Job Search Trends Report Q3 2025

Introduction

The third quarter of 2025 underscored a labor market in flux rather than freefall. Drawing on Huntr’s Q3-2025 telemetry across tracked applications, de-duplicated job listings, 71,000 resumes, and a 527-respondent survey.

Huntr’s Q3 readout shows “speed to offer” wobbling through the summer, 71 days in July, compressing to 55 in August, then stretching back to 65 in September, while the typical job seeker sent 16 applications a week and the most aggressive 10% fired off 83.

LinkedIn continued to drive roughly half of job saves, yet Google’s career portal led conversions with an 11.21% interview rate versus sub-4% on LinkedIn and Indeed, widening the gap between reach and effectiveness.

Flexibility remained the defining perk (nearly 70% chose remote/hybrid), even as postings with explicit location requirements receded, remote roles slid to 22.61% by September and “unspecified” ballooned past 55%.

AI moved from novelty to necessity: 85.6% used it weekly or daily and 52% would trust it to apply on their behalf, but 71% still rejected one-way AI interviews even as 63.4% said they’d accept offers from firms using fully automated hiring, and 63.2% reported AI-mediated rejections.

Layer in firmer pay aims (48% now target $100k+), and Q3 depicts a market recalibrating around efficiency and leverage: high-volume outreach, platform performance over brand, flexible work as table stakes, and AI as a ubiquitous copilot that candidates embrace for speed but resist as a gatekeeper.

Highlights of This Report

Your quick-scan overview of the standout findings from Q3 2025

From Job Search Insights

• Hiring Fatigue: The median time to first offer stretched to 71 days in July and 65 in September, signaling a two-month wait for most job seekers and underscoring a persistent hiring slowdown after a brief August rebound.
• Extreme Patience Gap: While half of candidates land their first interview within three weeks, the bottom 10% wait over four months, exposing deep inequities in hiring timelines that amplify financial and emotional strain.
• Application Overload: The most active 10% of job seekers submit an eye-popping 83 applications per week, and 1 in 8 must send 100+ before getting an offer, revealing a bifurcated job market where persistence, not just skill, determines success.

From Job Search Sites Section

• LinkedIn’s Grip Tightens: Nearly half of all saved jobs now come from LinkedIn, which, alongside Indeed, controls two-thirds of all job-search activity, highlighting a clear consolidation as smaller platforms lose visibility.
• Response Rate Reality Check: Despite their dominance, LinkedIn and Indeed yield sub-4% interview response rates, while Google’s career portal tops the field at 11%, proving that direct and specialized applications dramatically outperform mass job boards.
• ATS Shake-Up: Workday climbed to nearly 19% market share while Ashby surged from 7% to 10% since spring, signaling a fast-evolving recruiting tech landscape where new players are rapidly gaining on long-time incumbents.

From Job Market Analysis

• Leadership Pays Most: Director of Engineering tops the charts at $253,000, with VPs and COOs clustered close behind in the $232K–$249K range.
• One Company Towers: Netflix’s median pay lands at $410,000, nearly double runner-up NVIDIA at $225,500.
• Degrees & Domains Matter: Master’s grads average $168,638 (+9% vs. $154,660 benchmark), while machine-learning degrees command a 50% salary premium over the market.

From Resume Insights

• Tailored Wins Big: Job seekers who customize their resumes to match job descriptions see a 50% higher success rate, converting 6.5% of applications into interviews or offers, compared to just 4.3% for generic resumes.
• Depth Over Density: Interviewed candidates write fewer but longer achievements (155 vs. 152 characters), have roughly 3 more years of experience, and average 1.6-page resumes, suggesting richer storytelling and career depth drive callbacks.
• LinkedIn Edge: Including a LinkedIn profile boosts interview odds by nearly 10 percentage points (76% vs. 66%), making it the single most influential social link on a resume, far outweighing platforms like GitHub or Dribbble.

Highlights for Job Search Survey Insights

• AI Rejections Become the Norm: Nearly two-thirds (63%) of job seekers report being rejected by AI systems, confirming that algorithmic screening has quietly become the gatekeeper of modern hiring.
• Mainstream Adoption, Uneven Confidence: Over 8 in 10 job seekers now rely on AI tools, but only 52% actually trust AI to apply on their behalf, revealing a workforce eager for efficiency yet uneasy about ceding control.
• Gen Z Leads the AI Revolution: 63% of Gen Z uses AI daily, nearly double the rate of Baby Boomers, signaling a generational divide where younger job seekers are rapidly gaining an advantage in AI fluency and automation literacy.

How We Gathered This Data

Before diving into the findings, it’s important to understand who and what sits behind the numbers. Most headline metrics in this report focus on Q3 2025 (July 1 – September 30). Still, any quarter-over-quarter trendlines or “growth since last quarter” call-outs extend back to April 1, 2025 to give a consistent six-month comparison window. Data streams include platform telemetry (jobs, applications, resumes), parsed job ads, and a 527-respondent survey.

Data for Job Search Insights

We mined the anonymized activity logs from Huntr’s Job Tracker, every application, stage change, and offer recorded by users between July 2025 and September 2025. Covering 375k job entries created by 25,887 job seekers, giving us precise timestamps to measure time-to-interview, offer velocity, and weekly application cadence.

Data for Job Search Sites

Whenever a user saves a posting, Huntr captures the source URL. For Q3 2025, that produced 249,138k saved jobs, which we grouped by domain to rank boards like LinkedIn or Indeed, and by ATS domains to see which systems dominate. Response rates come from users moving a saved job into “Interview” or beyond, an on-platform action that signals an employer callback. Our metrics in this section key off the root domain of each saved posting (e.g., linkedin.com, indeed.com). This approach cleanly captures stand-alone boards but under-represents applicant-tracking systems (ATSs) that embed their pages inside a company’s own URL; for example, a Greenhouse job served at careers.acme.com/… is attributed to Acme rather than to Greenhouse. As a result, site-level popularity and callback rates favor public boards and may understate the reach of ATS platforms embedded within corporate domain

Data for Job Market Analysis

To avoid double-counting identical roles posted across multiple boards or refresh dates, we deduplicated every listing at the job-title × company level. In Q3 2025, that yielded 255, 690 unique job-company combinations from the original 249,138k saved jobs. All salary, degree, skill-premium, and location analyses start with this de-duped set, then narrow further. By basing every metric on one record per employer role, we ensure our pay and demand numbers reflect distinct openings rather than repeated advertisements.

Data for Resume Insights

From 70,523 resumes created in Q3 (64.37% job-tailored, 35.63% base) by 19,310 unique authors, we extracted structured fields; sections used, bullet counts, character lengths, and social links. To link resume quality with outcomes, we focused on the 45,396 job-tailored files tied to tracked applications, comparing the 1,118 that led to a self-reported interview to the rest.

Data for Job Search Survey Insights

Finally, we fielded a 28-question web survey in September 2025, collecting 527 complete responses across industries, seniorities, and geographies. The survey supplements platform telemetry with personal finance, AI, 996 work schedule, and layoff data.

Dataset Composition

Before diving into the findings, it’s important to understand who and what sits behind the numbers. Most headline metrics in this report focus on Q3 2025 (July 1 – September 30). Still, any quarter-over-quarter trendlines or “growth since last quarter” call-outs extend back to April 1, 2025 to give a consistent six-month comparison window. Data streams include platform telemetry (jobs, applications, resumes), parsed job ads, and a 527-respondent survey.

Geographic Representation

Among the Q3 2025 records with location data, the platform exhibits a heavily North American-centric distribution. North America dominates with 68.78% of job postings and 64.62% of resume creations, with the United States alone accounting for 56.62% of located job postings and 58.18% of located resumes. Europe maintains a consistent second position, representing approximately 19.95% of both jobs and resumes across key markets including the UK, Germany, France, and Italy.

Implication: Hiring and pay insights are most reliable for the U.S. and Canadian markets and may not generalize globally.

Industry and Job-Function Mix

The Q3 2025 job market data reveals a heavily tech-dominated landscape, with Internet Software & Services representing 20.59% of all postings, followed by Professional Services (10.01%) and Financial Services (2.9%). The job role distribution reflects this tech concentration: Engineering/Development positions comprise 20.52% of all listings, with Software Engineers, DevOps Engineers, and Front-End Developers among the most sought-after roles. Design positions form another significant category at 8.71%, led by Product Designers (3.31% of all jobs) and UX Designers (3.18% of all jobs). Data-related roles represent 4.8% of postings, highlighting the continued importance of analytics capabilities across industries.

Implication: Trend signals are strongest for tech and industrial hiring; other fields should view the data as directional only.

Experience-Level Distribution in Resumes

• Entry-level: 39.76%
• Senior-level: 33.4%
• Mid-level: 21.26%
• Unspecified: 5.58%

Implication: Behaviors such as resume length or section usage may tilt toward early-career norms.

Salary-Data Coverage

Only 29.95% of jobs include salary information, but those that do reveal competitive compensation with median annual salaries ranging from $93,450 to $130,000.

Company-Size Representation

Among jobs with known company sizes, enterprise companies (1000+ employees) dominate with 36.6% of postings. Medium-sized companies (51-250 employees) represent the second-largest segment at 19.46%, followed by small businesses (11-50 employees) at 17.45%. Companies with 10 or fewer employers have 11.75% of postings. Those with 251-1000 represent 14.73%.

Data Integrity and Disclaimer

All insights in this report are based on anonymized user activity and self-reported survey data from Huntr’s platform. Metrics and examples involving employers or platforms reflect aggregate user trends and are not endorsements or critiques of those companies. While care has been taken to ensure data accuracy, all findings should be interpreted as indicative, not definitive.

Job Search Insights

Time to First Offer

Job seekers waited over two months for their first offer this summer

The path from starting a job search to receiving that crucial first offer took a median of 71 days in July, improving to 55 days in August before extending back to 65 days in September.

August's shorter timeline suggests companies may have accelerated their hiring processes mid-summer, possibly to fill roles before fall budgets locked in.

However, the return to a longer wait in September indicates this efficiency boost was temporary.

For anyone beginning their search today, these numbers underscore the importance of financial runway, two months represents a significant period to sustain without income, and the timeline can stretch even longer depending on when you start.

Individual Job Timeline

Job searchers spend over 15 days from application to offer

The typical job search journey involves two distinct waiting periods. After submitting an application, candidates wait about 5 days before hearing back for an interview.

Once they've completed their interviews, the wait extends to 10 days before receiving an offer.

Combined, this means job seekers spend roughly 15 days navigating a single opportunity from start to finish, and that's assuming everything moves forward without delays or rejections.

Time to First Interview

Most job seekers wait three weeks for their first interview, but some wait four months

Half of job seekers receive their first interview invitation within three weeks of starting their search.

However, the experience varies dramatically depending on where you fall in the distribution.

Those at the 75th percentile wait nearly two months before hearing back from an employer, while the unluckiest 10% of candidates don't get their first interview opportunity until after four months of searching.

This extended timeline creates significant financial and emotional pressure, particularly for those who've been laid off or are unemployed.

The gap between the typical experience and the longest waits suggests that certain factors, whether industry-specific, skill-related, or simply timing, can dramatically extend the job search process beyond what most people anticipate.

Number of Applications Per Week

Job Seekers Are Sending Dozens of Applications Every Week

The typical job seeker submits 16 applications per week, but the numbers climb dramatically for those casting a wider net.

The most active quarter of job seekers send 39 applications weekly, while the top 10% are submitting an astonishing 83 applications each week.

This reveals a striking divide in job search intensity, some professionals are taking a measured approach while others are pursuing volume strategies, likely responding to a competitive market where landing interviews requires persistent outreach across multiple opportunities.

Applications Created Before Offer Received

How Many Applications Job Seekers Need Before Getting an Offer

From Targeted Search to High-Volume Strategy

The job search journey varies dramatically across candidates.

The largest group, about 1 in 5 people, submits between 10 and 20 applications before receiving an offer.

Another 18% fall into the 20-30 application range, suggesting that roughly 40% of successful job seekers find their next role within their first 30 attempts.

However, the numbers reveal a striking persistence gap.

While some candidates succeed quickly (12% receive offers after fewer than 10 applications), an equal percentage requires 100 or more applications before landing a position.

This suggests a bifurcated market where certain candidates face significantly longer searches than others.

The middle ranges tell a story of gradual attrition, as application counts climb from 30 to 90, the percentage of job seekers steadily declines, with only 2-3% persisting through the 70-90 application range before their eventual success.

Job Search Sites

Most Popular Job Sites

LinkedIn Dominates Job Search Activity as Smaller Platforms Lose Ground

Nearly half of all saved jobs come from LinkedIn, which maintained its commanding lead throughout the spring and summer of 2025.

Indeed held steady in second place, while a diverse mix of smaller platforms collectively captured roughly one-quarter of activity.

The landscape shows clear consolidation, with the top two sites, LinkedIn and Indeed, accounting for nearly two-thirds of all job saves. Among niche platforms, Welcome to the Jungle saw the most volatility, in June before declining. ZipRecruiter, Glassdoor, Dice, and Wellfound each hovered between 1-3% consistently across the period.

Perhaps most telling: "Other" platforms grew from April to September, suggesting job seekers are increasingly exploring beyond the mainstream options as overall activity declined by more than a third from April to September.

Job Search Sites Responsiveness

Google Leads in Job Application Response Rates at 11%

Applying through Google's career portal yields the highest response rate among major job platforms, with more than one in ten applications (11.21%) resulting in an interview invitation.

Handshake and GovernmentJobs follow at 7.45% and 7.18% respectively, suggesting that specialized and company-direct applications outperform general job boards.

The most popular platforms, LinkedIn and Indeed, which collectively handle nearly 100,000 applications, deliver response rates just under 4%.

Meanwhile, tech-focused boards like Dice lag significantly at 0.24%, meaning job seekers face steep odds when applying through certain industry-specific platforms.

For candidates looking to maximize their chances of landing an interview, these numbers suggest that quality matters more than quantity: targeting company websites and niche platforms appears far more effective than mass-applying through high-volume job boards.

Top Companies Responsiveness

Capital One and BlackRock Move Fastest Among High-Volume Hirers

Among the companies conducting the most interviews from July through September, Capital One responded quickest at just 3.5 days from job posting to interview invitation, followed closely by BlackRock at 5 days.

Amazon, despite leading in total interview volume with logged interviews, maintained an efficient 8-day turnaround.

The picture shifts dramatically at the other end: Oracle took 37.7 days on average, while Stripe needed 30.8 days.

Tech giants showed surprising variation, Apple clocked in at 11.1 days while Microsoft lagged at 21.8 days.

Meta (via metacareers.com) proved relatively swift at 6.1 days, and Uber matched that pace at 7.4 days.

The contrast reveals that hiring volume doesn't dictate speed: some of the busiest recruiters move candidates through their pipelines in under a week, while others with comparable interview counts take a month or more.

Popular Applicant Tracking Systems

Workday Gains Ground While Ashby Surges in Competitive ATS Landscape

The applicant tracking system market showed notable movement from April through September 2025, with Workday steadily climbing from 16% to nearly 19% market share, emerging as the clear leader by fall.

Ashby demonstrated the strongest momentum, jumping from 7.3% in April to 10% by September, suggesting growing adoption among hiring teams.

Greenhouse maintained a solid position around 15-16% throughout the period, though it dipped slightly to 14.7% in September.

Lever showed some softening, declining from 8.5% to 7.4% over the six months. The "Other" category, representing dozens of smaller ATS providers, consistently held the largest segment at roughly 39-42%, underscoring how fragmented the recruiting software market remains.

Despite clear frontrunners, no single platform dominates, leaving ample room for specialized solutions to capture specific niches in how companies manage their hiring pipelines.

* Go here for more information on how this data was calculated

Resume Insights

Resume Success Factors

Tailoring Resume to Job Descriptions

Tailored Resumes Outperform Generic Ones by 2x

Job seekers who customize their resumes for specific positions achieve a 5.95% conversion rate from application to interview or offer, compared to just 2.9% for jobs moved to interview or further that do not have a tailored resume.

This represents a 105% improvement in success rates, demonstrating that personalization significantly increases the likelihood of advancing past initial screening stages.

The gap between these two approaches reveals how recruiters and applicant tracking systems respond more favorably to candidates who align their qualifications with specific job requirements.

Those who invest time in tailoring their applications effectively double their odds. Since these figures rely on user-reported outcomes for interviews, offers, and hiring decisions, they represent conservative floor estimates of the true interview rate. The findings underscore the critical importance of resume customization in today's competitive job market, where personalized applications demonstrably outperform generic submissions in advancing through hiring processes.

Education Section

Education Description Length Makes No Difference in Landing Interviews

Candidates who secured interviews averaged 92 characters in their education sections, while those who didn't averaged 93 characters, a negligible gap that suggests brevity in education descriptions neither helps nor hurts your chances. Both groups kept their academic credentials concise, hovering around the same character count

Certification Section

Fewer Certifications Linked to More Interview Callbacks
Candidates who landed interviews listed an average of 1.31 certifications on their resumes, while those who didn't averaged 1.39, suggesting that padding your resume with extra credentials may not boost your chances as much as you'd think.

Skills Section

More Skills on Your Resume Correlates with Interview Success

Candidates who secured interviews listed an average of 27.93 skills on their resumes, compared to 25.77 for those who didn't, a difference of about 2 additional skills that appears to make a measurable impact on callback rates.

Achievements

Quality Over Quantity: Interviewed Candidates Write Longer, Fewer Achievement

Candidates who landed interviews averaged 4.49 achievements per job with 155 characters each, while those who didn't listed slightly more achievements (4.60) but made them shorter at 152 characters, suggesting that deeper, more detailed accomplishments may resonate better than padding your resume with bullet points

Work Experience

Experience Matters: Interviewed Candidates Average 3 More Years in the Workforce

Candidates who secured interviews had a median of 11.62 years of experience across 4.78 roles, while those who didn't averaged just 8.75 years across 4.24 roles, revealing that both depth of experience and career progression through multiple positions play a significant role in landing callbacks.

Resume Length by Page Count

Busting the One-Page Resume Myth: A Data-Driven Answer

2-page resumes significantly outperform all other lengths with a 3.45% interview rate, which is 35% higher than the next best performer. Interestingly, while 2-page resumes also represent the largest volume of applications (19,933 total), they still maintain the highest success rate, suggesting this format is both popular and effective. Single-page and 3-page resumes perform similarly at around 2.5%, while resumes with 4+ pages show a modest 2.78% success rate despite having the smallest application volume (1,690). The data strongly indicates that job seekers should aim for the 2-page format to maximize their chances of securing an interview.

Longer Resumes Land More Interviews

Candidates who secured interviews had resumes averaging 1.6 pages, compared to just 1.24 pages for those who didn't, a nearly 30% difference, suggesting that giving yourself more room to showcase accomplishments and experience pays off in callback rates.

Summary

Summaries Matter: More Interviewed Candidates Include Them, And Write Them Longer

A higher percentage of interviewed candidates (91.32%) included a professional summary compared to those who didn't get callbacks (88.29%), and they made them count by writing an average of 510 characters versus 483, showing that both having a summary and making it substantive can improve your interview odds.

Projects

Slightly Longer Project Descriptions Correlate with Interview Success

Candidates who landed interviews wrote project descriptions averaging 74 characters, compared to 70 for those who didn't, a modest 4-character difference suggesting that while project detail matters, the gap is relatively small compared to other resume factors.

Social Links

LinkedIn Presence Shows Strongest Correlation with Interview Success

Interviewed candidates were significantly more likely to include LinkedIn (75.85%) compared to those who didn't get callbacks (66.35%), a nearly 10-percentage-point gap that dwarfs differences on other platforms. Interestingly, GitHub presence was slightly higher among non-interviewed candidates (10.80% vs 9.48%), suggesting technical portfolio links alone don't guarantee success.

Contact Info

Basic Contact Info Nearly Universal, But Small Differences Still Exist

Nearly all candidates include email (99.28% interviewed vs 98.85% not interviewed) and phone numbers (93.83% vs 92.94%), but interviewed candidates edge ahead by about half a percentage point on both, suggesting that even at near-universal levels, complete contact information still matters for callback rates.

Resume Sections and Length

Resume Section Popularity Overall

More Job Seekers Are Adding Their LinkedIn Profile to Their Resume

Nearly every job seeker includes their email address on their base resume, making it the most universal section, above phone number.

Core professional credentials follow close behind,work experience and education both appear on 88% of resumes, while phone numbers show up on 86%. Skills rounds out the top five at 83%.

A significant drop occurs after the summary section (77%), revealing a clear divide between essential and optional content.

LinkedIn profiles appear on just over half of base resumes (52% up 2% quarter over quarter), while certifications (40%) and projects (27%) remain less common despite their potential value.

Technical portfolio links like GitHub trail far behind at just 12%, and social platforms barely register; Twitter appears on fewer than 1% of resumes, and Dribbble on only 0.13%.

The pattern reveals that most job seekers stick to traditional resume fundamentals in their base templates, reserving specialized sections for targeted applications.

Resume Section Popularity by Job Category

Tech Professionals Showcase Projects While Traditional Industries Emphasize Certifications

Nearly every resume includes an email address (97-99%) and work experience (90-95%), forming the universal foundation across all industries. Education and skills follow closely behind at 85-95%.

However, the gap widens dramatically when it comes to specialized sections. Projects appear on 58-61% of resumes in Software & IT, Data & Analytics, and Creative & Design roles, but drop to just 11-18% in Administrative, Customer Support, and traditional business functions.

GitHub profiles mirror this divide even more drastically, present on 38% of Software resumes and 33% of Data & Analytics resumes, yet barely registering at 1-2% across other fields.

LinkedIn maintains steady relevance at 50-67% across all categories, while Summary sections enjoy surprising consistency at 72-86%.

The bottom tier tells an interesting story: Location details appear on only 5% of resumes, while Twitter and Dribbble remain niche platforms used by less than 2% of professionals, with Creative & Design being the rare exception where Dribbble reaches 1.4%.

Number and Length of Work Experience By Target Seniority

Career Progression Shows Longevity Over Job-Hopping

Professionals targeting senior positions demonstrate a notably different resume pattern compared to their earlier-career counterparts.

While entry-level and mid-level job seekers typically list 3 roles on their resumes, senior professionals average 5 positions, suggesting accumulated experience rather than frequent moves.

More striking is the tenure difference: entry-level candidates show a median of just 2 years of experience, mid-level professionals have 5 years, and senior professionals bring 13 years to the table.

This progression reveals that advancing to senior levels isn't just about collecting more job titles, but about building substantial depth and staying power within roles.

The nearly threefold increase in years between mid-level and senior positions indicates that leadership opportunities favor those who've demonstrated long-term commitment and organizational impact over simply moving between companies.

Number and Length of Achievements By Target Seniority

Senior professionals write longer, more detailed resume achievements

As careers progress from entry-level to senior positions, the way professionals describe their accomplishments evolves notably.

Entry-level candidates typically include 3 achievements per role, with descriptions averaging 112 characters.

Mid-level professionals step up to 4 achievements per position, with slightly more detailed descriptions at 117 characters.

Senior professionals maintain the same count of 4 achievements but demonstrate a meaningful shift in how they communicate impact; their descriptions extend to 123 characters on average.

This pattern suggests that career advancement brings not just more accomplishments to share but a greater capacity to articulate the nuance, scope, and business impact of those contributions.

The progression reflects a natural evolution: early-career professionals focus on demonstrating competence, while experienced leaders emphasize strategic outcomes and measurable results that require additional context to convey effectively.

Resume Page Count by Experience

Resume Length Grows with Career Progression

As professionals advance through their careers, their resumes expand accordingly.

Entry-level candidates overwhelmingly favor brevity, with over 90% using one or two pages to showcase their qualifications.

Mid-level professionals maintain similar proportions, though a notable shift emerges with nearly 15% opting for three pages.

The transformation becomes pronounced at the senior level, where only 63% stick to the traditional one-to-two page format.

More than a third of senior professionals require three or more pages to adequately capture their extensive experience, leadership roles, and accomplishments, with nearly 10% needing four pages or longer.

Number of Skills

Job Seekers Typically List 18 Skills on Their Resumes

Professionals across all career categories typically showcase 18 skills on their resumes up from 9 in Q2, with a quarter highlighting 11 or fewer and another quarter featuring 28 or more.

While the typical professional lists 18 skills, the average sits higher at approximately 24, suggesting some candidates list significantly more competencies.

This distribution spans dramatically, from a single skill to over 2,000, revealing how most job seekers strike a balance between demonstrating breadth of expertise and maintaining focus.

The middle 50% of professionals list between 11 and 28 skills, suggesting that successful candidates tend to curate a substantial but manageable portfolio of competencies rather than attempting to list every possible qualification.

Work Tenure and Experience Years

Work Tenure by Job Title

Senior Roles Anchor Careers While Entry-Level Positions See Rapid Turnover

Consulting and management positions dominate the longest-tenured roles in today's workforce, with Senior Consultants averaging 7.8 years in their positions, matching Business Analysts for the top spot after removing outliers.

Leadership positions like General Manager (6.8 years), Manager (6.4 years), and Project Manager (6.2 years) cluster in the 6-7 year range, suggesting these roles offer stability that keeps professionals committed.

Mid-career positions in sales, marketing, and operations hover around 5-6 years, while technical roles like Software Engineer and Senior Software Engineer reach 5.1 years.

The pattern shifts dramatically for customer-facing and administrative positions, where Customer Service Representatives (3.6 years), Servers (3.4 years), and Sales Associates (3.3 years) experience significantly shorter tenures.

Receptionist roles round out the bottom at 3.2 years, reflecting the transient nature of entry-level administrative work.

This distribution reveals a clear career progression story: professionals move quickly through junior positions but settle into stability once reaching senior individual contributor or management levels.

Total Experience Years by Target Title

Senior Leadership Roles Demand Decades of Professional Growth

Vice Presidents lead the pack with nearly 25 years of professional experience, followed closely by Directors at 23 years.

Executive and management positions consistently require 15-20 years in the workforce, reflecting the long career trajectories needed to reach these levels.

Mid-career roles like Product Manager and Senior Software Engineer cluster around 12-13 years, while entry-level technical positions such as Full Stack Engineer and generalist Engineer roles show the shortest tenures at under 10 years.

Customer-facing positions span a wide range, from Customer Success requiring 15 years to Customer Service Representative at just over 10, highlighting the varying expertise levels across client interaction roles.

The progression is clear: leadership and strategic positions demand significantly more seasoning than individual contributor or support roles, with a roughly 15-year gap separating the most senior positions from emerging professional categories.

Education in Resume

Top Fields of Study by Target Role

Computer Science Dominates Tech Hiring, While Specialized Fields Lead Other Industries

The educational backgrounds of job seekers reveal distinct patterns across professional categories.

Software & IT roles attract an overwhelming number of computer science graduates, nearly 2,000, followed by various engineering specialties.

In contrast, other sectors show more focused educational requirements: cybersecurity positions primarily draw from dedicated cybersecurity programs, healthcare roles are dominated by nursing degrees, and finance & accounting positions consistently attract accounting and finance majors.

Interestingly, business administration appears as a versatile credential across multiple categories, ranking highly in product management, sales, marketing, and human resources.

The concentration of specific degrees in their corresponding fields, like graphic design for creative roles or marketing degrees for advertising positions, suggests that targeted education remains the primary pathway into most professional categories.

However, the tech sector's breadth of engineering disciplines (computer, mechanical, electrical) indicates a more inclusive approach to candidate qualifications compared to other industries.

Skills in Resume

Most Popular Skills by Target Title Category

The Modern Professional Landscape: Where Technology Meets Human Expertise

Across professional fields, Huntr’s Q3 2025 resume data highlights how technology and collaboration define modern skillsets. In Software & IT, Python (68.5%) and Git (54.8%) dominate as universal tools, while Data & Analytics professionals overwhelmingly rely on Python (84.7%) and SQL (80.4%) as foundational. Creative & Design roles are anchored by Figma (73.7%), Product Managers by Jira (48.1%), and Marketers by Google Analytics (39.3%) and Canva (36.2%). Salesforce (29.3%) leads Sales & Business Development, while Information Security professionals lean on Python (57.2%) and Wireshark (41.2%) for automation and analysis. Administrative & Clerical workers emphasize Customer Service (23.4%) and Office Suite tools, whereas Customer Support prioritizes Time Management (23.5%) and Problem Solving (15.1%). In Finance & Accounting, Power BI (27%) signals the analytics revolution, and in Operations & Logistics, SQL (43.1%) underscores data-driven decision-making. Together, the data shows a workforce increasingly blending technical fluency, collaboration platforms, and analytical literacy across every profession.

Software & IT - Python Leads Software Engineering Toolkit

Software & IT professionals list Python on 68.5% of resumes, making it the most prevalent programming skill in the field. Git follows at 54.8%, reflecting universal version control adoption, while JavaScript appears on 51.3% of resumes as web development remains central to modern applications. SQL commands 47.1% of the skillset, essential for database interaction across nearly every project. Java maintains relevance at 43.8%, particularly in enterprise environments, while containerization tool Docker has reached 40.8% penetration. The database landscape shows MySQL (35.4%) and MongoDB (33.1%) as leading choices, with PostgreSQL (30.1%) not far behind. Cloud platform AWS appears on 30.7% of resumes, while Node.js (30.5%) and TypeScript (29.4%) demonstrate the JavaScript ecosystem's depth. Traditional web fundamentals HTML (29.1%) and CSS (28.7%) remain foundational, and React (26.8%) leads frontend framework adoption, cementing JavaScript's dominance across both client and server development.

Data Science - SQL and Python Rule Analytics

Data & Analytics professionals overwhelmingly list Python (84.7%) and SQL (80.4%) on their resumes, establishing these two as the non-negotiable foundation of modern analytics work. Visualization platforms Power BI (52.3%) and Tableau (50.8%) appear on roughly half of all resumes, reflecting the critical importance of translating insights into digestible visual formats. The Python ecosystem dominates the technical stack, with Pandas (42.9%) for manipulation, NumPy (37.4%) for computation, and Scikit-Learn (30.4%) for machine learning all featuring prominently. Excel retains surprising relevance at 38.3%, bridging traditional business workflows with advanced analytics. Visualization libraries Matplotlib (30.4%) and Seaborn (20.2%) round out Python's data storytelling capabilities. Git version control (32.8%) demonstrates that analytics work increasingly follows software development practices, while R holds steady at 30.4% among statisticians and academic-leaning analysts. Database technologies MySQL (22.1%) and AWS (19.7%) support the data infrastructure, with TensorFlow (20.1%) indicating growing interest in deep learning applications within analytics roles.

Creative & Design - Figma Dominates Design Workflows

Creative & Design professionals list Figma on 73.7% of resumes, establishing it as the overwhelming standard for interface design and prototyping work. The skillset emphasizes UX research methodologies, with Usability Testing (37.7%), Prototyping (35.9%), and User Research (30.3%) all appearing on roughly one-third of resumes. Wireframing (31.7%) remains foundational to the design process, while Design Systems (28.5%) reflects the maturation of design practices in product organizations. Adobe Creative Suite (31.3%) maintains relevance alongside individual Adobe tools like Photoshop (25.6%) and Illustrator (23.1%), though clearly playing second fiddle to Figma's collaborative cloud-based approach. Collaboration platform Miro (27.4%) demonstrates how remote work has transformed design workflows, while project management tool Jira (24.9%) shows designers increasingly embedded in agile development processes. Information Architecture (23.1%) and Interaction Design (22.4%) round out the strategic skillset. Web fundamentals HTML (21%) and CSS (20.3%) appear on one-fifth of resumes, indicating many designers bridge into frontend development or work closely with engineering teams to implement their visions.

Product Management - Jira Anchors Product Management Workflows

Product Management professionals lead with Jira (48.1%) and SQL (45.8%), revealing how deeply embedded they are in both development workflows and technical decision-making. Design tool Figma (33.7%) appears on one-third of resumes, reflecting the need to communicate visually with design teams and participate in the product creation process. Python (31%) demonstrates significant technical fluency, while visualization platforms Tableau (30.1%) and Power BI (21.8%) enable product managers to independently analyze user behavior and business metrics. Stakeholder Management (29.4%) and Confluence (29.2%) highlight the role's collaborative nature, bridging engineering, design, business, and executive stakeholders. A/B Testing (21.6%) and Google Analytics (18.2%) emphasize the importance of experimentation and measurement in modern product development. Product Strategy (17.3%) appears surprisingly low given its centrality to the role, perhaps because it's considered implicit rather than a discrete skill to list. The blend of Project Management (14.6%), Miro (14.4%), and Data Analysis (15.5%) rounds out a toolkit that demands equal parts technical competency, strategic thinking, and cross-functional leadership.

Marketing and Advertising - Google Analytics Leads Marketing Measurement

Marketing & Advertising professionals list Google Analytics on 39.3% of resumes, establishing it as the primary tool for understanding campaign performance and user behavior. Design platform Canva (36.2%) has emerged as nearly equally essential, democratizing visual content creation for marketers without formal design training. Project Management (24.5%) and marketing automation platform HubSpot (24.5%) tie for third, reflecting the field's dual emphasis on campaign orchestration and lead nurturing. WordPress (23%) demonstrates content management's continued importance, while Salesforce (21.6%) bridges marketing and sales operations. SEO and Digital Marketing both appear on 19% of resumes, representing core competencies rather than specialized niches. Adobe Creative Suite (18.7%) maintains relevance for more sophisticated creative work, alongside Google Ads (18.5%) for paid search campaigns. A/B Testing (17.7%) and Excel (17.7%) show the analytical rigor expected in modern marketing roles. Tableau (16.9%) indicates growing sophistication in visualization and reporting, while softer skills like English (16.4%) and Cross-Functional Collaboration (16.1%) acknowledge marketing's role as organizational storyteller and connector across departments.

Sales & Business Development - Salesforce Dominates Sales Technology Stack

Sales & Business Development professionals list Salesforce on 29.3% of resumes, making it the clear standard for CRM and pipeline management in the field. However, the relatively low percentage reveals that sales success relies less on specific platforms than on interpersonal capabilities and business acumen. HubSpot follows at 16%, offering an alternative sales automation platform, while the appearance of English (15.8%) as the third most common skill underscores communication's primacy in client-facing roles. Soft skills dominate the middle tier: Cross-Functional Collaboration (14.4%), Time Management (14.2%), and Project Management (13.8%) all feature more prominently than many technical tools. Core sales methodologies like Cold Calling (13.1%), Pipeline Management (12.4%), and Lead Generation (11.4%) appear explicitly, alongside Account Management (10.8%) for relationship building. LinkedIn Sales Navigator (10.8%) reflects modern prospecting's digital shift. Microsoft Office Suite (11.5%) and Excel (11.2%) provide basic business functionality, while Business Development itself appears at just 10.3%, perhaps considered too fundamental to require explicit mention or absorbed into broader role descriptions.

Information Security - Python Powers Security Automation and Analysis

Information Security professionals list Python on 57.2% of resumes, reflecting the language's dominance in security automation, threat detection, and exploit development. Network analysis tool Wireshark (41.2%) and security information platform Splunk (36.1%) form the core monitoring infrastructure, while Linux (35.1%) serves as the preferred operating system for security operations. SQL (28.4%) enables threat hunting through log analysis and database forensics. Windows (23.2%) appears alongside security-specific capabilities like Vulnerability Assessment (23.2%) and network mapping tool Nmap (23.2%), demonstrating the need to defend both major operating systems. Scripting languages Bash (21.1%) and PowerShell (20.6%) automate repetitive security tasks and incident response procedures. Penetration testing frameworks Metasploit (20.1%) and Burp Suite (19.6%) indicate offensive security skills for identifying vulnerabilities before adversaries do. Network Security (19.1%) and Incident Response (18.6%) represent fundamental competencies, while Java (18%) suggests involvement in application security or security tool development. The skillset reveals security professionals as technical polymaths who must understand systems deeply enough to both exploit and defend them.

Administrative & Clerical - Customer Service Defines Administrative Roles

Administrative & Clerical professionals list Customer Service on 23.4% of resumes, establishing client interaction as the most valued capability in these support positions. Microsoft Office Suite (20.4%) and Excel (20.2%) follow closely, reflecting the enduring importance of traditional productivity tools for document creation, spreadsheet management, and organizational workflows. Time Management (19.6%) appears nearly as frequently as technical skills, acknowledging the juggling act inherent in administrative work. Google Workspace (19.1%) and Microsoft Office (19.1%) demonstrate the platform divide between organizations, with administrative staff needing fluency in whichever ecosystem their employer has chosen. Attention to Detail (17.4%) makes an explicit appearance, rarely seen in other professional categories where it's simply assumed. English proficiency (16.6%) highlights communication demands across written correspondence and verbal interactions. Remote work tools Zoom (15.3%) and Slack (14.7%) reflect the distributed workplace's new normal, while PowerPoint (13.1%) suggests presentation support responsibilities. Project Management (12.8%), Problem Solving (12.5%), and design tool Canva (12.5%) indicate administrative roles expanding beyond pure clerical functions into coordination and light creative work.

Customer Support & Service - Customer Service and Time Management Lead

Customer Support & Service professionals list Customer Service on 24.5% of resumes, though the modest percentage suggests it's often considered implicit to the role rather than a discrete skill to highlight. Time Management (23.5%) appears nearly as frequently, reflecting the high-volume, fast-paced nature of support work where multiple customer issues demand simultaneous attention. Conflict Resolution (15.1%) and Problem Solving (15.1%) tie as the next most common skills, acknowledging that support roles involve de-escalating tense situations and finding creative solutions within system constraints. Microsoft Office (13.4%) provides basic business functionality, while Communication Skills (12.8%) makes an explicit appearance, unusual for professional roles where communication is typically assumed. Salesforce (12.4%) serves as the primary ticketing and CRM platform, with Zendesk (9.7%) and Jira (9.7%) offering alternatives. Adaptability (12.1%) and Attention to Detail (11.7%) highlight the mental flexibility required when context-switching between diverse customer issues. Collaboration tools Slack (10.4%) and Excel (10.4%) support daily operations, while Active Listening (9.7%) receives explicit recognition as a foundational interpersonal capability that distinguishes excellent support from merely adequate service.

Finance & Accounting - Power BI Transforms Finance Analytics

Finance & Accounting professionals list Power BI on 27% of resumes, surpassing even SQL (25.3%) to become the leading technical skill in the field. This marks a significant evolution from traditional spreadsheet-bound finance work toward interactive dashboards and self-service analytics. Excel (20.6%) remains essential but no longer dominates, while PowerPoint (19.3%) reflects the continued importance of presenting financial narratives to stakeholders. Python (18.9%) and Tableau (18.5%) demonstrate growing technical sophistication, enabling finance professionals to automate reporting and build custom analyses beyond Excel's capabilities. Core finance competencies Financial Analysis (17.2%) and Financial Reporting (17.2%) appear explicitly, followed by Financial Modeling (15.9%) and Variance Analysis (15.5%), traditional skills now augmented by modern tooling. Enterprise system SAP (15.5%) and accounting software QuickBooks (15%) serve distinct market segments, from large corporations to small businesses. English (15.5%) acknowledges the global nature of modern finance operations, while soft skills Attention to Detail (14.2%) and Time Management (13.7%) round out a profile that balances technical capability with the precision and deadline-driven nature of financial work.

Operations & Logistics - SQL Powers Operations Decision-Making

Operations & Logistics professionals list SQL on 43.1% of resumes, establishing database querying as the foundational technical skill for managing complex supply chains and operational workflows. Project Management (34.4%) follows as the second most common capability, reflecting the coordinating role operations plays across organizations. Visualization platforms Tableau (31.9%) and Power BI (25%) enable operations teams to monitor KPIs and communicate performance metrics across departments. Python (30%) demonstrates significant technical depth, likely used for process automation, forecasting, and optimization algorithms. Jira (25.6%) serves as the primary tool for tracking operational initiatives and coordinating cross-functional work. Excel (21.9%) maintains relevance for ad-hoc analysis and reporting, while Salesforce (20.6%) bridges operations with sales and customer success functions. Stakeholder Management (18.1%) acknowledges operations' role as organizational connectors, while English (17.5%) reflects global supply chains requiring multilingual coordination. Data Analysis (16.9%) and Microsoft Office (16.3%) provide supporting analytical capabilities. Cross-Functional Collaboration (15.6%) and Change Management (15%) round out a skillset that emphasizes both technical competency and the interpersonal skills needed to implement operational improvements across resistant organizations.

Career Pathways

Top Career Progression Pathways

Career Progression Pathway Network

This visualization maps the movement of professionals between 90 different job titles across 13 industry categories during 2025.

The circular network reveals natural progression routes, with Software Engineer serving as the most active hub, 47 professionals advanced to Senior Software Engineer, making it the single largest transition.

The technology sector dominates the landscape, showing clear advancement ladders from junior positions through senior and principal levels.

Notable cross-functional mobility appears between related fields: Business Analysts frequently move into Product Manager roles, while Data Analysts transition into both Data Scientist and Data Engineer positions.

The network also captures intern-to-full-time conversions and lateral moves between similar roles, painting a comprehensive picture of how modern careers evolve across organizational hierarchies and functional boundaries.

Average Time in Career Progressions

The following charts offer a revealing look at career transition patterns across different professional fields, visualizing the average time professionals spend in various roles before advancing or changing positions. These visualizations highlight the distinct progression timelines that exist between industries, from the rapid advancement cycles in sales roles (where transitions typically occur within 6-18 months) to the more extended timelines in software engineering and product management (where senior positions often require 3-5 years of experience). Each chart maps the journey across different positions, with the left axis showing the starting role and the right axis displaying the destination role. The length of each bar represents the years spent in the previous position before making the transition.

Software & IT Career Progressions: Time in Previous Role

Data Analyst Career Progressions: Time in Previous Role

Sales Career Progressions: Time in Previous Role

Product Management Career Progressions: Time in Previous Role

Design Career Progressions: Time in Previous Role

Job Market Analysis

Salaries By Role

Top paying Job Titles

Executive and Technical Leadership Roles Command Premium Salaries, with Director of Engineering Topping $250K

The compensation landscape reveals a clear premium for executive leadership and specialized technical roles, with Director of Engineering positions commanding the highest median salary at $253,000. C-suite and VP-level positions dominate the top tier, including VPs at $248,840 and Vice Presidents at $242,500, while specialized executive roles like Chief Operating Officer ($237,500) and General Counsel ($232,375) round out the upper echelon.

Notably, highly technical roles such as Principal Software Engineer ($204,925) and Machine Learning specialists ($195,000) compete closely with traditional management positions, reflecting the growing value placed on deep technical expertise.

The data shows a relatively tight clustering at the $190,000-$210,000 range for mid-to-senior director-level positions, suggesting a competitive yet standardized compensation structure for experienced leadership across various functional areas including operations, sales, and creative disciplines.

Salaries By Education Requirements

Top Paying Degrees

Masters Degree Holders Command Nearly $170K While Associates Graduates Earn Less Than Half

Advanced degrees deliver substantial salary advantages in the tech industry, with Masters graduates earning $168,638 on average, 9% above the overall industry benchmark of $154,660.

Bachelor's degree holders fall slightly below this mark at $144,836, representing a 6% discount.

The gap widens dramatically for those with only high school diplomas, who earn $84,370, landing 45% below the industry standard.

Surprisingly, Associates degree holders fare worst of all at $73,366, nearly 53% below average. Doctorate holders, despite their extensive education, earn $156,368, just marginally above the industry baseline with only a 1% premium.

The salary trajectory suggests that while higher education generally pays off, the sweet spot appears to be the Masters level, where investment in advanced training translates most directly into compensation gains.

Lowest Paying Fields of Study

Social Work Professionals Face Steepest Pay Gap in Tech-Adjacent Roles

Social work commands the lowest median salary at just $66,831, nearly half the industry average of $122,500.

Communication follows at $80,000, creating a substantial divide between these human-centered disciplines and the broader market.

Real estate, environmental science, and web design cluster around $87,500-$90,000, while education and advertising hover near $93,750.

Notably, data analytics, despite falling into the bottom 15 at $95,000, represents over 2,000 job openings, suggesting high demand doesn't always translate to premium compensation.

Most fields in this group settle between $95,000-$101,000, including human resources, instructional design, and public health.

The concentration reveals a pattern: roles emphasizing interpersonal skills, creative communication, or social impact consistently earn 20-45% below market rate, even as organizations increasingly recognize their strategic value in building workplace culture and community engagement.

Top Earning Fields of Study

Machine Learning Graduates Command 50% Salary Premium Over Average

Professionals with machine learning backgrounds earn 50.3% more than the overall average salary up from 43% in Q2, leading all fields of study by a significant margin.

Artificial intelligence specialists follow closely at 44.7% above average, underscoring the premium employers place on AI expertise.

Law degrees continue to deliver strong returns at 28.6% above average, while related AI terminology captures another 26.9% premium.

Applied mathematics and technical fields cluster together around 22%, alongside operations research and econometrics, reflecting sustained demand for quantitative and analytical skills.

Human-computer interaction rounds out the top tier at 21.9% above average.

Design-focused disciplines, product design and industrial design, command premiums near 19%, while physics maintains an 18.4% advantage.

More general technical backgrounds earn 17.8% above average, and operations management captures 14.9%.

Life sciences, at 14.7% above average, closes out the top fifteen fields commanding the strongest salary premiums in 2025.

Salaries by Company Size

Salary By Company Size

Largest Tech Companies Pay $16,000 More Than Startups

Organizations with over 1,000 employees offer the highest compensation at $133,500, establishing a clear premium for working at enterprise-scale technology firms. Mid-sized companies with 51-250 employees come close behind at $129,500, suggesting they compete aggressively for talent.

The smallest companies, those with 1-10 employees, provide median salary midpoints of $117,500, a 13.6% gap compared to their largest counterparts. Interestingly, the relationship between company size and compensation isn't perfectly linear: companies with 251-1,000 employees pay nearly identical amounts ($125,100) to those with just 11-50 employees ($125,000).

This suggests that once organizations grow beyond the startup phase, factors beyond headcount, such as funding, profitability, or industry vertical, may play a larger role in determining pay scales.

The relatively narrow $16,000 spread across all company sizes indicates the tech industry maintains competitive compensation regardless of organizational scale, though the premium for working at established enterprises remains meaningful.

Salaries by Location

Top States by Salary

Tech Salaries Peak in Pacific Northwest, Midwest States Surprise

Washington leads the nation with a typical salary midpoint of $128,525, followed closely by California at $120,625 and New York at $120,000.

What's striking is the strong showing from the heartland, Kansas and Nebraska both command $115,000 midpoints, placing them in the top five alongside coastal tech hubs.

The salary ranges tell an interesting story: Washington offers the widest spread between minimum and maximum offers ($115,000 to $142,050), suggesting more variation based on experience and negotiation.

Meanwhile, several states cluster around the $100,000 mark, including Massachusetts, Arkansas, and District of Columbia, despite their vastly different cost of living and tech ecosystems. Virginia rounds out the top tier at $106,300, benefiting from its proximity to federal contractors and the DC metro area.

The typical minimum offers across these top states range from $90,000 to $115,000, while maximum offers stretch from $106,660 to $142,050, revealing significant room for negotiation depending on candidate qualifications and market demand.

Salary Transparency in Job Postings

Most Transparent States

Washington Leads Nation in Salary Transparency for Tech Jobs

Washington state sets the standard with nearly 70% of tech job postings including salary information, outpacing every other state.

New York and Illinois follow closely behind at 66%, while California, home to Silicon Valley, reaches 64% transparency. The West Coast shows strong adoption overall, with Oregon also exceeding 63%.

A significant gap emerges after Maryland, where transparency rates drop sharply.

Massachusetts, despite its robust tech sector, discloses salaries in less than half of postings at 44%.

The bottom tier, Arizona, Missouri, Virginia, and Kansas, all hover around 43%, revealing stark regional differences in how employers approach pay disclosure.

District of Columbia stands out among smaller markets with nearly 60% transparency, suggesting that progressive labor policies in the nation's capital influence local hiring practices.

The divide between top and bottom performers spans nearly 30 percentage points, highlighting how inconsistently tech companies nationwide embrace salary transparency despite growing pressure from job seekers demanding upfront compensation details.

Salaries by Skill Requirements

Skills with Highest Salary Premium

Leadership and Strategy Command Double the Median Salary

Engineering management and leadership roles now command more than double the typical tech salary, with premiums exceeding 106% and 104% respectively. These executive-level capabilities dwarf other specializations, followed by legal credentials (JD) at 96% premium.

The pattern reveals a clear hierarchy: strategic skills like technical strategy, AI adoption, and developer platforms all earn 80-85% above baseline, while tactical expertise in emerging technologies like JAX and advertising tech cluster in the same range. Even the 30th-ranked skill, IT leadership, still commands nearly 64% more than standard compensation.

This premium structure suggests organizations are willing to pay exponentially more for professionals who can navigate both technical complexity and business direction, particularly those bridging AI innovation with enterprise execution.

Top Paying Programming Languages

Rust Developers Command Premium Over Traditional Language Specialists

The salary data reveals a clear market premium for modern systems programming expertise, with Rust developers earning a median of $175,000; the highest among all programming languages analyzed. The top 15 highest-paid languages are dominated by newer technologies like Swift ($170,000), GraphQL ($168,245), and Go/Golang ($162,500-$163,000), while traditional enterprise staples like Java and Python (despite having significantly higher job counts) don't crack the top tier by compensation. This suggests that while legacy languages offer more job opportunities, organizations pay substantial premiums for scarce expertise in languages that prioritize memory safety, performance, and modern development paradigms, with all top 15 languages exceeding $146,000 in median compensation.

Top Paying Design Tools

Framer and Figma Skills Command Premium Over Traditional Adobe Tools

The design job market has undergone a seismic shift, with modern prototyping and collaboration platforms now commanding salaries that dwarf their legacy counterparts. According to our data analyzing thousands of design positions, jobs requiring Framer show a median salary of $138,000; a staggering $77k more than those jobs requiring Adobe InDesign, and nearly double the compensation of Canva specialists. This wage gap reveals more than just tool preference; it exposes how companies are willing to pay premiums for designers who can bridge the gap between static mockups and interactive experiences. The market has spoken: mastery of real-time collaboration platforms like Figma ($130,000 median) and sophisticated prototyping tools like Framer has become the new currency of design excellence.

Salaries by Company

Top Paying Companies

Netflix Dominates Tech Compensation at $410K, Nearly Double Runner-Up NVIDIA

Netflix stands far ahead of the pack with a median salary midpoint of $410,000, almost twice that of second-place NVIDIA at $225,500.

The streaming giant's compensation dwarfs even other high-paying tech employers like Airbnb ($207,000) and Stripe ($199,100).

While major players, including Apple, Salesforce, Meta, and Google all offer median midpoints above $170,000, Netflix's willingness to pay a premium for talent creates a substantial gap at the top.

This spread reveals how companies compete differently for skilled professionals, with Netflix taking an aggressive approach that sets it apart from peers.

The remaining fourteen companies cluster more closely together, spanning from NVIDIA's $225,500 down to Coinbase at $165,852, suggesting a more standardized market rate among mainstream tech employers.

Amazon, despite having the largest job count at nearly 3,000 positions, falls toward the middle of the pack at $167,496, showing that volume of openings doesn't necessarily correlate with compensation levels.

Education Requirements

Degree Requirements by Job Title

Bachelor's Degree Remains the Dominant Credential Across Professional Roles

Most professional positions demand a bachelor's degree as the baseline qualification, with technical and business-focused roles showing the strongest emphasis on four-year credentials.

Marketing & Advertising, Product Management, and Finance & Accounting lead the pack, where roughly 95% of openings specify a bachelor's degree as the minimum requirement.

Customer Support & Service and Administrative & Clerical roles stand apart, with 58% and 51% respectively accepting candidates without four-year degrees.

Advanced credentials beyond a bachelor's play a particularly important role in Science & Research, where a third of positions require graduate-level education.

Meanwhile, fields like Human Resources & Recruiting show zero postings demanding education beyond a bachelor's, and most creative, technical, and business development roles maintain similar patterns with fewer than 3% requiring advanced degrees.

The landscape reveals a clear divide: white-collar professional work overwhelmingly expects bachelor's-level education, while support and administrative functions remain more accessible to those entering the workforce through alternative pathways.

Field of Study Requirements By Industry

Before you get started:
The stacked bar chart highlights how frequently each field of study appears in job requirements, categorized by the hiring company's industry (not the candidate's current field). Tech-focused industries dominate the field of study requirements landscape, with communications equipment and semiconductors leading the charge at 45% and 41% tech-related degree mentions respectively.

However, the story becomes more nuanced when examining the full spectrum of educational backgrounds sought across sectors. While IT services and internet software companies predictably emphasize technical credentials, traditional industries reveal surprising patterns - airlines require 32% tech expertise, and even insurance companies seek nearly 30% tech-qualified candidates, suggesting digital transformation's pervasive impact.

Manufacturing sectors like semiconductors and electrical equipment balance technical needs with substantial engineering requirements (24% and 19% respectively), while service-oriented industries like professional services and air freight show more diversified educational preferences, blending business acumen with technical skills at 22% and 29% respectively.

The visualization reveals that pure tech specialization is giving way to hybrid skill sets, with most industries requiring a mix of technical, business, and engineering backgrounds rather than single-discipline expertise. Even traditionally non-technical sectors like chemicals and pharmaceuticals increasingly seek candidates with tech backgrounds alongside life sciences expertise.

Fields of Study Growing in Demand

This analysis explores shifting requirements for fields of study in tech job postings, comparing Q2 2025 to Q3 2025. The data highlights the relative growth percentage for fields that saw a meaningful percentage point increase (≥0.1%) in job listings referencing these qualifications. Percentage point (pp) change is calculated by subtracting the Q2 percentage from the Q3 percentage. For instance, let's say Marketing was mentioned in 1.27% of job postings in Q2 2025 and increased to 1.84% in Q3 2025, resulting in a 0.57 percentage point rise. The relative change (44.88%) indicates how significant this increase is compared to the original value (0.57 ÷ 1.27 = 44.88%).

Business and Operations Degrees Show Strongest Growth in Job Requirements

Job postings referencing Human Resources degrees (48.65%) and Management degrees (47.83%) show the highest relative growth rates among field of study requirements meeting the 0.1 percentage point threshold between Q2 and Q3 2025.

Eight of the twelve fastest-growing degree requirements are business-related: Business Administration, Economics, Finance, Accounting, Marketing, Business, Administration, and Management. While these degrees generally appeared in smaller percentages of job descriptions in Q2 (ranging from 0.23% to 3.09%), their relative growth outpaces technical degree requirements.

Engineering degrees, despite having the highest absolute representation (mentioned in 4.75% of Q2 postings, rising to 5.41% in Q3), show 13.89% relative growth.

Fields of Study with Declining Demand

Design and Specialized Tech Degrees Show Largest Declines in Job Requirements

Job postings referencing Product Design degrees (-48.15%) and Interaction Design degrees (-37.74%) show the steepest relative declines in field of study requirements between Q2 and Q3 2025. Design-related degrees dominate the declining fields, with Human-Computer Interaction (-35.58%), Graphic Design (-34.86%), HCI (-25.00%), and general Design (-28.67%) all showing significant drops.

Security-focused degrees also declined, including Information Security (-30.00%) and Cybersecurity (-28.57%).
Computer Science degrees, despite remaining the most frequently mentioned field overall (appearing in 14.56% of Q2 job postings and 13.65% in Q3), show a -6.25% relative decline with a -0.91 percentage point decrease.

Information Technology (-14.18%), Computer Engineering (-11.54%), and Information Systems (-8.63%) round out the declining technical degree requirements, suggesting a shift away from certain specialized technical credentials in favor of either generalist engineering backgrounds or business-oriented qualifications.

Equivalent Experience Acceptance

Equivalent Experience Acceptance by Company Size

Larger Companies Lead in Experience Flexibility

Organizations with over 1,000 employees accept equivalent experience at twice the rate of the smallest firms.

The acceptance rate climbs steadily from 6.5% at companies with 1-10 workers to 13% at enterprise-scale organizations.

Mid-sized businesses show progressive openness as well, with firms employing 251-1,000 people reaching a 10.3% acceptance rate.

This pattern suggests that as organizations grow, they develop more sophisticated hiring frameworks that recognize diverse pathways to expertise.

Smaller companies, those with fewer than 50 employees, remain more traditional in their requirements, with acceptance rates hovering around 7%.

The gap between enterprise and startup hiring practices reveals a fundamental divide in how different-sized employers evaluate candidate qualifications.

Top Job Categories Accepting Equivalent Experience

Information Security Jobs Lead the Way in Valuing Real-World Skills Over Degrees

Nearly one in five Information Security positions now accept equivalent experience instead of formal education requirements, making it the most flexible field for candidates without traditional credentials.

Media & Communications follows at 13%, while Customer Support roles and Software & IT positions both hover around 12%.

The pattern reveals a growing recognition across technical and creative industries that practical expertise can substitute for academic qualifications.

However, acceptance rates drop off significantly in more traditional sectors, Finance & Accounting sits at just 8%, and Education & Training barely crosses the same threshold.

For job seekers building skills through bootcamps, self-study, or on-the-job learning, Security and Communications roles offer the strongest opportunities to break in without a degree, while fields like Finance maintain more conventional hiring gatekeepers.

Artificial intelligence

AI Skills

Broad AI Expertise Dominates 2025 Job Market

Employers are prioritizing general AI knowledge over specialized skills. Positions requiring "AI / Artificial Intelligence" capability appeared in 4,399 job postings, more than double the next category.

The top three requirements (general AI expertise, AI tools proficiency, and generative AI familiarity) account for nearly 8,000 positions combined.

Beyond these foundational competencies, employer needs fragment dramatically: AI technologies (639 jobs), AI integration (617 jobs), and various niche specializations like conversational AI, governance, and agentic systems each appear in fewer than 200 postings.

This pattern suggests companies want candidates who understand AI broadly and can apply it flexibly, rather than specialists who excel in narrow domains.

The message is clear, demonstrate versatility with AI fundamentals first, then layer in targeted expertise.

Industry

Industry Concentration in Our Top Cities

How we came up with our rankings

We present a new way to visualize industry concentration across North American cities. Instead of focusing solely on raw job counts, which often favor larger metropolitan areas, we measure the percentage of each city’s total job listings represented by specific industries.

The resulting heatmap ranks cities by industry concentration, highlighting the top five locations where each sector accounts for the largest share of local job opportunities. This method resolves common shortcomings in traditional labor data. It mitigates sampling bias from our user base, which may over-represent certain regions, and normalizes for population size, giving smaller cities with strong industry footprints equal visibility alongside major hubs.

It’s worth noting that a high concentration doesn’t necessarily reflect the most job openings overall; rather, it indicates where an industry holds a particularly prominent role in the local economy.

Tech Hubs Dominate Software Jobs While Traditional Finance Cities Lead Professional Services

The landscape of industry concentration across North American cities reveals distinct patterns in where specialized talent clusters.

San Francisco, Seattle, and San Jose command the top three positions for Internet Software & Services, with San Francisco holding 56.8% concentration, more than double most major metros.

Meanwhile, Winnipeg emerges as an unexpected leader in Professional Services at 38.4%, followed by Washington D.C. and Chicago.

Toronto stands out in Diversified Financial Services with 21.87% concentration, nearly double that of New York's 11.07%.

Boston demonstrates remarkable strength in healthcare-related sectors, claiming the top spot in both Health Care Providers & Services (8.82%) and Pharmaceuticals (6.52%), while also ranking second in Education Services.

The Media sector remains concentrated in traditional entertainment centers, with Los Angeles holding 14.27% and New York at 9.72%.

Houston shows surprising versatility, appearing in the top five rankings across seven different sectors, more than any other city.

The Hotels, Restaurants & Leisure sector sees Houston leading at 4.79%, followed by Seattle and Boston tied at 2.90%.

For Capital Markets, New York maintains its expected dominance at 4.13%, with Boston and Chicago following.

Atlanta leads Insurance concentration at 3.95%, ahead of Washington D.C. and Toronto.

These patterns underscore how cities have developed specialized economic identities, with some metros like Boston and Houston building diverse sector strengths while others like San Francisco remain highly concentrated in single industries.

Location Requirements

Location Requirements by Company Size

Remote Work Fades as Companies Scale

Smaller organizations embrace flexibility far more than their larger counterparts.

Tech companies with 1-10 employees offer remote positions at nearly double the rate of enterprises with 1000+ staff, 32% versus just 14%.

This pattern reveals a striking divide: as headcount grows, remote opportunities shrink steadily across every size bracket.

Meanwhile, hybrid and onsite arrangements remain remarkably consistent regardless of company scale, hovering between 12-18%.

The most notable trend surfaces in unspecified work locations, which balloon from 40% at small firms to over 53% at the largest employers, suggesting major enterprises increasingly leave workplace decisions ambiguous or flexible in their job postings.

Location Requirements by Job Category

Remote Work Leads in Creative Fields While Falling Short in Science

Writing & Editing roles show the strongest embrace of remote arrangements at 33%, closely followed by Customer Support at nearly the same level.

Creative professionals and those in software development cluster around 25-27% remote work, suggesting these fields have successfully adapted to distributed teams.

The picture shifts dramatically for Science & Research positions, where only 9% work remotely, tied with Legal for the lowest rate. Administrative roles lean heavily onsite at 25%, reflecting the nature of in-person coordination tasks.

Hybrid arrangements remain the smallest slice across most categories, hovering between 8-17%, indicating that employers and workers tend to favor either fully remote or fully onsite setups rather than splitting time between locations.

The pattern reveals how job function, rather than industry alone, drives work location choices in today's employment landscape.

Monthly Trends in Location Requirements

Remote Work Opportunities Continue Decline Through September

The flexibility job seekers once enjoyed is becoming harder to find.

Remote positions dropped from 25.75% in January to 22.61% by September, marking a steady retreat from pandemic-era norms.

Hybrid arrangements followed a similar trajectory, sliding from 11.82% to 9.57% over the same period.

Meanwhile, the share of listings that don't specify any location requirement at all climbed from 48.28% to 55.66%, now representing more than half of all postings.

Onsite roles saw the most dramatic shift in April, plummeting from around 14% to under 12%, where they've remained relatively stable.

The trend suggests employers are either pulling back from explicit flexibility promises or leaving location requirements ambiguous, forcing candidates to navigate uncertainty about where they'll actually be working.

Skills Requirements

Skill Requirement Count By Job Category

Tech Roles Demand Double the Skills of Service Industries

Information Security and Software & IT positions lead the market with the steepest requirements, where half of all openings expect candidates to possess 13 or more distinct capabilities.

At the other end of the spectrum, Transportation & Logistics roles typically ask for just 3 skills at the median level.

The gap widens further when examining the upper quartile: technical positions in cybersecurity and software development push toward 17 skills, while customer-facing and operational roles cluster around 10-11.

Healthcare presents an interesting outlier, despite its clinical nature, positions span an unusually wide range, from 6 skills at the lower quartile to 12 at the upper bound.

Creative and product-focused opportunities sit comfortably in the middle, hovering around 10-12 skills across all percentiles, suggesting a more standardized expectation for these disciplines.

The pattern reveals a clear divide: careers built on code and systems architecture require significantly broader technical toolkits than those centered on human interaction and physical operations.

Top Skills by Company Size

Tech Skills Split Along Company Lines: Startups Favor Modern Stacks, Enterprises Stick to Proven Tools

The divide between startup and enterprise job requirements reveals distinct technical philosophies.

Startups heavily prioritize modern web development skills, React appears in 1.06% of their postings versus just 0.4% in enterprise roles, while TypeScript and Next.js show similar leanings.

These companies also emphasize rapid deployment capabilities through Docker, Terraform, and CI/CD expertise.

Enterprise organizations take a different approach, seeking candidates with traditional strengths.

Communication abilities top their requirements at 4.61% of postings, alongside project management (1.74%), leadership (0.86%), and strategic planning (0.41%).

Technical preferences lean toward established languages like Java, which appears 83% more frequently in enterprise roles than startup positions.

The visualization positions each skill based on its prevalence across both company types, with bubble sizes reflecting mention volume.

Skills clustering near the diagonal line, like Kubernetes and Git, see relatively balanced demand.

Those positioned far from this equilibrium reveal the starkest philosophical differences: startups hunt for builders comfortable with cutting-edge frameworks, while enterprises value organizational competencies and battle-tested technologies that scale across large teams.

Top Skills by Job Category

Communication Skills Dominate Job Market as Technical Abilities Vary by Field

Communication emerges as the universal requirement across nearly every professional category in Q3 2025, appearing in more than half of all job listings in most fields, peaking at 71.57% in Sales & Business Development.

Meanwhile, technical requirements diverge sharply by specialty: SQL commands 68.65% of Data & Analytics positions, Figma appears in 60.21% of Creative & Design roles, and Python leads Software & IT at 34.97%.

Sales professionals face the highest bar for soft skills, with communication requirements exceeding technical tool proficiency by a factor of four (Salesforce appears in just 16.49% of listings).

Product Management and Creative & Design roles show a similar pattern, where communication skills (61.8% and 50.23% respectively) outpace even domain-specific competencies.

The message is clear: employers across industries prioritize the ability to collaborate, articulate ideas, and navigate cross-functional relationships above specialized technical knowledge, though mastery of category-specific tools like SQL, Figma, or Salesforce remains essential for entry into specialized fields.

Software & IT - Python (43.97%), Javascript (29.16%), and React (25.9%) round out the top three for the most desirable skills in software and IT.

Data & Analytics - Developing skills in SQL (68.65%), Python (60%), and Communication (53.73%) is a surefire way to stand out in data and analytics.

Creative & Design - In the creative and design industry, employers are actively seeking Figma (60.21%), Communication (50.23%), and Collaboration (45.86%) as top skills.

Product Management - In product management, it's no surprise to see Product Management (64.93%), Communication (61.8%), and Data Analysis (30.64%) as the most sought-after skills.

Sales & Business Development - Communication (71.57%), Sales (35.3%), and Salesforce (16.49%) are the most listed skills in sales and business development.

Information Security - Employers in information security often look for Communication (43.92%), Cybersecurity (27.23%), and Incident Reponse (26.6%) when hiring.

Marketing & Advertising - Companies hiring marketers look for more than just standard marketing skills like Communication (50.39%), Project Management (34.83%), and Data Analysis (23.87%).

Top Growing Skills Overall

Leadership Skills Dominate the Fastest-Growing Job Requirements
We analyzed unique job postings saved in both Q2 and Q3 2025, extracting required skills from each and calculating two normalized growth metrics per skill: job-market-adjusted growth, which measures the percentage change in a skill’s share of all postings, and company-adjusted growth, which tracks changes in its share of distinct hiring companies during the same period.

Cross-functional leadership surges ahead as employers and job seekers converge on collaborative management abilities, with demand jumping over 60% between spring and summer 2025.

The trend reveals a decisive shift toward roles requiring coordination across teams and departments, while AI-related capabilities, from general AI tools to prompt engineering and LLMs, claim multiple spots among the top risers.

Traditional technical skills like Python and Tableau continue expanding, but the steepest climbs belong to interpersonal competencies: resilience, relationship-building, and active listening each grew by more than a quarter.

The hiring landscape shows companies and job postings moving in lockstep, though certain skills like financial acumen and cross-functional team leadership see job openings outpacing company adoption by significant margins, suggesting pockets of unmet demand where savvy candidates can position themselves ahead of the curve.

Skills Gap

To map today's skills gap, we combined two sides of the Huntr platform:

• Demand (jobs). We analyzed every public job posting created since July 1, 2025, mapping various job-title keywords into 9 broader role categories, then deduplicated by company + title. For each role, we counted how many of those distinct postings mention every hard skill (soft-skill keywords were excluded). Our analysis covered 171 distinct skills across roles, including Backend Developer, Frontend Developer, DevOps Engineer, Data Analyst, Mobile Developer, QA Engineer, Data Engineer, Data Scientist, and Full Stack Developer.
• Supply (resumes). On the same timeline, we examined "base" resumes that job-seekers built in Huntr, matched each resume's target job title to the same 9 role categories, and cataloged the hard skills users explicitly added to their profiles.

From those two pools, we calculate three key metrics for every skill within each role:

• Demand % measures how frequently employers request a given skill within a role category. We calculate it by dividing the number of job postings that mention the skill by the total number of postings for that role. For example, JavaScript appears in 100% of Frontend Developer job postings, while API skills are mentioned in 35.7% of Backend Developer positions.
• Supply % captures how common that skill is among job-seekers. We compute it by dividing the number of resumes that list the skill by the total number of resumes targeting the same role. A higher value means a larger share of candidates claim the capability - for instance, 15.6% of Frontend Developer candidates list JavaScript skills.
• Gap ratio puts the two together by dividing Demand % by Supply %. A ratio near 1 indicates balance; anything above 1 signals a shortage (employers want the skill more often than candidates offer it), while values below 1 suggest an oversupply. Our data reveals significant gaps, with API skills showing the highest ratio at 8.7x, meaning companies request this skill nearly 9 times more often than candidates list it.

Software Development Skills Gap Analysis

Software development roles reveal massive cloud infrastructure gaps exceeding 80×, while fundamental programming languages approach supply-demand equilibrium

• Cloud platforms emerge as the most critical shortage at 80.06× gap (4.28% demand vs 0.05% supply), demonstrating that cloud-native development expertise remains extraordinarily scarce despite growing employer requirements.
• Relational databases show a 24.18× gap (3.88% demand vs 0.16% supply), while software development fundamentals present a 10.44× gap (10.61% demand vs 1.02% supply), indicating persistent deficits in backend and architectural competencies.
• AI capabilities demonstrate an 8.22× gap (3.08% demand vs 0.37% supply), with APIs at 7.54× gap and software engineering at 5.08× gap, revealing moderate shortages across emerging and established technical domains.
• Core development practices show stronger alignment: agile (1.43× gap with 15.93% demand vs 10.8% supply), debugging (1.78× gap), and Go programming (1.39× gap) indicate adequate supply of foundational skills.
• DevOps sits at 2.59× gap (5.95% demand vs 2.3% supply), positioned between specialized infrastructure expertise and general development capabilities. The software development landscape reveals that while basic programming and agile methodologies have sufficient talent pools, specialized cloud architecture and distributed systems expertise represents the field's most acute hiring challenge.

Data and Analytics Skills Gap Analysis

Data and analytics roles show infrastructure gaps exceeding 12×, while machine learning and core analytical skills demonstrate stronger talent availability

• Cloud platforms present the most severe shortage at 12.9× gap (3.68% demand vs 0.29% supply), revealing critical deficits in cloud-native data engineering capabilities.
• Data engineering shows a 6.9× gap (7.39% demand vs 1.07% supply), while data science demonstrates a 5.35× gap (7.25% demand vs 1.36% supply), highlighting persistent shortages in technical data roles.
• Data analysis exhibits a 4.81× gap (43.57% demand vs 9.06% supply), indicating that despite appearing in nearly half of all postings, analytical talent remains insufficient for employer needs.
• Established disciplines maintain better balance: machine learning (1.88× gap with 23.89% demand vs 12.71% supply), data modeling (1.58× gap), and statistics (1.54× gap) show adequate supply of core competencies.
• Data visualization sits at 2.14× gap (28.88% demand vs 13.49% supply), positioned between specialized infrastructure skills and foundational analytical capabilities. The analytics landscape reveals that while traditional statistical methods and machine learning expertise have reasonable availability, modern cloud-based data infrastructure and engineering skills represent the field's most significant talent constraints.

Design Skills Gap Analysis

Design roles face extreme specialization gaps exceeding 40×, while established design disciplines maintain stronger candidate pipelines

• UX terminology shows the highest gap at 41.66× (4.17% demand vs 0% supply), suggesting significant misalignment in how employers and candidates describe user experience capabilities.
• AI in design presents a 30.87× gap (3.09% demand vs 0% supply), reflecting the emerging demand for designers who can integrate artificial intelligence into product experiences.
• Accessibility standards demonstrate a 5.13× gap (4.79% demand vs 0.93% supply), highlighting critical shortages in inclusive design expertise as digital accessibility requirements intensify.
• Core design competencies show better balance: visual design (2.12× gap with 33.65% demand vs 15.89% supply), product design (3.66× gap), and UX design (3.46× gap) indicate moderate mismatches in foundational skills.
• Cross-functional capabilities like agile (1.77× gap), data analysis (1.51× gap), and data visualization (1.36× gap) reveal adequate supply of designers with collaborative and analytical proficiencies. The design landscape reveals that while traditional visual and product design skills have reasonable talent availability, specialized competencies in accessibility, AI integration, and modern UX terminology represent the field's most pressing recruitment challenges.

Product Management Skills Gap Analysis

Product management roles experience significant specialization gaps approaching 7×, while cross-functional competencies demonstrate adequate talent supply

• Product management shows a 6.68× gap (78.44% demand vs 11.75% supply), revealing that despite appearing in nearly four-fifths of job postings, candidates rarely emphasize this core competency.
• B2B SaaS expertise presents a 6.9× gap (5.4% demand vs 0.78% supply), while AI knowledge shows a 6.56× gap (8.57% demand vs 1.31% supply), highlighting shortages in emerging product domains.
• User experience capabilities demonstrate a 4.99× gap (7.82% demand vs 1.57% supply), indicating limited availability of product professionals with design sensibilities and customer empathy skills.
• Foundational business skills show healthier balance: agile methodologies (2.07× gap), project management (1.77× gap), and machine learning (1.77× gap) reflect adequate supply of collaborative and technical competencies.
• Data analysis sits at 2.5× gap (35.27% demand vs 14.1% supply), positioned between specialized product expertise and general business capabilities. The product management field reveals that while traditional project execution and analytical skills are reasonably available, the specialized ability to define product strategy, especially in SaaS and AI contexts, represents a critical talent constraint.

Administrative and Virtual Assistance Skills Gap Analysis

Administrative roles show modest skill gaps under 10×, with Microsoft Office proficiency representing the primary talent shortage area

• MS Office displays the highest gap at 9.43× (6.64% demand vs 0.7% supply), suggesting candidates may underreport basic productivity suite familiarity despite widespread employer expectations.
• Microsoft-specific applications show moderate shortages: MS Excel (5.1× gap), Microsoft PowerPoint (5.1× gap), and MS Word (1.78× gap) reveal varying degrees of documented proficiency gaps.
• Specialized administrative capabilities like bookkeeping (2.55× gap), travel arrangements (2.17× gap), and social media management (2.17× gap) demonstrate moderate mismatches in niche support skills.
• Core Microsoft Office tools maintain stronger alignment: Microsoft Office (1.47× gap with 22.8% demand vs 15.49% supply), Microsoft Word (1.37× gap), and Microsoft Outlook (1.34× gap) show better supply-demand balance.
• Event planning sits at 1.53× gap (4.31% demand vs 2.82% supply), indicating adequate availability of coordination and logistics expertise. The administrative landscape reveals relatively balanced talent supply compared to other roles, with the primary challenge centered on candidates explicitly documenting their proficiency with standard office productivity tools rather than fundamental skill shortages.

Customer Success & Support Skills Gap Analysis

Customer success roles face critical specialization gaps exceeding 50×, while traditional support competencies show stronger candidate alignment

• Customer success expertise shows a 53.49× gap (48.19% demand vs 0.9% supply), revealing that nearly half of all roles require this specialized skill yet candidates rarely highlight it.
• SaaS experience demonstrates a 26.58× gap with 23.95% demand against only 0.9% supply, indicating the challenge of finding professionals versed in subscription-based customer management.
• CRM systems present a 9.34× gap (4.21% demand vs 0.45% supply), while consulting shows a 9.18× gap, reflecting shortages in technical platform expertise and advisory capabilities.
• Traditional relationship management skills maintain better balance: project management (2.11× gap), strategic planning (1.56× gap), and sales (1.51× gap) demonstrate adequate supply of conventional business competencies
• Account management sits in the middle at 3.26× gap (30.84% demand vs 9.46% supply), showing moderate shortages in client relationship roles. The customer success landscape reveals that while general business and project skills are reasonably available, the specialized competencies defining modern customer success, particularly SaaS fluency and proactive success management, represent the field's most acute talent challenges.

Marketing Skills Gap Analysis

Marketing professionals face extreme specialization gaps exceeding 100×, while foundational skills maintain reasonable supply-demand balance

• Sales enablement represents the most severe shortage at 100.79× gap, with 10.08% of marketing roles requiring this skill but zero supply visible in candidate profiles.
• Product marketing shows a 4.89× gap (27.19% demand vs 5.56% supply), highlighting the shortage of professionals who can bridge product and market strategy.
• Performance marketing demonstrates a 3.46× gap with only 1.85% supply against 6.40% demand, reflecting the scarcity of data-driven campaign specialists.
• Core marketing competencies show healthier balance: digital marketing (1.46× gap), marketing strategy (1.33× gap), and project management (1.89× gap) indicate adequate foundational talent.
• Data analysis presents a 2.78× gap (25.77% demand vs 9.26% supply), positioned between specialized and foundational skills, showing moderate analytical capability shortages. The marketing landscape reveals that while traditional marketing skills are reasonably supplied, specialized roles requiring sales alignment, product expertise, and advanced performance optimization face critical talent deficits.

Job Search Survey Insights

Survey

Job Search Trends Survey

AI and the Job Search

AI Trust

Slim Majority Would Trust AI to Apply for Jobs on Their Behalf

Job seekers find themselves at a crossroads when it comes to AI-powered job applications, with attitudes split almost evenly down the middle.

It's a razor-thin divide with only 52% willing to trust AI versus 48% preferring to maintain direct control. It reveals a workforce grappling with fundamental questions about automation's role in the job search.

This hesitancy isn't just about technology adoption; it reflects deeper concerns about authenticity, personal representation, and the risk of losing human touch in what many consider their most important professional interactions.

The narrow majority embracing AI assistance suggests that convenience and efficiency are beginning to outweigh traditional notions of personal involvement in job searching, yet the substantial resistance indicates that nearly half the workforce still views job applications as too personal and consequential to delegate to machines.

AI Rejection

Nearly Two-Thirds of Job Seekers Have Faced AI-Driven Rejections

The prevalence of artificial intelligence in hiring processes has reached a tipping point, with 333 out of 527 job seekers, representing 63.2% of respondents, reporting they have received rejections from AI systems during their job search.

This finding reveals a fundamental shift in how recruitment operates today, where automated screening tools and algorithmic decision-making have become the first barrier candidates encounter.

The data suggests that AI-mediated rejections are now a common experience rather than an exception, affecting nearly two-thirds of job seekers across various industries and career levels.

For the remaining 36.8% who haven't experienced AI rejections, this could indicate they're either in fields with less automated hiring, have been fortunate in their application outcomes, or may not have recognized when AI was being used in the rejection process.

AI Impact on Jobs

Most Workers Report AI Has Made Their Jobs Easier, But Few See Complete Transformation

The workplace AI revolution appears to be more evolution than disruption, with nearly two-thirds of workers (64%) experiencing at least some improvement in their daily tasks. The largest group, 43.1%, reports that AI has made parts of their job easier or faster, while another 20.9% say it helps occasionally but not in major ways.

However, only 16.5% describe AI as having "completely changed" how they work, suggesting that while AI adoption is widespread, truly transformative applications remain limited.

Perhaps most telling is that less than 1 in 10 workers (9.1%) say their job hasn't been affected by AI at all, indicating that AI's influence has reached virtually every corner of the modern workplace.

The 10.4% who are "unsure" or think it's "too early to tell" suggest we're still in the early stages of understanding AI's full workplace impact, with many workers still evaluating how these tools fit into their daily routines.

AI Usage

Job Seekers Mostly Use AI Daily

The modern job seeker has embraced artificial intelligence as an important part of their day-to-day, with more than half (55.8%) incorporating AI tools into their daily routine.

Another three in ten (29.8%) turn to AI multiple times per week, revealing that 85.6% of job seekers now rely on AI regularly, either daily or weekly, to help them with their job search and more.

This widespread adoption suggests AI has moved beyond experimental territory into mainstream practice, with traditional job search methods increasingly supplemented or replaced by intelligent automation.

Only a small minority maintains distance from these tools, with just 6.8% using AI rarely, 5.9% limiting use to monthly interactions, and a mere 1.7% avoiding AI entirely.

The overwhelming integration of AI into job searching reflects a generation comfortable with technology-assisted career development, where algorithm-powered resume optimization, application tracking, and interview preparation have become standard practice rather than novel experiments.

63% of Gen Z Uses AI Daily vs. 35% of Baby Boomers

Generation Z has embraced artificial intelligence as an essential daily companion in their job search journey, with nearly two-thirds incorporating AI tools into their routine every single day.

This digital-native generation's comfort with AI sharply contrasts with Baby Boomers, where only one in three professionals relies on these technologies daily.

Millennials and Generation X fall somewhere between these extremes, yet still demonstrate remarkably high adoption rates at 56% and 54% respectively for daily usage.

What's perhaps most striking is how completely AI has infiltrated the job search process across all age groups; fewer than 3% of professionals in any generation report avoiding these tools entirely.

The workplace implications are profound: younger job seekers are building deeper AI fluency through constant practice, potentially developing more sophisticated prompting skills and discovering advanced applications that could give them significant advantages in an increasingly automated hiring landscape.

Meanwhile, older professionals who use AI less frequently may find themselves at a disadvantage, not just in terms of efficiency, but in understanding how to navigate AI-powered application systems and interviews that are becoming standard practice.

Men's Daily AI Usage Hits 65% While Women Hold Steady at 46%

Male professionals have thrown themselves headfirst into the artificial intelligence revolution, with nearly two-thirds making AI tools a cornerstone of their daily job search routine.

This intensive adoption stands in sharp contrast to women, where fewer than half have embraced the same level of commitment to these technologies.

The gender divide becomes even more pronounced when examining usage patterns: while men who don't use AI daily tend to skip it almost entirely, women show a preference for moderate, strategic engagement, using AI several times per week at nearly double the rate of their male counterparts.

This suggests fundamentally different approaches to integrating new workplace technologies, with men displaying an all-or-nothing mentality while women adopt a more measured, experimental stance.

The implications extend far beyond personal preference, as those using AI daily are likely building deeper expertise in prompt crafting, resume optimization, and automated interview preparation.

What's particularly striking is how few people in either group completely reject these tools, suggesting that while the intensity of adoption varies dramatically between genders, the recognition of AI's importance in modern job searching has become nearly universal across professional circles.

AI Proficiency

Most Job Seekers Find AI Delivers Real Career Benefits

Artificial intelligence has become a practical, results-driven tool for the majority of job seekers, with nearly 90% reporting meaningful outcomes from their AI usage. Time efficiency emerges as the dominant benefit, with 39% of professionals successfully using AI to automate repetitive tasks and accelerate writing or research processes. This suggests that AI's primary value lies in streamlining workflow rather than replacing human judgment.

Career advancement represents the second most significant impact, as nearly a quarter of job seekers have leveraged AI tools to secure actual job offers or interviews through resume optimization, application customization, and interview preparation. This finding indicates that AI has moved beyond experimental use to become a competitive advantage.

The results also highlight AI's role in professional development, with roughly equal numbers of respondents using it to enhance workplace productivity and develop new skills. Notably, only 10% report no meaningful results yet, suggesting that effective AI adoption is achievable for most users willing to experiment with the technology.

Perhaps most intriguingly, 6% have successfully monetized their AI skills through side hustles and freelance opportunities, pointing to emerging economic opportunities for those who master these tools early. This pattern suggests we're witnessing the early stages of an AI-enabled gig economy where proficiency translates directly into income generation.

Millennials Master AI Job Search Success While Gen X Closes the Gap in Interview Achievement

Across all generations, saving time emerges as the primary benefit of using AI in job searches, with Baby Boomers reporting the highest rate at 45% despite being the smallest cohort.

Gen X stands out with 31.5% securing jobs or interviews through AI assistance, significantly higher than the 20.5% of Gen Z and 21% of Millennials who achieved similar outcomes.

Younger workers show slightly stronger gains in skill development, with Gen Z reporting 14.8% improved their capabilities compared to around 10% for other age groups.

Notably, Baby Boomers experience the longest wait for tangible results, with 20% still seeing no concrete outcomes from their AI usage, nearly double the rate of Gen Z at 6.8%.

Productivity gains and monetary returns remain modest across all demographics, typically affecting fewer than 11% of respondents in each category.

The pattern suggests that while AI tools help people work more efficiently regardless of age, older professionals may face a steeper learning curve before experiencing breakthrough moments in their job search journey.

AI Hiring

Most Job Seekers Open to AI-Driven Hiring Despite Automation Concerns

A clear majority of job seekers, 63.4% or 334 respondents, would accept employment offers from companies that rely entirely on artificial intelligence for their hiring processes.

This acceptance suggests that while automation anxiety exists in the workplace, professionals are pragmatic about adapting to AI-integrated recruitment methods.

The remaining 36.6% who would decline such opportunities represent a significant minority that may harbor deeper concerns about algorithmic bias, lack of human connection, or the impersonal nature of fully automated hiring.

This split reveals a workforce in transition, where most professionals are willing to embrace technological advancement in recruitment, even as more than one-third maintain reservations about removing human judgment entirely from career-defining decisions.

AI Job Loss

AI Job Displacement Remains Limited Despite Growing Automation Concerns

While fears about artificial intelligence replacing human workers dominate workplace conversations, the reality shows a more measured impact on employment.

Among job seekers, nearly 9 in 10 professionals have never experienced job loss due to AI or automation, with only 11.6% reporting direct displacement.

This finding suggests that despite rapid technological advancement, AI-driven job elimination affects a relatively small segment of the workforce.

The 61 individuals who have lost positions to automation represent early indicators of broader workplace transformation, yet the overwhelming majority of professionals continue to navigate career transitions driven by traditional economic factors rather than technological replacement.

This pattern indicates that current AI adoption may be more complementary to human work than substitutional, though the experiences of the affected minority offer valuable insights into potential future employment shifts.

AI Tool Usage

8 in 10 Job Seekers Now Rely on AI Tools to Land Their Next Role

The modern job search landscape reveals a remarkable transformation in how professionals approach their career opportunities.

Nearly half of job seekers, 47.2%, have embraced AI tools like ChatGPT and resume builders with enthusiasm, finding them exceptionally valuable in their quest for employment.

Another third report moderate success with these digital assistants, bringing the total of AI adopters to an impressive 81.4%.

This widespread acceptance demonstrates that artificial intelligence has evolved from an experimental curiosity to a mainstream necessity in professional development.

The remaining candidates split almost evenly between those who experimented unsuccessfully and the increasingly rare holdouts who've avoided AI entirely, each representing just under 11% of job seekers.

This distribution suggests that AI proficiency may soon become as fundamental to career advancement as traditional networking or interview skills, with the vast majority already recognizing its practical benefits in navigating the competitive job market.

AI Sentiment

Job Seekers Embrace AI at Work Despite Lingering Concerns

The responses reveal a nuanced perspective on artificial intelligence in the workplace, with nearly half of job seekers expressing cautious optimism about AI tools.

While 253 respondents (48%) acknowledge AI's utility but harbor concerns, another 217 (41.2%) are genuinely excited about how these technologies can boost productivity and advance their careers.

The remaining participants show more resistance: 38 (7.2%) remain skeptical and rarely engage with AI tools, 12 (2.3%) worry about potential job displacement, and just 7 (1.3%) work in industries where AI hasn't gained traction.

This distribution suggests that while enthusiasm for workplace AI is significant, the majority of professionals are taking a measured approach, recognizing both the opportunities and risks these tools present.

AI Interviews

71% Prefer Human Connection Over Automated Hiring

Job seekers overwhelmingly reject AI-driven interview processes, revealing deep skepticism about technology replacing human connection in hiring.

With over seven in ten candidates expressing a clear preference for speaking with actual people, this finding exposes a fundamental disconnect between corporate adoption of automated recruitment tools and candidate expectations.

The resistance suggests job seekers view one-way AI interviews as impersonal barriers that fail to capture their authentic qualifications and personality.

Only a small fraction actively embrace this technology, indicating that while companies may see efficiency gains, candidates perceive these interactions as dehumanizing their job search experience.

The sizeable neutral segment represents those who may reluctantly accept AI interviews out of necessity rather than preference, highlighting how job market pressures can force adaptation to unwanted technological changes.

This sentiment reveals a broader tension in modern hiring: as organizations increasingly rely on AI to streamline processes, they risk alienating the very talent they seek to attract by removing the human element that candidates value most in professional interactions.

996 Work Schedule

996 Work Schedule

Most Workers Draw the Line at Extreme Hours Despite Job Market Pressures

The prospect of working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week, reveals a striking resistance among job seekers, with nearly half (44%) declaring they would never accept such demanding schedules regardless of circumstances.

This rejection of the grueling "996" work culture suggests that even in a competitive job market, personal boundaries remain non-negotiable for a significant portion of the workforce.

Another quarter of respondents indicate they might consider these extreme hours only if compensation and benefits were substantially elevated, highlighting how financial incentives could potentially sway some workers but aren't universally compelling.

About one in five would reluctantly accept such arrangements only as a last resort, while just 12% express willingness to embrace this intensive schedule without hesitation.

The overwhelming reluctance, with over 80% showing some degree of resistance, signals a fundamental tension between employer demands for extended availability and worker expectations for reasonable work-life balance, even when facing job market uncertainties.

Gen Z Embraces Extreme Hours While Millennials Set Firmer Boundaries

A striking generational paradox emerges when examining tolerance for intensive work schedules, with the youngest workers showing the greatest willingness to sacrifice personal time for professional opportunities.

Gen Z stands as clear outliers, with nearly 30% ready to accept 996 schedules without hesitation, a rate that dwarfs every other generation.

Their pragmatic approach extends further, as 40% would consider such arrangements for adequate compensation, suggesting a transactional view of extreme work demands.

In sharp contrast, Millennials demonstrate more established resistance, with nearly half rejecting such schedules entirely despite being closer in age to Gen Z. This 29-percentage-point gap in outright acceptance between Gen Z and Millennials reveals how even a decade of generational difference can create vastly different workplace expectations.

Gen X reinforces the pattern of growing resistance with age, showing the strongest rejection rate at over 50%, while Baby Boomers present surprisingly mixed attitudes, perhaps reflecting either desperation in a challenging job market or a work ethic forged in different economic times.

The progression suggests that life stage, financial pressures, and evolving cultural attitudes toward work-life balance create distinct generational approaches to extreme professional demands.

Men Show Greater Willingness for Extreme Schedules Than Women

A pronounced gender divide emerges in attitudes toward intensive work arrangements, with men demonstrating significantly more flexibility than women when faced with extreme schedule demands.

While 55% of women categorically reject 996 schedules, only 35% of men take such a firm stance, creating a 20-percentage-point gap in outright resistance.

This difference becomes even more striking when examining acceptance rates: men are nearly 60% more likely to embrace these schedules without hesitation (14% versus 9% for women) and show considerably higher willingness to negotiate for better compensation (31% versus 18%).

The pattern suggests traditional gender role expectations may still influence workplace decisions, with men potentially feeling greater pressure to prioritize career advancement and financial gain over work-life balance considerations.

Women's stronger resistance may reflect different priorities around personal time, family responsibilities, or simply more established boundaries regarding acceptable working conditions.

The smaller non-binary and prefer-not-to-say groups show mixed patterns, though sample sizes limit meaningful analysis, with non-binary respondents showing equal rates of rejection and conditional acceptance.

Unemployment Fears

Unemployment Fears

Most Job Seekers Fear Rising Unemployment Will Intensify Competition

Job seekers are overwhelmingly anxious about rising unemployment rates intensifying competition in their search efforts.

Nearly half express this as their primary concern, while an additional 38% acknowledge it could complicate their prospects.

This means over 8 in 10 job seekers harbor some level of apprehension about increased market competition.

Only a small fraction remain confident in their competitiveness or dismiss unemployment trends as irrelevant to their search.

The findings reveal a workforce grappling with heightened uncertainty, where the vast majority anticipate that economic headwinds will make securing employment more challenging than before.

Generation X Shows Highest Unemployment Anxiety While Millennials Drive Overall Volume of Worry

Generation X emerges as the most anxious cohort about rising unemployment, with nearly half expressing it as their primary concern, a higher proportion than any other age group.

This peak worry among Gen Xers likely reflects their career stage, where they face pressures from both directions: supporting families while potentially competing with younger, more affordable talent.

Millennials, though slightly less worried percentage-wise, represent the largest volume of concerned job seekers due to their sheer numbers in the workforce.

Gen Z mirrors the worry patterns of older generations despite being early in their careers, suggesting economic uncertainty transcends experience levels.

Baby Boomers show similar concern rates, though their smaller representation in active job searching limits their overall impact.

Across all generations, confidence remains remarkably scarce, with fewer than 10% in any cohort expressing minimal worry about unemployment's effect on their prospects.

Women Show Dramatically Higher Job Market Anxiety Than Men Amid Rising Unemployment Fears

Women experience significantly more intense anxiety about rising unemployment than their male counterparts, with over half expressing this as their primary concern compared to fewer than two in five men.

This stark disparity suggests women may feel more vulnerable to economic headwinds, potentially reflecting systemic workplace challenges or career interruption concerns that make competition feel more threatening.

Men distribute their worry more evenly between high and moderate levels, indicating a somewhat more measured response to unemployment threats.

The confidence gap proves equally telling; women are nearly twice as likely to dismiss neutrality or optimism about their competitive position, suggesting deeper underlying concerns about their ability to weather increased job market pressure.

This pattern reveals how economic uncertainty manifests differently across gender lines, with women bearing a disproportionate psychological burden when contemplating employment competition.

Job Market Struggles

Job Market Struggles

Market Oversaturation Drives Job Search Frustrations as Competition Intensifies

The employment landscape reveals a unfortunate reality: nearly half of job seekers (46%) point to an oversaturated market as their primary obstacle, with too many candidates competing for available positions.

This overwhelming sentiment reflects a fundamental imbalance where supply far exceeds demand.

An additional 29% identify a genuine scarcity of legitimate opportunities, suggesting that many postings may be phantom listings or roles with unrealistic requirements.

Personal rejection experiences affect 15% of respondents who feel consistently overlooked despite their qualifications, while compensation disputes remain relatively minor concerns at just 6%.

Notably, fears about artificial intelligence eliminating positions register as the least significant factor at only 4%, indicating that current job market pressures stem more from traditional economic forces than technological displacement.

The findings paint a picture of intense competition where qualified professionals struggle not because of skills gaps or automation threats, but because too many people are chasing too few genuine opportunities.

Personal Finance

Layoff Numbers

Most Job Seekers Have Faced Layoffs Since 2020

Over half of job seekers have experienced the upheaval of layoffs since 2020, with nearly four in ten having lost their job once and another 14% facing the disruption twice.

While 44% have managed to avoid layoffs entirely, a concerning 6% have endured three or more job losses during this period, revealing the compounding stress some professionals face in an increasingly volatile employment landscape.

The pattern shows that job loss has become a common experience rather than an isolated event, with the majority of working professionals having navigated at least one involuntary career transition in recent years.

This widespread employment disruption has fundamentally altered how people approach career planning and job security, making resilience and adaptability essential skills.

Gen Z's Job Security Luck vs. Gen X's Layoff Reality: A Generational Employment Divide

The employment landscape since 2020 has created a tale of two professional realities, with Gen Z emerging remarkably unscathed while Generation X faces the harshest consequences of economic turbulence.

Nearly seven in ten Gen Z workers have avoided layoffs entirely, a distinct contrast to Gen X where only one-third have maintained uninterrupted employment.

This disparity reflects not just timing but structural workforce dynamics, younger professionals entered a job market already reshaped by remote work and digital transformation, often landing in roles at companies prioritizing growth over cost-cutting.

Meanwhile, Gen X professionals, positioned in their peak earning years with accumulated experience and higher salaries, became prime targets when organizations needed to reduce expenses quickly.

The result is a professional landscape where career stage determines vulnerability, with established mid-career workers facing multiple job losses at rates that would have been unthinkable in previous economic cycles.

Generation X's 21% rate of experiencing multiple layoffs compared to Gen Z's 16% single-layoff rate illustrates how economic disruption has disproportionately impacted those who should theoretically be in their most stable career phase.

Men and Women Weather Layoffs at Nearly Identical Rates

The employment upheaval since 2020 has struck men and women with striking equality, dispelling any notion that gender provides protection or vulnerability in a volatile job market.

Both groups show virtually identical resilience rates, with approximately 45% of each maintaining uninterrupted employment throughout the period of economic turbulence.

When job losses do occur, the patterns remain remarkably parallel, men and women experience single layoffs at nearly the same rates, around 36-39%, demonstrating that initial displacement affects both genders comparably.

The most intriguing divergence appears in the realm of multiple job losses, where men edge slightly ahead with a 19% rate of experiencing two or more layoffs compared to women's 16.4%.

This modest gap suggests that while the initial wave of layoffs hit both genders equally, men may face marginally higher risks of repeated displacement, possibly due to concentration in sectors prone to cyclical downturns or roles more susceptible to ongoing organizational restructuring.

The overall picture reveals that modern layoff patterns have largely transcended traditional gender lines, with economic forces operating as equal-opportunity disruptors across the professional landscape.

Savings at Job Loss

Nearly Half Have $10K+ Saved While One in Five Face Job Loss With Under $500

Looking at these findings reveals a distinct financial divide among workers who experienced job loss.

Nearly half (42.7%) maintained substantial emergency funds of $10,000 or more, demonstrating strong financial planning and resilience.

However, this preparedness contrasts sharply with the vulnerability of others more than one in five people (20.9%) faced unemployment with minimal financial cushion of less than $500.

The middle tiers show a gradual distribution, with 15.4% having moderate savings of $2,000-$4,999, while smaller groups maintained $5,000-$9,999 (11.0%) or $500-$1,999 (10.1%).

This pattern suggests significant disparities in financial security across the workforce, where economic shocks like job loss create vastly different experiences depending on prior savings behavior.

The substantial portion with minimal reserves highlights the precarious position many workers face, where unexpected unemployment can quickly lead to financial hardship, while those with robust emergency funds can weather career transitions with greater stability and decision-making flexibility.

Gen Z Face Job Loss With Under $2K While Millennials Weather Unemployment With $10K+ Reserves

The financial preparedness divide becomes even more striking when examined across generational lines.

Millennials face the most severe financial vulnerability during job loss, with 52 experiencing layoffs while having less than $500 saved and another 25 with only $500-$1,999 in reserves.

However, this generation also shows remarkable resilience, as 115 Millennials maintained substantial emergency funds of $10,000 or more when unemployment struck.

Gen Z workers demonstrate concerning patterns of financial fragility, with 45 facing job loss with minimal savings under $500, though 28 managed to build significant financial cushions despite their shorter earning history.

Gen X workers exhibit the strongest proportional financial preparedness, with 68 maintaining robust emergency funds compared to only 13 experiencing job loss with minimal savings.

Baby Boomers show minimal representation across most categories, suggesting different employment transition patterns.

The stark reality emerges that younger generations bear the brunt of financial vulnerability during economic disruption, while older workers who do face job loss tend to have built substantial financial buffers through longer earning periods and different economic conditions.

Women Face Greater Financial Vulnerability Than Men During Job Loss

Emergency savings patterns expose deep-rooted economic disparities between men and women during career transitions.

While nearly half of men (46.4%) enter unemployment with substantial financial cushions exceeding $10,000, only 38.4% of women enjoy this same level of security, a critical 8-percentage-point advantage that could mean the difference between strategic job searching and desperate acceptance of suboptimal positions.

This wealth gap becomes even more concerning when examining financial vulnerability: identical numbers of men and women find themselves with less than $500 in savings, yet this represents a larger share of the female workforce (22.8% versus 19.1%), suggesting women are more likely to face an immediate financial crisis during unemployment.

The middle savings tiers reveal additional inequities, women cluster more heavily in the $2,000-$4,999 range, indicating modest emergency funds that might last mere months, while men dominate the more comfortable $5,000-$9,999 bracket.

These disparities likely stem from persistent wage gaps, career interruptions, and different saving behaviors that compound over time, ultimately leaving women more economically vulnerable when facing job loss.

Job Loss Debt

One in Three Job Seekers Forced Into Debt During Employment Search

The modern job search has evolved into a financial endurance test, with one-third of employment seekers finding themselves forced to rely on credit cards and loans just to survive the application process.

While two-thirds manage to avoid accumulating debt during their search, the 174 individuals who answered "yes" represent a troubling reality where extended unemployment periods push people beyond their financial breaking points.

This debt burden creates a vicious cycle, the longer someone remains unemployed, the more desperate their financial situation becomes, potentially forcing them to accept suboptimal positions simply to escape mounting bills.

The financial pressure also means these job seekers face additional stress during interviews and negotiations, knowing that every day without an offer deepens their debt hole.

For those 353 fortunate enough to avoid borrowing money, their job search likely benefited from either substantial savings, shorter unemployment periods, or support systems that prevented financial desperation from driving their career decisions.

Older Workers Hit Hardest by Job Search Financial Strain

The oldest workers bear the heaviest financial burden when seeking employment, with nearly half of Baby Boomers forced to borrow money during their job search compared to just 30% of Millennials.

This striking reversal challenges assumptions about generational wealth, revealing that established professionals with decades of career experience encounter the most severe cash flow crises when unemployment strikes.

Generation X workers fall into debt at a 37% rate, suggesting that mid-career professionals with mortgages, children's expenses, and peak lifestyle costs struggle more than their younger counterparts who may still benefit from family safety nets or lower fixed expenses.

The 257 Millennials in the job market demonstrate remarkable financial resilience, possibly because they've adapted to gig economy uncertainty or maintain more flexible living arrangements that cushion unemployment shocks.

Meanwhile, Generation Z's 32% debt rate indicates they're learning hard lessons about job market realities, though their smaller financial obligations may prevent deeper financial distress.

Women More Likely to Accumulate Debt During Job Search Than Men

The employment landscape reveals a troubling gender disparity where women accumulate debt at a significantly higher rate than men during their job search journey.

While an identical 84 individuals from both genders find themselves borrowing money to survive unemployment, women represent this crisis from a smaller population base, creating a 36% debt rate compared to men's 30% rate.

This six-percentage-point gap suggests that women either exhaust their financial resources more quickly or enter job searches with less robust safety nets, potentially due to historical wage disparities, career interruptions, or different access to emergency funds.

The financial vulnerability becomes even starker when examining smaller identity groups, with those preferring not to disclose their gender experiencing debt at an alarming 56% rate, while non-binary individuals show remarkable financial resilience at just 13%.

These patterns indicate that gender identity intersects with economic security in complex ways, where traditional gender roles and systemic inequities may leave women more exposed to financial distress when employment disappears.

Job Loss Impact on Milestones

Job Uncertainty Forces Life's Biggest Decisions to Wait

More than half of job seekers have put their personal lives on hold while navigating unemployment, with 56% delaying major milestones that define adult life.

The housing market bears the heaviest impact, as nearly one in seven unemployed individuals postpone buying a home, a decision that affects not just personal wealth building but entire communities.

Wedding plans and family planning decisions follow, with over 10% of job seekers pushing back marriage and parenthood until employment stability returns.

Perhaps most telling is the substantial group facing "other" delayed milestones, suggesting the ripple effects extend far beyond traditional life markers to encompass education, relocation, and countless personal dreams that require financial security.

The findings reveal how employment uncertainty creates a generation of deferred aspirations, where career instability forces people to pause the very experiences that bring meaning and structure to adult life.

Workplace Perks

Workplace Perks

Remote Work Dominates as Nearly 70% Choose Flexibility Over All Other Workplace Perks

The overwhelming preference for flexible work arrangements reveals a fundamental shift in what motivates job seekers.

Two-thirds of respondents chose remote or hybrid work as their most desired benefit, demonstrating that location flexibility has become non-negotiable for many professionals.

The 4-day work week emerged as the second most coveted perk, capturing nearly one in five responses and highlighting growing demand for better work-life balance over traditional compensation.

Traditional incentives like equity stakes, unlimited vacation policies, and extended sabbatical programs collectively appealed to fewer than 16% of participants, suggesting that modern workers prioritize autonomy and time over financial upside or elaborate benefits packages.

This preference pattern indicates that companies offering flexible work arrangements and compressed schedules may have significant advantages in attracting top talent, while organizations clinging to conventional office-centric models risk losing a competitive edge in recruitment.

Men Pursue Equity Stakes 6x More Than Women While Both Genders Unite on Remote Work

Remote and hybrid work arrangements dominate workplace preferences across all gender identities, with women showing the strongest inclination at 71.55% and men at 62.59%, while the four-day work week emerges as the second most coveted benefit at 19.40% and 16.91% respectively.

A striking divergence appears in equity preferences, where men demonstrate nearly five times higher interest at 12.23% versus women at just 2.59%, suggesting fundamentally different priorities in compensation structure between these groups.

Non-binary respondents mirror male preferences for equity at 12.50% and show even stronger enthusiasm for the four-day work week at 25%.

Unlimited paid time off and sabbatical programs attract modest attention overall, with women showing slightly more enthusiasm for unlimited PTO at 4.74% compared to men at 3.24%, while sabbatical programs register as the least popular option at 5.04% for men and 1.72% for women.

These patterns reveal how workplace benefit preferences vary considerably along gender lines, with flexibility and time-related perks universally valued while ownership stakes appeal to distinctly different demographic segments.

Career Progression from Job Loss

Job Loss' Impact on Career Progression

Job Loss Fuels Career Uncertainty for 1 in 5 While Others Find New Direction

The employment disruption reveals profound psychological and professional impacts extending far beyond simple job transitions.

Among those affected by job loss, uncertainty and confusion emerge as the dominant response, with nearly one in five professionals feeling directionless about their career trajectory.

Career progression faces significant setbacks, as 17% report stalled advancement and derailed opportunities, while an equal proportion finds themselves forced into skill development and professional pivoting.

Notably, job loss doesn't universally discourage, 13% harness the experience as motivation, becoming more determined in their pursuit of opportunities.

Financial pressures weigh heavily on nearly one in ten, influencing major career decisions and timeline adjustments.

Perhaps most telling is that nearly a quarter of respondents haven't experienced job loss at all, highlighting how employment disruption creates distinct experiences that divide the workforce.

The spectrum ranges from devastating uncertainty to unexpected growth opportunities, with most landing somewhere between professional setbacks and adaptive resilience.

Salary Expectations

Salary Expectations

Nearly Half of Job Seekers Now Expect Six-Figure Salaries

Job seekers demonstrate remarkably high salary expectations in the current market, with nearly half (48.0%) of survey respondents targeting positions that pay $100,000 or more annually.

The $100,000-$149,999 range emerges as the sweet spot, capturing 26.2% of all expectations, while an ambitious 21.8% aim even higher with expectations exceeding $150,000.

This upward trend is further emphasized by the fact that two-thirds (66.0%) of job seekers expect salaries of at least $75,000, leaving only about one-third pursuing positions below that threshold.

The data reveals a divide in the job market, where the vast majority of active job seekers are competing for higher-tier positions, potentially reflecting either the skill levels and experience of survey participants, the industries they're targeting, or their adaptation to post-pandemic salary inflation and remote work opportunities that have expanded access to higher-paying roles.

Salary Expectations by Gender

Men 25% More Likely Than Women to Target $150K+ Salaries

A subtle but consistent gender gap emerges in salary expectations, with male job seekers demonstrating notably higher financial aspirations than their female counterparts across multiple income tiers.

Men are 5.3 percentage points more likely to expect six-figure salaries (51.4% vs 46.1%), with the most pronounced difference appearing at the premium end where nearly a quarter of males (24.8%) target positions paying over $150,000 compared to just 19.0% of females, a 5.8 percentage point gap.

Conversely, women show a stronger concentration in the $50,000-$74,999 range, representing 19.0% of female expectations versus only 11.2% for males, suggesting more conservative salary targeting among female job seekers.

Interestingly, both genders show nearly identical representation in the $100,000-$149,999 sweet spot (26.6% male vs 27.2% female), indicating that the gender disparity primarily manifests in the extreme salary ranges rather than the broader middle-to-upper income brackets.

This pattern suggests that while both genders have embraced higher salary expectations in the post-pandemic job market, males maintain a more aggressive approach toward pursuing the highest-paying positions.

Salary Expectations by Generation

Older Workers Demand Top Dollar While Gen Z Settles for Entry-Level Pay

The generational divide in salary expectations reveals a striking pyramid of ambition that directly correlates with career experience and life stage, creating a dramatic 51-point spread between the oldest and youngest cohorts in six-figure salary targeting.

Generation X emerges as the most financially aggressive group, with nearly two-thirds (64.8%) expecting salaries of $100,000 or more and an remarkable 38.3% aiming for the premium tier above $150,000, making this their single most popular salary expectation.

Millennials occupy the middle ground with 48.7% targeting six-figure salaries, clustering most heavily in the $100,000-$149,999 sweet spot (30.0%), while demonstrating more modest premium salary aspirations at 18.7%.

In contrast, Generation Z displays markedly conservative salary expectations, with nearly 60% anticipating salaries below $75,000 and zero respondents targeting the highest pay tier above $150,000, suggesting either realistic entry-level positioning or potentially undervaluing their market worth.

This generational cascade reflects not just career stage differences but possibly distinct attitudes toward workplace negotiation, with older generations leveraging decades of experience into premium salary demands while younger workers may be anchoring their expectations to traditional entry-level benchmarks despite the current competitive job market.

Salary Expectations by Community Type

Urban-Suburban Salary Gap Vanishes While Rural Areas Fall 15 Points Behind

Geographic location reveals a more nuanced impact on salary expectations than conventional wisdom might suggest, with the traditional urban-rural divide proving less pronounced than the urban-rural chasm that dominates the landscape.

Urban and suburban job seekers demonstrate remarkably similar salary ambitions, with only a razor-thin 1.0 percentage point difference in six-figure expectations (49.7% vs 48.6%), suggesting that proximity to metropolitan areas, rather than residence within them, drives comparable salary confidence.

However, small town and rural job seekers face a stark reality check, trailing their metropolitan counterparts by nearly 15 percentage points in six-figure salary targeting (34.9%) and showing the most conservative approach to premium salaries, with only 16.3% aiming above $150,000 compared to 24.3% in urban areas.

The data reveals that while remote work and digital connectivity may be democratizing salary expectations between urban cores and their suburban peripheries, the small town and rural job market remains fundamentally disconnected from the high-salary economy, with 41.9% of rural job seekers expecting salaries below $75,000 compared to roughly 30% in both urban and suburban areas.

This geographic salary expectation gradient suggests that while the suburb-to-city barrier has largely dissolved in the post-pandemic job market, the metro-to-rural divide persists as a significant economic and psychological barrier.

Salary Expectations Around the World

American Job Seekers Demand 3X More: 62% Target Six-Figures vs 21% Globally

The salary expectation gap between American and international job seekers reveals one of the most dramatic economic divides in the global workforce, with US-based candidates demonstrating nearly three times the financial ambition of their international counterparts across all premium salary tiers.

While an overwhelming 62.0% of American job seekers target six-figure salaries, only 21.4% of international candidates share such aspirations, a staggering 40.6 percentage point chasm that underscores the profound influence of domestic economic conditions on career expectations.

This disparity becomes even more pronounced at the premium level, where 29.0% of US job seekers aim for salaries exceeding $150,000 compared to a modest 8.2% internationally, making Americans 3.5 times more likely to pursue top-tier compensation packages.

The contrasting salary landscapes are perhaps best illustrated by their most popular expectations: US job seekers gravitate toward the $100,000-$149,999 range (33.0% of respondents), while international candidates cluster around the far more modest $30,000-$49,999 bracket (19.8%), with more than half of global job seekers (51.6%) expecting salaries below $75,000 compared to fewer than one in five Americans (19.4%).

This data suggests that American job seekers either operate within a fundamentally different economic reality, supported by higher domestic wage standards, stronger negotiating cultures, or greater access to high-paying remote opportunities, or may be engaging in salary expectations that reflect aspirational rather than market-realistic positioning in an increasingly globalized workforce.

Salary Expectations by Employment Status

Recently Laid Off Workers Expect 14% More Than Unemployed Job Seekers

The relationship between employment status and salary expectations reveals a counterintuitive economic psychology where job security paradoxically correlates with both higher and lower salary ambitions depending on the urgency of one's situation.

Recently laid-off workers emerge as the most financially aggressive group, with 58.2% targeting six-figure salaries and an impressive 28.4% aiming for premium positions above $150,000, demonstrating what could be called a "severance confidence boost" where forced career transitions become opportunities for salary advancement rather than setbacks.

This contrasts sharply with unemployed job seekers, who despite comprising the largest group (225 respondents), show the most conservative expectations at 44.4% for six-figure roles and only 18.7% for premium salaries, suggesting that prolonged job search pressure creates a "desperation discount" of nearly 6 percentage points below the employed average.

The employed cohort splits interestingly along motivation lines: passive job seekers (those open to opportunities but not actively searching) maintain higher salary confidence at 52.1% six-figure expectations compared to 48.1% among active job seekers, indicating that having the luxury of employment security enables more aggressive negotiating positions.

The data suggests that salary expectations operate on a confidence spectrum where financial cushions, whether from employment security or severance packages, drive higher salary targets, while economic urgency and prolonged job search stress push expectations downward, creating a market dynamic where those most in need of employment may be least positioned to demand premium compensation.

Salary Expectations by Career Level

Executives Demand $150K+ While Entry-Level Workers Accept Starting Pay

The salary expectations data reveals a progression across career levels that mirrors traditional workplace hierarchies.

Entry-level professionals demonstrate the most diverse salary expectations, with nearly two-thirds (61.8%) seeking positions under $75,000 and only one in ten targeting six-figure salaries.

Mid-career professionals show a notable shift toward higher compensation, with over one-third (34.4%) pursuing salaries above $100,000.

Senior-level professionals display even more ambitious salary targets, as more than two-thirds (69.1%) expect compensation exceeding $100,000, with exactly one-third seeking the premium "over $150,000" bracket.

Most dramatically, executives demonstrate overwhelming consensus around top-tier compensation, with more than three-quarters (76.7%) expecting salaries above $150,000.

This progression suggests that while entry-level job seekers may accept lower starting salaries to gain experience, professionals become increasingly selective about compensation as they advance, with executives viewing six-figure salaries as baseline expectations rather than aspirational targets.

Salary Expectations by Industry

Tech and Finance Workers Demand Six-Figure Salaries While Retail and Education Face Pay Reality Check

Technology professionals command the job market's highest salary expectations, with more than half pursuing six-figure compensation and many setting their sights on the coveted $150,000+ bracket that signals true financial success.

Finance workers mirror this ambition despite representing a much smaller talent pool, suggesting these industries have created a culture where premium pay is not just hoped for but expected.

Healthcare and manufacturing professionals occupy the middle ground, with nearly half seeking $100,000+ positions, a reflection of specialized skills that command respect but don't quite reach the stratospheric heights of tech salaries.

Education tells a more sobering story, where only about one in three job seekers aim for high compensation, highlighting the persistent challenge of attracting top talent to academic roles when financial rewards lag behind other sectors.

Perhaps most telling is retail's unfortunate reality: workers span the entire spectrum from minimum wage hopefuls to executive-level candidates, creating a salary expectation spread that reveals the industry's dramatic hierarchy from store floor to corporate boardroom.