If the job market feels harder than it should right now, you're not imagining it. Recent analysis from LinkedIn shows that while more than half of professionals (56%) plan to job hunt in 2026, but 76% don't feel prepared. Hiring hasn't stopped, but it has slowed, narrowed, and become more selective. When fewer open roles, higher expectations, and longer decision cycles are now the norm, broad job searches are not the answer, but focusing on targeted job searches.
The biggest risk for older job seekers isn't rejection; it's the silence from hiring managers that can turn a career dry spell into long-term unemployment, executive career coach and strategist Loren Greiff told Business Insider. She sees it happen all the time in her work with executives over 40 years old. "Smart, credentialed leaders get stuck because they're running on an outdated operating system," Greiff said, adding that while younger workers are often hired for potential, older executives aren't.
There is a little bit of showmanship that is going on. That's what I'm hearing from my circle," said Dawn, founder of Upplai, which uses AI to help job seekers with résumés and cover letters.
"Life doesn't care about your passion, and I don't care about your passion," Herjavec recalled Cuban saying during a show taping one season. "I don't care that you love golf or basketball or AI or cyber, I don't give a shit about any of that. What I want to know is, what are you obsessed with?" Herjavec added to Fortune. "Passion is easy, because passion is a wish, but obsession is an action. Passion doesn't demand anything of you. Obsession requires everything of you."
When it comes to earning a living, you might want to be more like Elon. There are some strategy lessons to be learned from the world's richest man, who just won a pay package worth up to $1 trillion at Tesla - even for those of us whose paychecks come with fewer zeros. Of course, most people can't go work at their rocket company if their promotion or job offer doesn't come through.
A year ago my girlfriend asked me to marry her, says Nicoresti on accepting the 10,000 prize last weekend. [When] we were talking about how to pay for the wedding, I joked and said, It's easy, I'll just win the Edinburgh comedy award'. Can it be true? Is Nicoresti not only the first transgender winner of the so-called Oscars of comedy, but the first ever to manifest victory by force of strategic will?
