Are There Really Jobs, or Just Openings Nobody Plans to Fill?

A Tale of Two Resumes

After months of rejections, a 58-year-old man decides to test the system. He submits two nearly identical job applications to the same company—one with his real work history and graduation year, the other carefully scrubbed of any age clues. One gets an immediate rejection. The other gets a callback. What starts as a quiet experiment to beat the algorithm quickly turns into something much darker once he lands a job inside the company. There, he discovers how the hiring software actually works—and who it’s designed to keep out.  A tense, true-story-style account of one man’s collision with AI-powered age discrimination in today’s job market. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Are There Really Jobs, or Just Openings Nobody Plans to Fill?

Are there really jobs out there, or just openings nobody plans to fill? In this episode, Jim Stroud breaks down the strange, tangled reality of today’s labor market, where job postings are up, hiring feels frozen, recruiters are stuck in limbo, and job seekers are losing trust in the system. The market is not booming. It is not collapsing. It is entangled. This episode brought to you by: The Recruiting Life & Career Intelligence Weekly. Find both newsletters at https://newsletter.jimstroud.com [https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbm92ZXFfNV9hRTRPWGNoSXRsZmlWLTJQeFdMUXxBQ3Jtc0trNV9YTGloTGlhYWhvTzF3d2hES3dPUm9ndWdSWG1oeFdLRm9JVjBJNTY5aVA3a2trbUZMX3JIVllBVFpUU0ExR1ZPbzY5bmIzeW1yTGpRcXdJZDR2Ty1OQ25nRU41Zi0tLTJzYjVlYkQ2M2l1bXpwcw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter.jimstroud.com%2F&v=8P5wtsSbVw0] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

The Robot Isn’t Coming for Your Job. The Spreadsheet Is.

Brought to you by: The Recruiting Life Newsletter - Clarity on what's happening now and next in the world of work. https://newsletter.jimstroud.com ... AI may not take your job overnight, but the spreadsheet might decide your team needs fewer people. In this episode, we move past the sci-fi panic and look at the real workplace question: how employers will use AI to change headcount, hiring, productivity expectations, and career paths. For job seekers, this episode explains why the threat is not always full replacement, but task compression, disappearing entry-level work, and rising expectations. For HR leaders, it raises the harder questions: who benefits from AI productivity gains, how workers are retrained, whether career ladders remain intact, and how to adopt AI without quietly turning augmentation into a quota increase. Less robot uprising, more budget meeting. Less apocalypse, more headcount plan. And that may be exactly why everyone in the labor market should be paying attention. Reports cited in this podcast are here: https://www.one-tab.com/page/EAB4v-rbRX62as8MZ48M2Q Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

All those AI Layoffs Were for Nothing

Gartner studied 350 executives at billion-dollar companies. Eighty percent had cut staff for AI. None of it correlated with higher returns. Goldman Sachs found the stock bounce is gone. Forrester predicted half of all AI-attributed layoffs would be reversed by 2027. The data is in, and it says the same thing from every angle: the cuts were theater. This episode breaks down who knew, who stayed quiet, and what the companies actually winning at AI did instead. Plus, what HR leaders, recruiters, and job seekers can do with the receipts now that they're public. Brought to you by my newsletters: * The Recruiting Life - Clarity on what's happening now and next in the world of work. * Career Intelligence Weekly - Tracking the invisible job market for smarter career decisions. Subscribe to both at https://newsletter.jimstroud.com [https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbWc1NVRfVDRqcmotVUFoejJNdE5PYk8wdjRDZ3xBQ3Jtc0tuOUpzY1NEeF9sRUVGMWp3MUowOHZONEc4MUN6ZW43Nm9SYVhyT2k0TFljT1ZhTFhCb2JfYkQ4X09jTUZwcExacGkyUzEycTRob0lkeTVnRy16SVF2ZnBFTmNaeUV2c3NReUpER0p2dVg2cUZYYXJTcw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter.jimstroud.com%2F&v=DVaj1FUQJxU] Research related to this podcast is cited in the Sunday, May 17, 2026 issue of The Recruiting Life Newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Social Media Background Checks: What Job Seekers Should Know

Jim Stroud reports from the Recruiting Innovation Summit with Ben Mones, founder and CEO of Fama, to discuss how social media background checks are changing hiring. They unpack what employers actually look for online, what job seekers should and should not worry about, and why compliance, context, and public behavior matter in today’s screening process. Our guest: Ben Mones, CEO at Fama web: https://fama.io [https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa2pzTm16ZDlfbFZNOTViN0dNM2xLanhxdFR4UXxBQ3Jtc0tuSE5HWXVFYkZzQktHYkJYMmxOS1V5MVlSems1T0FfVGJtRkRjT3YwNTNiaE1rT1JVQ1E2TS1aSzh3dXMzQ2Ytb0pqVWl1bXM2UndzSmlDZzVvUzJiOUcwMUJkN1NQMWQ1Z2hycWRXc1FjRDZLc19RZw&q=https%3A%2F%2Ffama.io%2F&v=xBWDQDFWzhk] linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-mones... [https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa3dvZTNhWkhpZURUQktpdG94VGNiTUFlTkx4UXxBQ3Jtc0tuODVuZi1RWW1Tc0c1LVZ5ZktibVZXOE9rdDJ2bGhjT2RGQlhLeGNpSjF1UG9NMXc1Njg1MWwxd1dMUzItcU5JVGV6bU12R3dBUUhYT1NDVHYyS1NPSjVfUUFZRVRrSHZ6WS1TcHBMVjdvYzRrSnRSNA&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Fin%2Fben-mones-45740a2a%2F&v=xBWDQDFWzhk] Read: Career Intelligence Weekly News analysis from a job seeker perspective. https://careerintelligence.beehiiv.com/ [https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa0FsaTM3bzJVeHN6OU5xb1J4Qkt0Q2JkMldWQXxBQ3Jtc0tsRjhZX0N3Uk80LUd6VFZvOEpoS2JMME5SV194S0dvRTJuU3VfWFFmVDFJdUtPU0tBa21QSHc0amRvX1lsYnpkT3gtQk5hQlI1TExmQktDVlhPeG9pR2k3VC1CQ213VU1iVnFvTEVaUVE5aGN4MlE4dw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fcareerintelligence.beehiiv.com%2F&v=xBWDQDFWzhk] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]