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- The slower the job market has overwhelmed employers and has seen applications surge.
- Job seekers struggle to get a response even after applying for dozens of openings.
The national job market for 2025 is characterized by employers' unwillingness to add new roles to businesses due to job growth, surges in corporate applications, and uncertainty due to tariffs.
The same trend has emerged in Lane County, where both job seekers and employers feel are overflowing in the face of labor market instability.
In an increasingly digital age, automating applications and employment processes may seem like productivity increases.
But in reality, employers are looking at a mountain of applications for entry-level positions, and job seekers have not heard back about opportunities even after applying to dozens of openings.
How employment managers deal with an influx of applications
According to LinkedIn Research, 58% of people planning to find new jobs worldwide in 2025, half of respondents say it's harder to find jobs than last year. The same study found that 64% of HR professionals around the world share feelings, highlighting the need to change the way people search for jobs.
Sifting through the stack of resumes, Evan Milton, the employee software engineer responsible for the company's recent intern hiring, chose to filter job seekers by prior experience and whether they retained their degree. Milton said the company has opened two entry-level intern positions and received more than 800 applications.
Many of those applicants were educated at the PhD or Master's level. The people he said were overqualified for intern positions, but were “desperate” for job opportunities. He said these intern roles are for current students with minimal experience in building skills, but now “you're throwing hats in the ring,” for the starter position.
“If you're a student and you don't have a degree yet or have an internship, I don't have to think of you, so I'm not thinking of you. “Of course, I'm going to choose them, so soon, perhaps no one who was a major candidate for this job was considered, and literally didn't even look at their resumes.
Milton said that hiring managers are a painful process when many applicants spam many companies with specialized material without paying too much attention to personalizing their approach.
“Of course, as someone who employs, I want to do everything I can to simplify and simplify that process, so of course I use all the tools possible to filter, including AI, so because everyone does. “There's this weird arm race going on, and I understand why it's going on from a higher-up perspective. I won't change anything because it makes my job even more difficult.”
How employers diversify their approach to employment
Finding success through collaboration is not a new idea, but lane's workforce partnership is an integral part of how employer landscapes make employment-seeking landscapes more accessible to applicants and employers.
Lane Workforce Partnership is a nonprofit focused on fostering innovative partnerships that meet the needs of employers and individual workforces.
The organization ensures that Lane County has a trained workforce with robust skills that will lead to career success by acting as a conversational catalyst, and has a siphon for critical workforce-related funding.
The role of the Lane Workforce Partnership typically involves working with businesses to identify employment barriers, implementing bicycle equity programs for workers without reliable transport, and meeting community needs with culturally responding Doula training in healthcare settings.
One of the conversations Lane Workforce Partnership has had with local employers was how to make the recruitment process more navigable for everyone.
Ashley Espinoza, executive director of Lane Workforce Partnership, said he has seen employers use multiple ways of listing jobs that lead to wires crossing and ultimately slowing down the entire process.
“We need a focus and organization: “How can we make it a more clear process, both on the employer and the worker side.” “It's confusing,” Espinoza said. “People went into the centre and said, 'I applied three weeks ago and didn't hear from anyone. I applied for 50 jobs and no one called me.'” We always hear about them, so that's a problem. ”
In fact, employing website-based tools is relatively common, but the introduction of AI in the recruitment space is relatively novel and there has not been enough experimentation to become common.
Ryan Kounovsky, director of workforce strategy and innovation at Lane Workforce Partnership, said that the introduction of AI into the employment environment is new and employers and job seekers are still learning to navigate it.
“There are definitely positive and negative aspects of using these AI. AI can help you create more robust resumes and jobs, but AI can also screen eligible applicants. “…I've heard that it's all the time when everyone is flooded with those car-rich things that are happening. I couldn't imagine myself becoming an HR manager right now.”
How job seekers can stand out among hundreds of applicants
Justin Freeman, owner of Bagel Sphere and owner of Talent Development Director at Eugene, business owner Justin Freeman spends a lot of his time considering how he hires people in his community.
In recent years, he said there has been a perceived change in the way applicants can demonstrate their full potential from giving their resumes to future employers, using digital resources such as Linkedin, Glassdoor and others to apply for jobs and prepare for interviews.
These tools are thought to simplify the process, but Freeman said, “We are the same social creatures as ever.” For this reason, he said, distinguishing applicants is often a personal connection to the company, especially as experiments with AI in the job market continue to occur, especially for employers and job seekers.
With the exception of two months in 2025, Lane County's unemployment rate is above 5%. As more people seek jobs, employers receive more applications per opening and apply to dozens of positions without feedback from employment, allowing applicants to remain in the dark.
That increased competition is what Freeman has heard of what is happening in virtually every industry.
“When our unemployment rates rise, it's a good indicator that there are generally more job seekers in the market. Unemployment rates only count those who are actively looking for jobs. “It's one of the things job seekers face, and what they may not be aware of is dramatically increasing competition.”
He encouraged local employers looking for outstanding talent to leverage institutions that train local professionals, such as the University of Oregon, Lane Community College, and Bushnell University. For students at those institutions, he recommended using employment support resources available to them while they are accessed. The University of Oregon media representative refused to make employees at the university's career center available for interviews.
According to Freeman, employers are not only seeing an increase in applicants, but also an increase in applications where AI has been generated. Freeman said he leaned against the social aspect of the community by “doing his job” on people for applications, rather than relying solely on AI to break through the ocean of professional materials on the employment manager's desk.
“At the end of the day, people aren't hiring your resume or cover letter — they're hiring people,” Freeman said.
Because job seekers need to support job seekers, training programs, or business-specific services, Oregon Lane works with Lane Workforce Partnership to provide a variety of employment services. Worksluth Oregon Lane is located at 2510 Oakmontway in Eugene, and job seekers can call 541-686-7985 to speak with a career advisor.
Hannarose McGuinness is a reporter for the growth and development of Register Guard. You can contact her at hmcguinness@registerguard.com.
