts seeing that initial traction in their job search, any doubt they ever had about being valued or being seen as valuable almost always goes away.
If you’re interested in working together on your job search strategy, don’t hesitate to send me a message on LinkedIn or shoot me an email at hello@gabbyturmelle.com.
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