Long-Term Unemployment Isn’t a Skill Problem, It’s a System Design Failure
The real reason long-term unemployed professionals are struggling to get hired
There’s a pattern emerging in the job market that almost no one is talking about honestly, and it’s affecting an entire category of talent: the long-term unemployed.
People assume that if someone has been out of work for six, nine, twelve months, there must be something wrong with them. They must be unqualified. They must have performance issues. They must be doing something incorrectly.
That assumption is lazy and wrong.
The real hiring landscape right now
Today’s job market isn’t just competitive. It’s structurally restricted.
• Many six-figure roles collect 300 to 1,000 applications within days
• A portion of posted roles are ghost listings that never get filled
• Companies freeze hiring mid-search without telling candidates
• ATS filters and visibility ranking determine whether a human ever sees a résumé
• Some companies keep roles open for internal politics or future planning
This isn’t a talent shortage. It’s a transparency shortage.
Why people apply broadly and relentlessly
When someone has been unemployed for months, they’re not applying to four carefully curated jobs in their metro area. They’re applying to every role they are qualified for:
• across industries
• across states
• across salary tiers
• across seniority levels
• including relocation if they can afford it
And that isn’t desperation.
It’s rational adaptation to a market where opportunity is unevenly distributed.
The hidden bias in hiring
Many companies have an unspoken belief:
“Good talent is always working.”
That may have been somewhat true twenty years ago. It’s not true today.
Entire sectors have been hit by rolling layoffs and restructurings:
• tech
• media
• HR
• customer success
• operations
• marketing
It is entirely normal for excellent candidates to have multiple layoffs in short succession because the economy shook them, not because they failed.
What employers are missing
Long-term unemployed candidates often bring qualities that are wildly underappreciated:
• resilience
• emotional maturity
• adaptability
• willingness to prove themselves
• perspective
• loyalty once hired
These aren’t visible on LinkedIn timelines.
But they are real indicators of future performance.
The psychological cost of silence
The hardest part isn’t rejection.
It’s nothing.
No update.
No timeline.
No closure.
No transparency.
Candidates end up questioning their value when the real issue isn’t competence, it’s signal visibility and process opacity.
This isn’t motivational. It’s factual.
This is a system design failure
Right now, the hiring ecosystem is selecting for:
• uninterrupted employment
• “safe” career narratives
• straight-line progression
Not necessarily the best performers.
Not necessarily the best humans.
Not necessarily the most capable contributors.
And that’s a problem.
The change that needs to happen
We need hiring processes that:
• treat candidates with transparency
• reduce bias around employment gaps
• clarify when roles are frozen
• audit ATS visibility practices
• measure true capability, not just chronology
Because punishing people for experiencing macroeconomic instability is both unethical and strategically stupid.
If you’ve been unemployed for a while
It’s not a reflection of your worth.
It’s not a reflection of your talent.
It’s not a reflection of your capability.
It’s a reflection of a hiring system that filters on assumptions instead of wisdom.
•••••
Keri Tietjen Smith is a Human Systems Architect, talent strategist, and writer exploring identity, reinvention, and the messy, beautiful truth of becoming yourself.
If this hit you in the chest, you can read more of my work at keritietjensmith.com or join my Substack for weekly stories on growth, power, and the future of being human.
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