How To (Actually) Get a New Job in 2026

Look, I'm not here to tell you to reach out to recruiters on LinkedIn and apply to 50 jobs a day. Like no, this is a new job market we are in. 2026 is the beginning of a whole new era. And so I'm here to give you advice that is actually going to work for 2026. The modern day workplace for the modern day worker. And the thing about my advice is that it's not just based off of vibes and theorizing what I think might work. No, it's based off of cold hard data and lots and lots of lots of case studies. It's almost like I know what I'm talking about and my advice works. I don't know. All right, let's get into the video. Hey folks, and welcome to my channel. My name is Erin McGough, aka Advice with Erin. And I'm here to help you feel more confident in your career. And if you're watching this video, help you get a new job in 2026. And yes, you can do it and I will show you how. Here's a little breakdown of what we're going to be covering in this video. First, I'm going to explain to you the two reasons why it feels so, so, so difficult to get a new job right now. And no, you're not crazy or lazy. It's just different now. Number two, I'm going to reveal to you my signature job search strategy that whenever I teach people about it, they always have much, much, much more luck landing job interviews. And finally, number three, we are going to do a rapid fire round of advice. Just quick little things here and there that you can change or implement to improve your job search and start getting interviews at some of your dream companies. So if you're ready, I'm ready. Let's get into it. So you're not crazy. You're not lazy. Yeah, no. Old way of hiring is dead. The linear career path in hospice. Climbing the corporate ladder is on life support. And that's both good and bad. The reason that people are struggling, it comes down to two different things. Number one, something that you can't control, which is the economy and job market. And number two, something that you can control, which is your strategy. We are going to focus on the second thing, what you can control, and that is your strategy, your behaviors, your actions, your choices, and what you choose to do. But first, let me just explain what's going on with the economy. So according to Indeed's 2026 jobs report, we are in what's called a low fire, low hire environment. It basically means that we are in a very, very, very stale job market. There's just not a lot going on. Not a lot of people are hiring. Not a lot of people are firing. People are kind of just staying put, doing what they're doing. Job postings have declined nearly 10% year over year. And the sectors that are getting hit the hardest are professional services, consulting, tech. Of course, the federal government had a big hit last year. Meanwhile, industries like healthcare, construction, the skilled trades can't find enough workers. There's massive, massive demand. So that's why a lot of people feel gaslit is because some industries are super hot, and they can't find enough workers, and you can get a job like so quickly. And then other industries are really, really, hurting. And they're being impacted by policy and AI and innovation and perceived innovation. That was the economy. But now let's look at the second reason why it's so hard to find a job. Hey, really quick, I wrote a book. It's called The Secret Language of Work, Hyper Helpful Scripts for Every Situation. Basically, I curated all of my best advice, how to screw with your boss, quit your job, negotiate your salary, all that stuff, and I put it into a nice little book for you. So if you're interested in pre-ordering, we also have this fun PDF that you'll get for free. Only people who pre-order the book get this. That's it. You are going to love it. Back to the video. The utterly broken online hiring process, the whole thing, soup to nuts. It is non-functioning. According to a 2025 greenhouse study, 18 to 22% of all jobs are ghost jobs, positions that either don't exist or the companies have no urgent need of filling. And before you're like, ghost jobs should be illegal. They are illegal. It is illegal to post a ghost job. However, you and me could both go online right now and post a job that we have no intention of filling. And there's no way that job platform Indeed, ZipRecruiter, there's no way they could know that it's a ghost job because if they contacted us, we would just say, oh no, that job's legit. We're really looking to hire. Like there's no way to gauge intention. You know what I mean? And it really, really sucks. By the way, I have another video on why ghost jobs exist and why companies do it. So you can go check that out if you want. But besides ghost jobs, the way we hire now is basically taking friction out of the entire process. Back in the day, you used to have to like find a job ad in the newspaper, literally type out your resume, drive down to the company and like hand your physical paper resume to a receptionist. There was so much friction to apply to one job. But nowadays there's like AI auto apply bot things that'll apply to a thousand jobs within one second for you. And so that means that the systems companies use to hire are getting clogged. Like you guys have no idea if you don't work in hiring. I hired an engineer the other day and I posted on a niche tech hiring platform. I didn't even post on Indeed or LinkedIn or any of those. And I got 300 of these same AI generated resumes and I immediately threw them all out because I couldn't tell the difference. It was all the same exact AI slop. And so that's what's happening on a larger scale. And so we need to find a new way to hire. And I'm definitely working on that, but it's a very fragmented industry and it's not something that you can just change overnight with one product. Anyway, I digress. Now let's talk about how to just go around this entirely, go around this dumpster fire, because that's what it is. If you want to get a job this year, this is what I recommend that you do. You need to switch from a job forward approach to a company forward approach. What does this mean, Erin? What does it mean? I'd be happy to tell you. So a job forward approach is what most people do. They go on Google, they go on Indeed, they go on LinkedIn and they search for jobs. They search for open roles that have been posted to the internet that are available to everybody, the public, the visible job market. This is one way to get a job and it's what 99.99% of people do. However, I recommend that you take a company forward approach. This is where instead of pursuing jobs, you pursue companies. And this is because more often than not, companies don't hire a random person off the internet. They hire somebody who has referrals, who knows somebody who works there, who has a good recommendation. They hire through word of mouth. This is also known as a hidden job market. So while they'll post the job online, they're really just hiring somebody who knows someone. And that's not a bad thing. If you're running a company, you would rather hire somebody who has a real person to recommend them than a random person online. There's just more trust there. This is like tribalism. It goes back to like our oldest caveman brains. However, with the online job hiring process being so broken, this is happening so often. When I left my job at a big media company a couple of years ago to start advice with Aaron, the first question they asked me was, do you know of anybody who could replace you? And if I recommended somebody, they probably would have hired her like right then. And maybe they would have posted the job online for compliance or whatever HR, but like they're going to hire who they want to hire. And remember computers don't hire. Okay. They might help with scanning resumes or cover letters and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, they actually don't hire. And recruiters don't even hire. HR doesn't even hire. They curate and compile and filter and interview. But at the end of the day, it's usually the department head who actually makes the final hiring decision. So it's important that you don't just network with recruiters as well, but you also go network with the actual decision makers at the end of the day. I digress. A company forward approach. So what I need you to do is you can still go on the hiring platforms and just research companies. Just make a list of like 10 to 20 companies that you would like to work for. You've looked at their website. You like their mission thing. You like their benefits. They have some jobs posted, maybe not the exact job you want, but you know that job exists at that company. And then you want to put them in an Excel spreadsheet, Notion, Airtable, whatever you use. And then all you got to do is just stalk that company. Easy as that. Follow them on social media. Put out a little job alert thing on LinkedIn and just kind of keep tabs on them. Maybe on LinkedIn, you can go to the little people button. You can see who works there. You can see if anybody from your university works there. You can start to kind of reach out and say, Hey, I just want to introduce myself. I know you don't have any open positions right now, but I'm interested in being considered. You know, in the future, if you do, here's my resume. You can keep it on file. You just kind of have this like soft approach to it. I'm interested in pursuing a career of this company at some point, like no pressure right now. I'm just kind of poking around, seeing what's out there. And then that way, when you do end up applying to that open role that opens up, you already have an established relationship. You already have those connections. And this is how people are getting the good jobs. Trust me, the jobs that have great bosses, that pay well, that have good hours, like random people are not getting those incredible hybrid or jobs that pay well, that have great cult. Like those are going to people who have the ability to network. The reason that this works so well is because 99% of people don't do it. And they're not willing to do it. I bet a lot of you watching this video right now are like not Aaron. I'm going to stick with my spray and pray. They call it, that's what they call it in HR spray and pray. It's when you just apply to a bunch of jobs and you just, you know, pray that some spaghetti sticks to the wall. And that's fine. Like that is your prerogative. I'm not forcing you to do anything. And that's why this works for the 1% of people who do do it is because most people aren't doing it. Again, I give advice that I see work. Okay, time for our rapid fire round. Number one, ABN. Always be networking. Networking doesn't mean that you're in some stuffy conference room with name tags. The best networking ever is when you're at like your cousin's wedding and you meet their friend who happens to work in the same industry as you. Like that, that is the most authentic best networking you can possibly do. It's just making professional friends. It's not scary if you know how to do it right. Being a normal human, talking to other humans, asking people what they're up to, what you can do for them, you know, sending them articles they find interesting, checking in, liking their LinkedIn posts, like it's just networking. Always be networking. Always be making positive impressions on new people. You just want to keep spreading that web, making it as wide as possible. Okay, number two, keep your resume warm. Keep it toasty. The job search used to take around three to six months on average, but now it's taken more like seven months on average. And that's just the average. Long term unemployment has really spiked or new grad unemployment has really spiked. So for some demographics, it's taken them even years to get a new job. So even if you have a job right now, if you're in an industry where like layoffs are happening, or like policy might affect your industry, keep that resume warm. Dust it off a little. Take a little look at it. I know it's annoying to never feel settled. And I always say it's so ironic that working for yourself, I feel like it's the most secure job now. Because no one can fire me. No one can lay me off. I'd like to see you try. I spend too much time alone. But I know, I know. I kid. I try to keep things light. But it really is unfortunate. I think it's so dumb that companies can just lay you off for no reason. But this is the reality we live in. So you got to keep that resume warm. Just keep it nice and toasty. And by the way, if you need a resume makeover, I have a free resume template. That's ATS optimized. You can literally download it for free like right now. Just go to advisotheron.com slash resume. Super easy. Number three, consider pivoting. Sometimes when you're really, really, really struggling in your job search, you're actually searching for a role that is actually declining. So companies aren't really desiring that exact role anymore. And maybe like AI is changing it or your industry is just kind of like morphing and shifting into this new thing. So if you can like slightly tweak, like make a lateral move to another industry doing the same thing, or maybe just blow everything up and make a giant pivot. I see a lot of people doing that now. And honestly, I think it's a great time to be doing that. Like if you have the money saved up and you have a plan and a safety net and you want to go start your own business or like completely do something else, it's not a bad idea. I actually have a little side project. It's called stupid fish. And it's basically a hyper-intelligent algorithm that tells you exactly what job you should have based on a bunch of different metrics, like what you want out of your life, where you live, the job market, like your previous skills and experience, like all that stuff. Because I saw this problem of people just simply being in the wrong career and knowing that there's better careers out there for them. They just maybe don't know what they are, what they're called. So stupid fish is there if you want to check it out. Number four, and this one really works y'all. You got to put AI on your resume and on your LinkedIn profile. Now, of course, please use common sense. If your industry is not so keen on AI and you work in creative stuff or, you know, maybe you're in publishing or something like that, don't do this part. However, most industries are fairly keen on AI. And so by just implying that you're AI curious, AI literate, or you're willing to lean into AI on your resume can take you very far. I've heard of several companies just completely scrapping resumes that don't mention AI. It's not so much they want you to have AI skills, but they want to hire people who are willing to embrace it. And if you're watching this and you're like, Aaron, nope, I'm not doing anything AI, then don't do it. But just adding things like Chachabitty or Claude or Perplexity, or if you really want to play it safe, 99% of Fortune 500 companies use Microsoft Copilot. So sticking Copilot on there is actually really safe. People trust Microsoft. But I'd recommend just, you know, putting it on there, just kind of covering that base, see what happens. And finally, just make sure all your boxes are checked. You got a nice, clean, ATS-optimized resume. Again, I have a free template here. You can download 100% for free. You got a nice cover letter template. Make sure that you have that LinkedIn profile set up. You got a nice professional photo. You got a nice headline. You got a little summary, some experience, maybe some recommendations. And you have a nice, clean digital footprint. You know, if they Google your name, you know what comes up, which they will, by the way, Google your name and they will look you up on social media. And if you're like, oh, my name isn't attached to my handle. They have ways around that. So definitely make sure you're nice and buttoned up. And finally, I'll leave you with this. 2026 is a skills-focused market. Skills are now the number one thing companies look for. In general, they're more important than degrees, years of experience, places you've worked. Companies really don't care about what you've done. They care about what you can do. So don't rest on your laurels. Instead, talk about what you want to do and where you want to go. And I personally believe that this is a great thing because if you're motivated and willing to grow and learn, then there is a company out there that would be lucky to have you. And remember, y'all, when you're looking for a new job, it can be taxing. So take breaks, give yourself some grace. A lot of people are really struggling right now. So it's not just you. And remember, respond to those rejection emails. No, really, responding to rejection emails is like one of my favorite pastimes because it's just so bold. It's so confident. I have a short explaining how to do that. So that's it for today. Remember, you got this and I'll see you next time.