Why arguing with the job market is a waste of time

Clarity, not credentials, is the real currency now.

One of the hardest patterns to break, especially for people who’ve spent years building successful careers, is the instinct to argue with the new rules.

I see it all the time. Someone loses their job or starts looking for something new. They update their CV, apply for roles, maybe try to reconnect with old contacts. And when they don’t hear back or when every opportunity seems vague, low-paying, or misaligned, they hit a wall of frustration.

That’s usually when the argument starts.
“This isn’t how it used to work.”
“It shouldn’t be this hard.”
“Why do I need to post content just to get noticed?”
“I’ve done great work, shouldn’t that speak for itself?”

These aren’t unreasonable questions but they are misdirected. Because they’re built on the assumption that the system still works the way it used to and that effort leads to visibility, that qualifications equal credibility and that being good at your craft is enough.

In the last two years, I’ve seen that assumption break down across hundreds of conversations. People didn’t get worse at their jobs but the way we surface and value talent has shifted underneath them. Quietly. And for many people, without warning.

I’ve hosted free weekly sessions for over a year now, helping designers and other professionals navigate job transitions. What I’ve seen is that the people who keep trying to make the old system work and double down on polish waiting to be picked, they get stuck. The ones who break through are usually the ones who stop waiting and start experimenting.

They try things that don’t always feel comfortable at first:
Sharing unfinished thoughts.
Building in public.
Reaching out directly to the people they want to work with without asking for a job but offering a perspective.

They’ve understood that the market doesn’t reward invisibility. And that being great in private doesn’t create opportunities on its own.

I get why people resist this. I’ve had to face it myself, more than once.

When I moved from hospitality to recruiting, it wasn’t because I had a perfect next step lined up. It was because I felt something shifting, and I followed the thread. Later, when I moved into building design communities, it wasn’t a clean handoff. It was complex and full of doubt, but it carried an energy I knew I had to trust and follow. And when I started using AI, I finally felt early for the first time. I wasn’t chasing a trend, I was stepping into something that made sense in my bones.

At every one of those inflection points, I had to ask myself the same thing:

Do I want to eat?

Is this direction alive to me?

Or do I want to stand still and argue with reality?

And every time I chose movement. Even when it was unclear. Even when it didn’t “make sense” to other people.

Is it fair? No. And yet fairness doesn’t put food on the table.

The better question is: does it work?

And the answer, increasingly, is yes. But only if you’re willing to meet the market where it is.

This doesn’t mean turning your job search into a performance. It’s closer to treating it like a design challenge: What signal are you sending? Who is it reaching? And what might they see in you, not someday, but now?

It also means realising how much of the old system masked a deeper gap: most people were never taught how to make their work legible.

In this environment, legibility isn’t a bonus, it’s literally the price of entry. If someone can’t understand how you think, what problems you’re great at solving, or where you want to go next, you’re not going to get pulled into the right conversations.

One shift I’ve seen work over and over is reframing the job search as a process of becoming findable, not just applying harder. That might mean writing. It might mean shipping small projects. It might mean asking better questions in public, so the right people can see how you think.

The specifics vary. But the principle is the same: visibility leads to clarity, and clarity leads to opportunity.

And yet, even when people know this, even when they see it working for others, there’s still resistance. Because it feels unfair. Because it feels like more work. Because it wasn’t part of the old system they were trained to succeed in.

I understand that resistance. I’ve sat with it myself, many times. I still do.

What I’ve seen is that the people who stop arguing, and start experimenting, tend to find traction faster. They aren’t succeeding because they are louder, or flashier, or naturally good at self-promotion. They’re succeeding because they are willing to test the reality in front of them, instead of waiting for it to change.

My point is that you don’t have to love that the job market changed.

You just have to stop expecting it to stay the same.

Once you do, you’ll see it differently.
Not as a closed system, but as an open field.
Not as a performance, but as a process of becoming easier to say yes to.
Not about being perfect, just legible, visible, and in motion.