Name: Doomjobbing.

Age: Old, but increasing in frequency.

Appearance: Imagine a recruitment website sucking the life from you.

Is this related to doomscrolling, by any chance? How perceptive of you.

Remind me what that is, again. Doomscrolling? It’s where you find yourself sinking into a rabbit hole of short-form content designed to reinforce your worst perceptions of the world.

And now what is doomjobbing? It’s that, but for job ads.

I don’t understand. OK, so imagine you’re stuck in a low-paying and spiritually unfulfilling job. You want out. Where do you look?

A job listings site, probably. Now, imagine that you look at so many job listings sites, filtering through an infinite compendium of jobs that aren’t suitable, or don’t pay enough, or require qualifications that you don’t have. Imagine this is how you spend all your free time. Pick a word that might describe the sensation it causes.

Doom? Doom! The experience is that of repeatedly thwarted hope. You see a job you like, put time and effort into an application, then get your heart broken when you aren’t even invited to an interview. Slowly all your worst feelings about yourself are amplified, and your sense of self begins to erode as you grapple with the notion that you are an unbelievable failure.

This is depressing. See? And all you’re doing is reading about it. Imagine actually living it.

I did! Everyone did! We just didn’t have a fancy name for it then. Well, that isn’t quite true; previously, you were only battling other candidates for jobs. But now there is greater competition, automated hiring and a surge of AI thinning out potential roles. It’s a hard market out there. If people want to come up with a new name for it, let them.

Is there a way out of doomjobbing? Most experts agree that the best thing to do is to stop blitzing arbitrary jobs with cookie-cutter applications and instead drill down on a handful of roles that you really want. Put all your focus and energy into them, and your application will stand a better chance of being noticed.

Which will lead to fewer disappointments. Exactly. I mean, those disappointments will be huge, but it’s a start.

Anything less miserable? You could treat doomjobbing the same way you treat doomscrolling. Set a time limit to stop yourself being sucked into a pit of despair. Go outside. Reconnect with nature. Remember that life is a beautiful thing.

A beautiful thing that you will never be able to afford, because you don’t have a job. Yeesh, you’re right. Doomjob! Doomjob like mad!

Do say: “Doomjobbing will drain you of joy.”

Don’t say: “So it’s good practice for having a job.”