Even experts find today’s job search experience to be quite traumatic for job seekers.
“Honestly, applying online has got to be one of the most humiliating and depressing things people do,” recruiting expert JT O’Donnell told CNBC Make It. In her 30 years in the recruitment industry, she says she has “never seen a situation this bad.”
Not only have employers halted hiring and left the world abuzz with ghost jobs, but thanks to AI-generated submissions and auto-apply options, advertised positions receive hundreds of applicants within hours.
Given this, O’Donnell says traditional methods of searching for jobs online are unlikely to work. “If I was looking for a job in 2026, I’d honestly stop applying online,” she says.
Rather, she says the best way to get a job in 2026 is to get hired by the company. That means carefully growing your online presence and making strategic connections to get on recruiters’ radar.
How to get hired by your dream company
O’Donnell says a job search strategy could look like this: Start by making a list and following 20-40 companies you want to work for on social channels like Glassdoor and LinkedIn.
Pay attention to what they are posting and start commenting thoughtfully on those topics. O’Donnell observes that “all the recruiters that are using these platforms, the way you’re going to show up in recruitment results is by engaging with their company’s content.”
New research supports O’Donnell’s ideas. The percentage of people hired for roles is rising, with the percentage of candidates sourced by recruiters increasing by 72% since 2023 and nearly 15% last year, according to Glassdoor data.
How to acquire leads through “documentation series”
Another way to get on recruiters’ radar is to create your own posts on platforms like LinkedIn, connect with people at your dream companies, and engage thoughtfully with their posts.
“What’s working right now on social is having conversations about your job, your industry, your skill set,” O’Donnell says. “And that builds a connection, which leads to them sending you a message and saying, ‘I really like what you’re saying on social. It seems like we’re on the same page. Can we connect?'”
He did this every day. On the 17th day, he received a call from a recruiter at a company on his bucket list about an undisclosed job.
“This is the new networking,” she says.
O’Donnell said she saw the work firsthand.
She says she worked with one client, a project manager, to create a bucket list of companies he wanted to work for and began what they called a “documentation streak.”
He checked LinkedIn every day to see if any companies were opening new positions where he could add his perspective based on his experience, skill set, and industry knowledge. I then wrote a post on my LinkedIn profile, tagging the company as appropriate, and reaching out to employees at other companies as needed.
“He did this every day,” O’Donnell said. “On day 17, I got a call from a recruiter at a company on my bucket list about an undisclosed job.”
O’Donnell says he’s found five types of content formats work particularly well on LinkedIn.
Industry Observation: What’s happening in the news in your field? Points of Interest: Do you have a contrarian view of what’s happening in your industry? Then and Now: How has your job changed over time, say over the past five years? List: Can you break down your thoughts, processes, or learnings about a subject into several key points? Storytelling: Tell us a little about yourself as an employee. For example, can you answer behavioral questions commonly asked in job interviews, such as how you resolved difficult situations at work?
“You’re literally creating a space where recruiters can find you and contact you, so you can get interviews in this market,” O’Donnell says. “This will be a new way to get a job.”
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