The modern job search has become a strange little carnival of fake urgency, automated silence, inflated job descriptions, AI screening, recruiter ghosting, and cheerful corporate language hiding behind a shrub.

You apply. Nothing happens.

You follow up. Nothing happens.

You rewrite the résumé. Still nothing.

Then someone tells you to “network more,” as if the problem were your insufficient enthusiasm for awkward coffee chats with strangers named Brad.

How to Get Hired in a Broken Job Market was written for people who are done being soothed and ready to get organized.

This is a field manual for job seekers under real pressure. It shows you how to get your attitude, money, résumé, portfolio, outreach, interviews, negotiation, and first 90 days in working order. It also explains what has changed in the market: AI screening, ghost jobs, fake postings, overloaded job boards, longer searches, and employers that often say “talent is our greatest asset” while treating actual talent like office furniture with payroll taxes.

The book is practical, direct, and occasionally impolite where politeness would be dishonest.

· You were laid off and need to move quickly.

· You are graduating into a job market that looks like it was assembled during a power outage.

· You have applied to dozens or hundreds of jobs and heard nothing but the soft electronic hum of rejection.

· You are considering a career pivot but do not want to wander into the fog wearing optimism as a hat.

· You are still employed but suspect the floorboards are making noises.

· You are helping someone else through a job search and want to understand what the process actually feels like from the candidate’s side.

· Get through the first 72 hours after a layoff without making the situation worse.

· Calculate your financial runway and know when to shift search strategy.

· Stop confusing application volume with progress.

· Build a résumé, portfolio, and online presence based on proof.

· Use AI intelligently without letting it invent a plastic version of you.

· Find real people behind job postings.

· Network without sounding like a LinkedIn hostage.

· Prepare for interviews with evidence, not performance fog.

· Handle rejection without letting it rot your confidence.

· Evaluate offers before relief tricks you into saying yes too quickly.

· Start the new job without stepping on the rake in week two.

· Stay ready so the next career shock does not catch you in slippers.

Most job-search advice assumes the market is basically rational.

It is not. The market is crowded, automated, uneven, often rude, and sometimes flat-out absurd. Good candidates disappear into systems nobody fully understands. Companies advertise culture while cutting staff. AI reads résumés before humans do. Recruiters go silent. Job descriptions ask for six people in one pair of pants.

This book does not pretend otherwise.

It gives readers a way to operate anyway.

Not perfectly. Not magically. Not with some mystical personal-brand aura detectable only by hiring managers and podcast hosts.

Just better.

Clearer. Sharper. More organized. Less likely to waste three weeks firing applications into the void while calling it effort.

We do not publish advice that pats you gently on the head while your situation catches fire.

We publish practical books for people who would rather hear the truth than be flattered.

How to Get Hired in a Broken Job Market gives job seekers the structure, judgment, and tactical pressure they need to move through a bad market with their dignity intact and their eyes open.