Edition #15

Good news (or is it?!)

December layoff announcements hit their lowest level in 18 months.

Companies announced 10,500 new roles. LinkedIn is full of cautiously optimistic hot takes from economists, recruiters, and HR leaders telling you to “stay positive” and “keep an abundance mindset.”

However.

December always looks good on paper.

Budget resets. Deferred restructuring decisions. Hiring freezes that make the numbers look better than they are. It’s the same seasonal distortion we see every January, right before the market reality reasserts itself in February and March.

It’s a statistical quiet, not a recovery signal.

There’s a deeper issue most of the optimists are missing.

The labor market is hardening, not rebounding.

Yes, layoff announcements dropped to roughly 35,000 in December. But zoom out and the picture changes fast. 2025 still saw over a million total job cuts, which is the highest level since 2020. And while fewer people are being laid off right now, hiring never meaningfully came back. Annual hiring activity was the weakest it’s been since 2010.

Translation:

Companies aren’t cutting aggressively.

But they’re also not expanding.

Economists call this a “low-hire, no-fire” market. And if you’re a senior professional with 10+ years of experience trying to move into remote work, it’s one of the most unforgiving environments you can operate in.

You’re caught in what I call The Great Freeze.

Job openings are sitting at a 14-month low. The hiring rate is weaker than it was in 2010 when unemployment was near 9%. Companies are sitting on approved headcount without urgency to fill it. “Evergreen” roles stay posted for months. Interview loops stretch endlessly. Qualified candidates disappear into silence after four or five rounds.

This isn’t about talent.

You’re not losing to better candidates.

You’re losing to inertia.

Here’s the part most people don’t want to say out loud:

This isn’t a recession problem.

It’s something structurally different.

Companies have learned they can operate understaffed for longer than anyone expected. Work gets redistributed. Certain functions get automated. Backfills get delayed indefinitely. The pain is absorbed internally instead of triggering immediate hiring.

The result is a market where movement is slow, but decisions still happen behind closed doors.

That’s why the traditional job search playbook breaks down.

The advice circulating right now is the same advice that worked in very different conditions:

“Update your resume.”

“Apply more.”

“Network harder.”

You’ve already done that.

You’ve sent 100… 150… maybe 200 applications into a system that scans your resume for six seconds and filters out nuance. Your 15 years of cross-functional leadership gets flattened into keywords. You get screened by recruiters who are optimizing for checklist alignment instead of strategic value.

So it’s not that you’re doing something wrong.

It just means that the environment changed, while the tactics didn’t.

Many of the roles that actually get filled are never meaningfully “open” in the public sense. They’re discussed internally. They’re scoped informally. They’re shaped through referrals, prior relationships, and trusted introductions before a job description is finalized.

Hiring managers with budget pressure aren’t scrolling LinkedIn hoping the perfect resume appears.

They’re asking people they trust:

“Who should I talk to?”

“Have you worked with anyone solid in this space?”

“Do you know someone who could handle this?”

If you’re not part of those conversations, your resume never gets a real look.

It’s not to promise quick wins

It’s not to guarantee outcomes

And it’s definitely not to tell you to “be positive.”

We work with experienced professionals who recognize that in a frozen market, positioning, narrative, and access paths matter more than volume.

The goal isn’t to apply more.

It’s to operate with a clearer strategy: understanding where hiring actually happens, how decisions get made, and how to present your experience in a way that aligns with how senior leaders think, not how ATS software parses text.

The ole, ‘work smarter, not harder’ saying springs to mind!

🎯 Fully Remote Jobs (No "Fake Remote" Here):

If you’ve been waiting for the market to “normalize” before changing your approach, that waiting period carries a real cost.

Some professionals will continue running the same playbook and feel increasingly invisible. Others will step back, reassess, and start treating their job search like the strategic business problem it actually is.

If you’re a senior professional who feels stalled, frustrated, or unclear on why your current approach isn’t gaining traction… we should talk.

We’ll have a focused strategy session where we look at your background, your target market, and the specific constraints you’re operating under, and then map a clearer, more intentional approach for navigating this market environment.

You need precision more than you need optimism.

Movement still happens for people who understand how to navigate it.

Stay Rebellious,

Michelle & The RR Team

P.S. If the idea of spending another three months sending applications into the void makes your stomach tighten, that reaction is information. Ignoring it won’t make the system work better.