The State of the Job Market for Black Women

For the past year, Black women have been facing job loss and the most challenging job market we've seen in a long time.

For some of us, navigating this space has presented exhaustion, hopelessness, and fear about our career trajectories and financial stability.

In this podcast episode, Mercedes Swan, the Career Love Coach sets out to inspire some hope by sharing what's going on in the job market for Black Women based on employment data, how this is impacting Black women, and how you can confidently navigate the job market with confidence by leveraging Brilliance Niching!

Start Brilliance Niching: The show featured two resources to help you start defining your Black Woman Brilliance!

• Get the Black Woman Brilliance Niching Workbook to get clear on your niche for your 2026 job search: https://www.mercedesswan.com/offers/8inUpAAF
• Watch the Black Woman Bliss Blueprint Webinar, which highlights Brilliance Niching and a 90-day Job Search Strategy: https://www.mercedesswan.com/bliss

Join the Black Woman Bliss Community

Connect with a supportive group of Black women who are building their dream careers with sisterhood, strategy, and support. The Community features connection circles, group coaching, coworking, and a training portal featuring over 60 lessons!

Join now with a 14-day free trial: https://www.mercedesswan.com/offers/eJeeU6Va/checkout

Work with Mercedes Swan:

Mercedes loves coaching and mentoring Black women who are launching their job search, learning to navigate the workplace with confidence or are planning their 9-5 exit by building a business she loves.

Connect with Mercedes here to explore 1:1 Coaching or Mentoring: https://www.mercedesswan.com/connect

Referenced in the Show

• Economic Policy Institute Blog
• Economic Policy Institute Data 
• 2025 Lean In Report
•  Logan In the Future 
•  Tank Rhodes 
•  Why 300,000 Black Women Were Pushed Out Of The Workforce  

Transcripts

 black women are still getting laid off at higher rates
and everyone is telling us to just keep applying
but girl
you and i both know that the job market is trash
and i'm here to tell you that it is not your fault okay
for the past few months
i have been monitoring the job market
and doing a little bit of research
and analyzing what's actually working for black women
and what's not so in this episode
i am breaking down what's happening in this job market
and what you need to do to navigate it with confidence
if you are exhausted from applying to jobs
getting ghosted and worrying about layoffs
this episode is for you so let's get into it
alright sis
i am ready to get into it
okay we have three big topics
that we're covering in this episode
the first one is an explanation of the job market
because i know y'all love to know like
why is this happening
you don't want to just know what's happening
you want to know why we're gonna end up talking about
how this is actually really impacting black women
based on the factors
that we are seeing in the job market
and i have some really interesting
cool research to share with you
so hopefully i get to share those on the screen
and then the last thing we're gonna do
is talk about some strategies
that are going to help you in this job market
again the goal of this is not to blame you
but at the end of the day
we do have to do some problem solving
and see how we can make it work
okay so again
we're not we're not victim blaming here
but we are talking about what we can do
okay
and at the end of this episode
we are going to talk about this concept
called brilliance niching
which is the only thing that i think
is actually working for black women in this job market
so we're going to go through what it is
and how you can leverage it
alright let's go into topic one
by the way this podcast
is sponsored by the black woman bliss community
so to all of our members
thank you for supporting this work
thank you for being a part of the community
and if you want to learn more about the community
and join learn more in the show notes
okay so
let's get started with an explanation
of what's actually going on in this job market
so we know in the beginning of twenty twenty five
things started to hit the fan
i think many of us thought it was gonna hit the fan
but i think the like
the fallout was more than i think
we really thought it was i mean
i'm gonna be honest even as a career coach
and somebody who's in the di space
i didn't think this was gonna hit black women as fast
i didn't think that we weren't gonna be impacted at all
but i didn't think it was gonna be this fast
right and so in the beginning of the year
we start seeing all of these reports come out
i mean we're seeing it right
if you're chronically on linkedin like i am
you started seeing all the reports
of black women losing jobs
and i'm looking for work
and all these other types of things
that had been ongoing
but it almost seems like it was just back to
back to back come um
beginning to mid twenty twenty five right
and so we began to see this shift
and then the reports came out that said okay
the data the bureau of labor statistics
is actually releasing things that say
that black women's rate of unemployment
is increasing exponentially
and by the way x this many black women
which has continued to increase
from the three hundred thousand
has continued to increase throughout the year
and going into twenty twenty five right
so i want to talk about the different dynamics
of why i think this is happening
because i do know
in order for you to keep moving forward
in your job search you honestly
you need to understand that it is not you
there are a lot of dynamics going on um
and so i think that again
i'm gonna talk about the concept of brilliance niching
and why that's going to be extremely important
for you to move forward but that being said
i'm gonna take us back kind of through history
about how this job market got here
and what that's doing to black women
so that you have that concept
before we actually go into strategy
right cause i
i need you to love on yourself okay
so back in twenty twenty
so my background by the way
is executive recruitment right
so in this twenty twenty to twenty
twenty three job market i was in the thick of it
hiring candidates i was
like i said i was an executive recruiter
i was also doing a lot of talent acquisition consulting
and there was just a lot going on right
so twenty twenty
we all know the the world locked down
and that meant that there was a huge
like decline in job loss right
and i'll share the the graphic that shares that um
for our communities right
so there was a huge job loss across the board
not just for the black community and black women
but across the board due to the pandemic right
and so we see that kind of bounce back
as the world starts reopening
and we see that right
the unemployment rate is improving
and it's kind of normalizing
and then all of a sudden i think
because so many people were coming to work
and employers were really trying to grab up talent
to take advantage of this moment right
we know that there were so many organizations
particularly in tech um
that were just booming because everybody was at home
right and so it was almost like a war for talent
and so that meant that it made it super easy um
to pivot and get a new job
i am one of the black women who
quote unquote left over the broken rung
so the broken rung is a concept
where a lot of marginalized candidates
and particularly black women
are not able to move from individual contributors
where they're not managing anybody
into a manager level role why
because there's not access and support and development
and also people aren't advocating for us
there's there's a lot of things that contribute
to the broken rung right
i'll probably link below so you can watch
you can look at reports
i think lean in really talks about it a lot
i think it's actually their concept
sorry if that's incorrect
um but that being said
i wasn't planning on talking about the broken rung
but that being said right
i was one of those black women
who moved into a management role
which is also coinciding with the glass cliff right
so many black women were promoted
during this very uncertain time in history
in twenty twenty right
so again i was one of those uh
black women i was promoted into my first manager
my first formal manager level role in twenty twenty
end of closer to the end of twenty twenty
and so during this time as a recruiter
like literally in the thick of it
i was in a situation where i would open a position
and there would be like five hundred applications right
and it was just wild because like
ninety percent of them weren't qualified candidates
so they hadn't tailored their resume
but also at the time
we're so desperate to just hurry up
and bring people back in from post lock
like we're reopening
we're rehiring hiring freezes are gone
and by the time i would actually
invite candidate to an interview
they'd be like oh
i've already had a job and so
even though there was a large volume of applications
employers had to move very quickly
in order to secure a new hire
because people were just trying to hire
as quickly as they possibly could
and even though there were a lot of positions
per requisition or per job posting
there were still
i would say it was still an employee's market right
it was a job seeker's market
meaning there there were more opportunities um
for job seekers or sorry
there there were more jobs per job seeker
so it was easy to get a job right
and then we kind of come from the swing back
where a lot of these like
i think in between the twenty
twenty two twenty
twenty three twenty
twenty four um
job market
a lot of these tech organizations that i think
went through this boom post covid right
cause we were all using technology
we were all remote working
all of those things i think
led to a shift in the job market
where a lot of people were being laid off
so now you have this quote unquote
prime talent that's worked for fortune
five hundred companies into the job market
meaning that for other people
who don't maybe have that background or expertise
the it's harder right
cause those people are seen as a
like the most desirable candidates right
cause they've worked for these types of organizations
right so then moving into twenty twenty three
it became a much more challenging job market
but it was still working
that you could apply to a lot of different jobs
with a more generalized resume
and still get a decent amount of interviews right
that absolutely happened for me
i was job seeking in twenty twenty three
and i was applying to a quite a bit of jobs
but i was actually having a really hard time in that
i wasn't getting like
i used to be able to apply to like ten jobs
and like half of them i get interviews for
and the other half of like whatever cool
like fine
and then maybe one of those i got an offer for was fine
that's how all of my other job searches had gone
prior to this right
so it was really weird that i was applying to like
a hundred two hundred
three hundred jobs
and i was really not getting that many interviews
here's the thing though
even in that job market was more challenging
it just means that you had to play the number game
and it was still gonna work out fine
now because of the twenty twenty to twenty
twenty three slash twenty twenty four job market
i think what happened is that we began to normalize
that general resumes can just make it
that are like
we don't have to put in that much effort to network
or follow up or to really um
make our professional brand super clear
because we know at the end of the day
like it's gonna this is a numbers game
we gotta just get it out there
now the difference with the twenty twenty five slash
twenty twenty six job market and beyond
is that it is truly an employer's job market
so they are not having agile um
recruitment practices meaning
they don't care how long it takes a candidate
to move through their process
because they could wait six months
and a candidate will still be in their
in their pool in their funnel
right um
it also means that because all of the
there's some other challenges i'll talk about
but because of the dynamics
and what's going on in the job market
and how talent is moving
it means that employers get to be slower
pickier and less efficient
if we're gonna be honest in their search process
and i think there are a lot of compounding factors
to that which is why we've shifted so much
in the last five to six years
in the job market and
i'm just gonna tell you about those
compounding factors now
so that you can kind of know what's going on
compounding factor number one
anti dei okay
whether you say dei is performative or not
even in organizations that were engaging in
quote unquote performative
dei likely released training and resources
and expectations around hiring
that ensured that they reached a more diverse audience
that they had some equity measures
to support marginalized groups
and that they were inclusive
meaning that they could prove to an organization
that they were actually taking efforts
to hire individuals that were different
and ensure that they felt comfortable working there
right di right
we got the belonging the justice
the access
there's a lot of other things that we could talk about
but if we talk about that at a basis
like
there were some like
some big tech organizations that i heard of
that was basically i mean
they weren't doing quotas
but they were saying like
you had to have a certain amount of diversity
in your talent pool before you could start hiring
right and that's very performative
but at the end of the day
it did result in more black and brown
black women candidates right
being in their candidate pool
more diverse audiences right
or more diverse candidates
and so at the end of the day
even if it was performative
it still worked now organizations
whether it was performative or actually really
they were really engaging in true allyship and change
a lot of those things either went away
or they were made illegal
or they were kind of put on a back burner
or they were silenced
or they went together all together
due to the pressures of our political administration
right so there's all of these dynamics
whether somebody was really trying to do the work
or they were not that led to a
a difference in a result
in how we showed up and interacted as black women
but other marginalized candidates right
in the candidate pool right
so because those things went away
that meant there were less
there was less effort and there's less opportunity
which means that organizations right now
are not training to the extent right
are not training their organizations against um
unconscious bias right
they're likely not training more
around how to screen better in their candidate pools
because those are a lot of the times
that's like a product of dei training right
we have to know how to vet people appropriately
based on their knowledge skills
and abilities versus what their background is
or how much we connect to them
and those are most often led by dei programs
and professionals or hr teams
that are actually connected and care about that work
right it's not just dei teams
um and then it also normalized whether or not you could
you needed to care about it right
and normalize the fact
that you didn't need to care anymore right
and so all these compounding factors
means that less black women were reached out to
i'm getting into impact oopsies
but less black women are reached out to
there's less opportunities for development
and by the way i don't need to go um
set up all of these programs
to teach people how to hire better
okay which takes us to our next point
with ai job screening and ai recruitment tools
and ai resume tools okay
so i want to do a shout out to logan on tiktok
i will put her information in the um
and the show notes
but she made this post of this article that came out
which basically demonstrated that employer sorry
that employers and hiring teams
and hiring managers
are completely ineffective at screening candidates
right evaluating them
understanding who's a good candidate
who's a bad candidate
post pre twenty
twenty pre ai
people are bad at hiring people are bad at evaluation
even if you say oh
it's not bias related people do a bad job at saying
i have criteria that i have for a job
there are certain things that i wanna see on
out of a candidate and that they know how that's like
aligned to actual actually being successful in a job
right
and i say that because that's been my job for eight
eight plus years right
and so
because i know that it only made it harder or worse
when we moved into the ai era
right so in this case
people are leveraging more ai screening for candidates
right which we know
which we know has bias right
there's a lawsuit and i
where is it i think it's a work day lawsuit that's out
i don't think it's been resolved
but i think it's been like over a year
where there were black candidates
particularly one that result
that was discriminated against
um and so we have these tools where ai is biased
ai is a lot of times not effective
but ai still screening candidates
and ai is still evaluating
and like
there's even like
ai reference checks can you imagine how biased that is
ai reference check oh
my god ok
i'm back i'm back
so we have ai screening
screening candidates ineffectively right
and on the other hand we're telling
i mean as a career coach
i'm absolutely telling
but i created a whole bot for this
i am telling candidates to leverage ai
to make sure
that ai is going to effectively read their resume
i am i promise you
i am and that's because it's
most likely being screened by ai now
there's other pieces to that
where you do need to make sure that
once it gets through ai that a human is gonna like it
but i'm just telling you that it means that
at the end of the day
job seekers are writing better resumes
because there's ai that's actually designed to do that
and then as a result
ai is reading ai hahaha
and it means that resumes
and skill sets are not distinguishable
and then by the way
because people were already bad at reading resumes
it now means that when they read an ai written resume
that's actually optimized
it has key words it has um
metrics
because more people are then having better resumes
it means that it's an indistinguishable resume
hey love
can we take a quick pause
if you've been listening to this conversation
and feel that calling that says
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i want to personally invite you to join me
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in this session
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how to align your career or business
with what truly lights you up
and how to create an exit plan from that job
situation or season that no longer serves you
contrary to what we've been told
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so if you're ready to step into your black woman
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just head to the show notes or mercedes swan dot com
forward slash bliss to save your seat
all right love
let's get back to the episode
and that leads us to point three
which means that there's no longer agile recruitment
right so when we go through this process
are people really being strung along in a job search
so long for six months to a year
i mean when that's happening
that also means that our average job search length is
is increasing exponentially
and it's increasing exponentially
because people can't evaluate
because they're using ai
so they can't make a hiring decision
so they're extending their hiring process
to do better evaluation and as a result
that's just lengthening the job market
the job search for others
now i'm gonna talk about something later on
which i'm
i guess i'm just gonna call application fatigue okay
that's happening
but this recruitment process shifted from again
that twenty twenty
to twenty twenty one
twenty twenty two
agile job market to employers just dragging their feet
which is extremely frustrating
but i do think
that is related to why people aren't getting hired
the unemployment rate is higher
because it's just taking people much longer to
move through the recruitment process
and as a result get a job
let's talk about the recruitment boom
okay so i
i hmm
i'm not trying to be elitist
or i'm not trying to be a jerk
but i can't tell you like
between twenty twenty and twenty
twenty two
so many recruiters were hired
i mean
i was just turning around and there was more recruiters
i'm like oh
we're multiplying and i mean i
i say that i don't want to sound elitist
because it makes it sound like
oh well
all these people weren't really recruiters
if they were hired and they were doing the work
they were a recruiter right
but i just i'm telling you
like it almost exploded
and it was because of the hiring wars
like
they needed more recruiters to hire more candidates
and so it just kept getting more and more and more
i've been more more more
and then
you know what happens when we moved into twenty
twenty three and that boom was coming back down
all of those recruiters got laid off
and there are so many people
i mean
i go through linkedin and i'm like looking at people
random people's profile for like whatever
maybe they commented on something
and like you know how many times i go
blah blah blah blah
they're in this career path recruiter
and then they're like off in another career path
cause this is like in that time that was like
happening everywhere okay
so not only that
but when they were laying off all the recruiters
they were also laying off a huge amount of their hr
teams as well
for the same exact reasons they need
they needed more hr infrastructure to navigate things
post pandemic and then when the layoffs came
all of those people got cut
hr teams shrank from the outside looking in
and a lot of them were on hiring freezes
and so what does that mean
that means recruitment teams
and hr teams are understaffed
that is exactly what that means
a lot of us were understaffed before this
because people don't value hr
and if you are the person that's like
hr is the devil like
you know what just haha
sorry the rest of this podcast isn't for you
but when we start like
we talk about things about like
demonizing hr and like hr is not your friend
hr is not doing all of these things
like it is a factor
that hr is not always position to be most
most effective due to staffing um
and due to resources right
my monetary resources to have a fully functioning
effective hr team that's just the fact of the matter
in my opinion okay
so when we talk about why is recruitment so bad
why is it taking so long it's because there's not
there's not enough recruiters okay
and there's not enough recruiters advising okay
and then the hr team who was kind of overseeing this
hopefully right
doesn't have enough resources right
and i was like
i talked to somebody the other day that was like
oh my gosh
i had like
a hiring manager doing all the recruitment themselves
sorry for it like
not for the job seeker it's not fair
not for you
as a black woman who's going through the process
but for organizations that choose not to staff hr teams
to the extent that we need
so that we can actually create effective
inclusive high performing organizations
i can't help you anyway okay
so the last thing in all of these
so i've i've talked about all these compounding factors
right but the reality is
is if you go to an interview
and you don't feel like
the interviewer was engaged with you
or they understood you
or if the questions even made sense
or anything like that these are all signs that these
all these factors are resulting in
at the end of the day
poor evaluation of tools of candidates
and poor tools that are resulting in even worse um
evaluation and so you take all of that and you say
that is really why we are where we are
in this job market right
yes there could be shrinking jobs yes
the economy is not expanding inflation
all of our economic and political upheaval yes
those are all things
as to why the job market was shrink
but it's not an explanation for things like ghosting
ineffectiveness long recruitment times right
those are all a um
an extension of workplace culture
policies and procedures that result
again at the end of the day
at the end of the day court evaluation
and that is seriously impacting black women
who are in the workplace and who are job seeking
or even laid off right now
um
so as we wrap this section
i know that was
probably
a little bit more than i had intended to share
but i do think that understanding the dynamics and also
like
how i'm seeing it evolved is extremely helpful to know
because again
if you don't hear back from a recruiter
if you think somebody is discriminating against you
if you find that questions are weird
and that ai screening you out
you are probably correct because
these are all of the compounding factors
that i've just mentioned so um
i would love to know from you whether you're
you know on spotify or on linkedin or youtube
wherever you're listening to this um
let me know if you've seen this
like where has this been showing up in your job market
what are some of the sneaky suspicions that you have
have i like
affirmed anything for you
i would absolutely love to know
um and yeah
i'll be in the comments with you
girl because child
the ghetto all right
now we're gonna talk about
how this is continuing to impact
black women let's get into it next point
alright so
let's talk about the impact
that this job market is having on black women
right
and i talked a little bit about how the rollback of dei
has really been connected to the impacts
right but i do think it is
like a lot of us are saying
oh well
it's not necessarily the like
political pieces but i think a lot of it is
when you actually look into the data
and it's having reverberations
in other sectors and organizations
so we're gonna go ahead and talk about it
but i want to really call out that dei
even though it's gotten a lot of slack
for being performative or not being effective
i think that
when we see the reverse of how dei has been demonized
or anti dei anti wokism
all of those things have been uh
positioned as a political tool of control tyranny
whatever you want to call it
to control organizations to control people
and to limit this limit the impact of civil rights
the diversity equity
inclusion movement all of these different things
we can see that at the heart of this
it is normalizing bias
it's normalizing palm supremacy culture
it's normalizing
all of the things that exclude black women
as historically marginalized people
right and i talked about in our last segment that dei
even if it's performative in some ways
can still have ineffectiveness
i don't mean i want any performative dei
please do not take that from this
but what i'm saying is
even if black women have gotten more opportunities
because an employer mandated that they applied
that they did more outreach to black women
if more black women applied
and more black women were hired
at the end of the day it was effective right
and so as a result because we have
i don't know unnormalized um
inclusive hiring right
we are seeing more bias um
show up in the hiring process right
which is negatively impact
impacting black women right
because of all the stereotypes that we deal with
one of the things about recruitment and hr
that i know for sure that people are gonna say
well you don't know
that this is actually really impacting black women
at that level right
we have seen some of the weirdest
like totally avoidable lawsuits this year
like
if you just look up hiring discrimination in the news
and all the lawsuits that are coming out of that
you will see there's an uptick like
and even with organizations
for example shrm
which is a society of human resources management
now i don't think the
the person suing and that litigation is a black woman
i would have to go back and check
but what i'm saying is that there are basic minimums of
like what is actually legal in the workplace
outside of going be above and beyond
like having a training program right
i just mean not discrimination
not discriminating in the workplace
a lot of those people a lot of people think because oh
di isn't being supported
that those types of lawsuits are not gonna be effective
and like
by the way like
di was saving a lot of y'all employers
who were just out here dealing with this discrimination
harassment um
inequitable employment practices
like these
are all things that will legally get you in trouble
i do not care what the orange oligarchy
has to say about it alright
let's continue let's continue
okay
alright so i want to dive into the data really quick
to really support what i'm saying
about how the unnormalization um
of dei is essentially impacting black women
and i found this really great report
shout out to the economic policy institute um
where they have a blog
and then they have data on the back end of that
that you can actually play around
so i will link it below and if you're watching
that's what i'm looking at
so i'm not gonna be making eye contact
because i'm looking at this
so even if we like see or hear the headlines
if we actually look at the data
it is absolutely wild but i
i'm gonna
i'm not talking about the points of the job loss
i'm just talking about the ratios here
which i think is so important
so for example
it says in twenty twenty five
black women's employment rate
fell by one point four percentage points
to five point five five point seven
this is one of the sharpest one year declines
in the last twenty five years
at fifty five point seven percent
black women's employment to population ratio
was well below the most recent peak of fifty seven
point eight in twenty
twenty three
reflecting employment losses that started in twenty
twenty four and accelerated in twenty
twenty five
so all we're seeing is a continuation of that
what i thought was extremely interesting in this
is when i look back at the data
if you look at twenty twenty to essentially
twenty twenty three
you can see from the employment to population ratio
for white males and black women
the chart starts going like this
it gets closer and now it's not like super close right
but it gets closer right
so in twenty twenty right
which we know the catalyst of d
that twenty twenty
was in the catalyst of dii initiatives right
and allyship
and putting in these programs to support black women
right so
when we see that
the employment to population ratio for white males
was sixty two point three percent
and it was fifty two point six percent for black women
right and then right before this happens right
the gap's kind of closing
it's sixty four point two percent um
for white males
and fifty seven point eight percent for black females
and you can kind of see like
you can just visually see the chart
like coming closer right
and then right when we get to twenty twenty five
we do see like i'm not like okay
like i'm not gonna say
that other communities are not also having job loss
because they are this job market is bad for everybody
but when you see the gap it's the
the trend down the slope the naked slope of that line
is much worse for black women
and so the gap is widening
and the gap is sixty three point two for white males
and fifty five point seven for black females right
so what we can take from this
is that the plans of this political administration
to continue to marginalize these groups in employment
and access to resources and tools
is absolutely working it's not just rhetoric
and it's impacting so many black women this regard
because of these other things that are
i'm noticing right
like i'm not just making this up
when i go back to this other chart
we're seeing that
the group with the largest challenges in employment
are actually black women with a bachelor's degree
so high school some
some college more bachelor's degrees women
black women with bachelor's degrees the highest
and with advanced degrees some
so it's interesting right
i was just having a
a conversation with a beautiful man in human resources
and he had this conversation where people were like
oh you just need to go get the degree
and i responded back saying like no
don't get the degree
cause it's not actually helping black women
so because i'm getting that from clients
and community members that are not
that are very highly educated
and are not having any more success in the job market
and this actually proves that black women
who are educated
are having a more challenging time in the job market
which is gonna take me to this thing that i'm calling
like application fatigue
if that's the case
then black women with the bachelor's degree
are not likely to be making effective career decisions
because they are so tired
okay
and here's the other thing that i wanted to mention
right
political pieces anti dei
let's think about where this is actually
effectively working and the displacement of black women
right so we know that black women are more um
represented in government and non profits um
social services those types of things
right
and so when i look at this other report that's called
black women's employment tanked by large
public sector losses in twenty
twenty five okay
so when you look at this chart
which i like i said
i'm gonna share the majority
the majority of that loss was in the public sector
and federal government
okay and the other one is very interesting
i'm actually gonna look at this
manufacturing financial activities
and professional and business services
i really wanna look into that a little bit more
cause that was actually shocking to me
but guess where black women are getting jobs right now
private sector
okay black men as well
private sector and educational and health services
so if you're like
i'm trying to look for a job to pivot to
that's more safe more safer
private sector and educational
health services okay
so now what is this
how does this actually impact black women right
a lot of us are losing hope
we're making decisions out of desperation
we're taking jobs that are under our skill set
which means we're underemployed
and that means that
that ramification of being underemployed or unemployed
in any way shape
or form i don't even want to begin to think about
the economic impact
that that's having now and in the future
for black wealth and black generational wealth
but taking that further
to say that black women are so tired and so frustrated
that
it often means that we're probably making decisions
and i think this is the real impact right
that's going to lead to career misalignment right
so for example
when we are we have application fatigue
we're tired of applying
or we're just trying to get another job
so we under we
we apply to jobs that we're kind of not qualified for
it leads us to misalignment
because when we get those jobs
then it looks like we've had um
a career trajectory change right
which shows up in a as a red flag
and it's harder for us to move back up the ladder
and then
it also means that we might get jobs that we are under
like it's underutilizing our skill set
which means we're underpaid for our example
our bachelor's degree right
it also means that in those roles
we can become targets of the pet to threat
because we are overqualified
and so as a result we then are penalized
or we have challenges
challenges navigating the workplace
because we're gonna trigger other people
because we're amazing and we're fabulous
but
we've been hired into a role that's not the right fit
and then at the end of the day
if we do say oh
my gosh i've applied to a hundred jobs
i just need to take a step back
it's gonna be easier a lot of times
that does not do what you think it does
it actually extend your job search
because people are wondering
why such a qualified
black woman would be applying to this kind of job
okay and then
particularly if we were laid off
that leads to desperation in our applic
on our application process
it is more likely to trigger the toxic work cycle
because you accept a job
even though there are red flags
and then six months down the road
you have mental health issues
you're being laid off
you're being terminated due to workplace performance
or whatever because this is not an organization
that values diversity equity
and inclusion because you kind of settled
and there's just a whole lot of impacts that
i think right now yes
we are talking about the layoffs
but i think in a couple years
we are really gonna be talking about
the negative impacts that this had on financial um
of of
of wealth building financial stability
and all of the other things that
financial instability at um
attacks such as like
education and healthcare mental health
all of these things so
yeah okay i
i hope that's not depressing
because we're gonna talk about things that you can do
to actually move forward in this job market
even if it is a mess
okay so
to combat all of the things that i have mentioned
thus far the job fatigue
the terrible ai resumes and everything in between
i'm gonna talk about three big points
that i think
are actually gonna help you in this job market
even if it's challenging
so the first one is a little bit soft
but to dream bigger and don't settle
so i'm actually seeing black women
who are applying to next level
or higher level roles
meaning they are stretching themselves
they're taking on more there may be like
so for instance
if you were an individual contributor
maybe you are actually seeking a manager role
if you've been in manager roles
seek director level roles
bigger organizations bigger tools
all of those things i think that's actually working out
to be more effective for black women in this market
instead of shrinking
it's also going to keep you safer in the long run
okay
the second thing that you can start doing
is actually conducting a job search audit
so a job search audit
is when you look at each stage
of your application process
or the recruitment process
and see where the bottleneck is
so for example
at the top of the funnel or at the top of the process
you have your applications right
and at the bottom of the process
the end of the process you have your offer letter
so if you are experiencing something
where you are applying
and you're not hearing back from any jobs at all
then it likely means
that you can take time to rethink your resume right
you can decide hey
maybe i can switch my branding up
maybe i can realign my skill sets
maybe i can niche down
and get more specific about my skills
versus being more general
if you are like halfway down the funnel right
and you are actually getting a lot of interviews
then you don't need to do anything about your resume
right and actually
changing your resume up
can actually damage your job search right
cause
you were actually getting interviews with the resume
that you previously had
but it also can mean that at that point
you aren't communicating your skill set or your story
or even your impact more effectively
and again it doesn't mean for you to take this to heart
and think that you're failing
and that you cannot get a job
but it does mean that like
at the end of the day the job market is what it is
and so we can do our best to try and evaluate
and see what's happening
and so if that's what's happening
you're getting to final interviews
but you are not getting an offer letter
you need to think about your positioning
in your interview
and how you're connecting your skills with the job
right so in this case
don't fix things that are working
focus on what the bottleneck is
and see how you can optimize that
with different things right
so go deeper in interviewing
if you need to go deeper in resume writing
get you're an ai tool like bliss ai
to help you out with that right
there's a lot of different things that you can do
to make sure that your audit is effective
and my last piece of advice
would be to engage in experimentation
i know you're like girl
a job it's a job search
it should not be an experiment
and i i honestly totally get that
i know that it is so frustrating
but at the same time if you were able to say hey
let's see what happens if i apply in this industry
or i update my resume to have this angle
or if i shift how i interview from this to this
what's actually happening in my job search
and it is it effective
the thing that's very scary about this job market
that i'm finding is that things that traditionally
i have thought as a recruiter have not worked
are working and vice versa okay
and it means that there's no cookie cutter
that's going to necessarily work in this job market why
because as i mentioned
people are really bad at hiring
and so
there could just be one little thing that's different
and that makes sense to that person that's reviewing
your resume
or that gets through ai and is effective for you
and gets you to an interview and gets you to an offer
so just keep trying things out
um one of the wild things that is working right now
is getting really really specific about your skill set
and really trying to niche down
into a particular skill set
which is what we are talking about next
it is the concept or the topic of brilliance niching
whoa let's get into it
okay so
i've been talking a lot about black woman
brilliance niching and it is based on what i see
actually working for my career
coaching clients and community members
there are six elements of brilliant sneezing
and i'm going to list them for you here
but if you really want to get specific
about brilliant sneezing
i'm going to share with you a resource
that is going to help you actually plan that out
map it out in just a moment
okay
so the first element of brilliant sneaching
is to figure out what your next step is
i said that black women
who are looking for the challenge
or the stretch role are being
are much more effective in this job market
and that is why i highly recommend
that you don't think about a lateral role
or a step back
you actually think about what might be next
in your career trajectory
in your career path okay
the second is the position
i do want you to get very specific
about which type of position you are applying to
and by selecting one position
you can make sure that your resume fully aligns
and that you're not having any gaps on your resume
it allows you to be much more specific
and relevant to the jobs that you're applying for
when you pick one position
type number three is mission
so if an ai cannot discern who's a good candidate
or a bad candidate based on skill set or competencies
because all of our resumes are good and great
and even better
then the only thing that might set you apart
is your mission why is it that you do what you do
why are you passionate about this field
or this industry right
and how can you actually embed that into your resume
like your um
your opening summary your professional summary
your executive um
summary at the beginning all of those types of things
are things that can actually set you apart
and actually you can still embed those in your
in your bullets right
maybe there are particular audiences that you work with
maybe you you do add pieces of passion into what they
into what you do and so
think about your mission and why you do what you do
and how you can get that in your resume
number four is industry right
i did say that
there are some industries that are hiring more
black women and some that are not
and so if you can identify an industry
that you are excited about
and make sure that your resume
fully aligns with that industry
that would be really great
right so maybe you're gonna work for tech
maybe you're gonna work in finance
actually
maybe you can make it way more specific and say
i work in fintech okay
like just get really specific about your industry
and then tailor all of the information on your resume
to that industry
so the next one is specialty
and specialty can really set you apart
when you talk about what makes you great
so for example
in my case right
i was a di professional
but i was a di professional that was specialized in hr
okay and that's what set me apart in my last job search
right i know it's that simple
but you gotta think about like
where are the intersections of
where your special combination of skills fit
and how can you leverage that
in your resume and in your job search
and the last one is thinking about market opportunity
so market opportunity means that you've gone out there
in the market and understood what jobs are trending
what's happening what skills are they looking for
so that you can tailor your resume
to the job that is most abundant in the market
right and also where black women are getting hired
right
so if it were me i would take one keyword
which would be d e i
and i would put it into linkedin or indeed
and i would see what's coming up
what are the job titles what are they looking for
what are the trends that i'm seeing
what are the industries
and how can i better position myself
for those particular industries
in this market that is looking for a market opportunity
and once you find that
it may shift all of the other things
that are part of your brilliance niche
but again
this is something that can really help you stand out
in your job market
so you can find your niche and get hired
okay
so if you feel that brilliance
nitching can really help you
i actually created a resource
a pdf downloadable resource
to help you really research and define your
black woman brilliance niche
you can find out more about it below
and you can pay whatever you want for it
but a minimum of a dollar
and it's gonna help you really outline
everything that we've talked about
your next step your position
your mission your industry
your specialty and the market opportunity
so go ahead and check out the show notes
or the description to download it again
you can get it for whatever you want
but a minimum of a dollar
by the way for the black woman bliss community members
this is already included in your membership
you do not have to pay more
so just go ahead and log in
it will be uploaded if you haven't accessed it already
okay
alright beautifuls
i hope that this episode has really helped you
i know it's a lot to unpack here
i know some of that may be challenging
but i did really want to give a job market update
for black women
because i think we deserve to know what's going on
we deserve to not
internalize the challenges that we have
and we deserve to like
believe in ourselves and have some options
to actually implement some strategies
that are going to help us be successful
so again i hope this episode helped you get closer
to your black woman bliss era
by getting the job okay
do not give up sis
and by the way if you like this episode
please make sure that you like it
and share and give us a review
and of course follow
so that you can get updates
on the next podcast episode
we have some really exciting things coming up
about black women in the workplace
including um
sometimes it be your own black woman boss
that be giving you a hard time okay
and we're also gonna talk about the non profit space
and how black women can learn more about that
so i will see you next time
love you bad um
for the community members
i can't wait to see what you think about this podcast
episode and i will see you all later bye