‘It is job repellent’: Job seekers change LinkedIn profile photos to say they’re ‘desperate for work’

If you are going crazy looking for another job, you’re not alone.

In some ways, it feels like the world of work has not caught up with the way life is in 2026. It may stay up to date on the technology, but the culture seems to be way behind the modern reality of trying to find a job. 

In almost every industry and especially the corporate ones, job seekers will told that they need to be open to opportunities, build their personal brand, and know where to look online and elsewhere to get to the job openings before everyone else does. That doesn’t stop hundreds of people at a time from applying the for the same role, though, and a lot of the time a hiring manager is going to ignore a LinkedIn message begging for a networking ‘coffee chat’. A lot of the process feels like a pointless exercise with no job offer at the end of it.

The reality is that knowing the right people is more important than ever when it comes to finding work. Studies agree that for recent college graduates in particular, simply having a degree does not necessarily give them much of an edge in the employment market. More people are looking for a job with their qualifications, and they don’t necessarily make them stand out.