People aren’t just #OpenToWork on LinkedIn. Now some job seekers are plain #Desperate.
LinkedIn has long had a green profile-picture banner with the hashtag #OpenToWork . It lets workers broadcast their availability in the hopes an employer might reach out or a friend might connect them to an open job.
Now, job seekers at the end of their ropes are putting a more brutal spin on their status: a pink banner and the word #Desperate.
Those who are using the banner say their desperation often reflects the fact that they have been without a job for months or years. Meanwhile, inflation, recruiting scams , fake job listings and a cooling employment market for white-collar and other jobs have people feeling defeated. Some of them are working, just not in their chosen professions.
Alex Velázquez, a 39-year-old senior art director in motion graphics, started his career right before the 2007-09 recession. The current rut he is in feels worse.
Velázquez was laid off in January. While he has freelanced before to stay afloat, he isn’t getting much work this time around. He attributes his lack of work partly to his industry’s growing use of artificial intelligence and last year’s actors and writers strikes .
In late September, he added the pink #Desperate banner to his LinkedIn profile photo.
“It’s hard not to feel desperate,” says Velázquez, who lives in West New York, N.J.
The September jobs report showed a still-strong labor market. But Labor Department data from last week showed the number of workers quitting their jobs fell to the lowest rate in over four years in August, a sign people are more cautious about finding new roles. There are 2.5 job applicants for every one open job on LinkedIn, up from 1.5 in 2022, according to LinkedIn data.
“There are still some lingering concerns in some corners of the labor market,” says Cory Stahle , an economist with Indeed Hiring Lab, the economic-research arm of jobs website Indeed.
Helpful or hurtful?
Recruiters, hiring managers and career coaches are divided on whether LinkedIn’s #OpenToWork banner helps or hurts would-be employees.
Workers can mark their profiles as being open to work without displaying the badge. Using the highly visible banner alerts their extended network about their need for a job and can potentially spur referrals—or it can broadcast dissatisfaction with someone’s current role.
The #Desperate banner draws even more attention to someone’s need for a job. Recruiters say the tag could help people get noticed and hired. It also could backfire, because some hiring managers might see it as a signal that someone caused problems in their previous workplace.
#OpenToWork can result in “less aggressive” offers, says Keith Sims , chief executive of Integrity Resource Management, a recruiting firm in Indianapolis.
Courtney Summer Myers, a 28-year-old graphic designer and illustrator in Southampton, U.K., started the #Desperate label in late September after being laid off for the second time in January.
Myers’s post hasn’t led to an offer for a full-time job, but she has received thousands of messages, with people offering freelance projects and a few job interviews. Her post adding the hashtag garnered more than 426,000 reactions, as well as 9,500 comments and 8,815 reposts.
“There’s been a lot of discourse about how the #OpenToWork banner puts off recruiters and hiring managers, because it makes you come across as desperate,” she wrote in her LinkedIn post . “Frankly, as a victim of redundancy, I am desperate, and I don’t think that’s anything to be ashamed of.”
‘A lot like dating’
Inspired by Myers, Mac Scheldt—who uses they as a pronoun—changed their LinkedIn profile picture in early October and posted about it.
Scheldt’s frustration stems from the difficulty of getting any job in their industry and how long it has taken. In one particularly difficult scenario, Scheldt, a 25-year-old screenwriter and producer in Los Angeles, was ghosted by a would-be employer a few weeks after the writers strike began.
“It feels a lot like dating,” Scheldt says about the job market.
Sixteen months later, Scheldt is struggling to land a full-time role and cat-sitting to cover expenses. A health scare further delayed their job hunt.
Currently, more than 200 million people have the #OpenToWork option turned on publicly or privately, LinkedIn says. And 85% of people who post about being open to work find support from their network, such as referrals and connections, according to the company.
Uneven job market
Today’s job market feels uniquely frustrating to job seekers because the labor market is so splintered, say recruiters and job seekers.
Some sectors and cities—such as commercial construction in the Southwest—are still hiring briskly and have talent shortages, while other industries, such as marketing and brand management, have cooled off rapidly, says Jeff Kaye , chief executive of Sanford Rose Associates, an executive search and recruiting firm.
Danielle Blanding is a 27-year-old artist looking for work in the fine-arts industry. She started as an arts-administration intern at a nonprofit art gallery in January 2020, shortly before graduating that March. In August 2020, she was promoted to an arts-administrator role on a six-month contract.
Since the contract ended in February 2021, she has worked as a waitress and bartender to pay her bills.
Still, she is frustrated that she hasn’t been able to find work in her field. Blanding moved back in with her parents in Atlanta and is seeing a therapist.
This month, Blanding posted on LinkedIn about being #OpenToWork and changed her profile picture to the #Desperate banner. She has received messages of support and commiseration from people who are in the same situation.
“I don’t think the desperate banner takes away my confidence or bravery,” Blanding says.
— Lynn Cook contributed to this article.
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Write to Ann-Marie Alcántara at ann-marie.alcantara@wsj.com
