Employers decide who gets hired. You need to focus on what you can control

Job seekers who acknowledge, accept and adapt to how employers hire can focus their energy on what improves their chances of getting hired

Punching a brick wall will fracture your hand. Yelling at the rainstorm you got caught in won’t keep you from getting soaked. Fighting realities you can’t change isn’t a how-to-live-life strategy or a job-search strategy; it’s self-sabotage.

Yet many job seekers waste time and energy raging against ingrained hiring realities, growing bitter and angry when their expectations aren’t met, which can prolong their job search.

Job seekers who refrain from complaining about how employers hire and adopt what I call the AAA approach can focus their energy on improving their chances of getting hired.

• Acknowledge: Recognize the realities of hiring and understand what you can’t control.
• Accept: Stop wasting energy fighting decisions and practices you have little power to change.
• Adapt: Focus on what you can control: your actions, presentation, skills and job-search strategy.

AAA mirrors the wisdom behind Reinhold Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer: knowing what you can change, accepting what you cannot and understanding the difference. It also acknowledges a fundamental truth: employers control their capital, workplace and hiring process.

Succeeding in today’s job market requires letting go of misconceptions about fairness and any sense of entitlement you may have, and embracing five hiring realities.

As a job seeker, you’re offering labour, a commodity governed by supply and demand. When hundreds of job seekers have qualifications similar to yours, employers have more choices, and your bargaining power diminishes. Expecting top-dollar compensation when employers are flooded with applications is like selling sand at the beach; no amount of self-importance can change the law of supply and demand.

Positioning yourself as a rare commodity is how you overcome supply and demand. Generic qualifications in a job market full of them don’t show what employers want: evidence that you can solve problems and deliver results. Present yourself as a value proposition by quantifying past achievements in dollars, percentages or time saved. Results don’t always come with dollar signs.

A job search is a winner-take-all contest with one trophy: a job offer. Finishing second may mean you were an excellent candidate, but it still means you didn’t get the job.

You don’t win by regurgitating job descriptions; you win by treating every serious application like a title fight. Find where the company’s bleeding, show performance metrics proving you’ve stopped that bleeding elsewhere, and make the hiring manager say, “I’ve got to meet this person!”

Hiring is also a process of elimination. When recruiters face hundreds of applications, eliminating candidates becomes as important as identifying those worth interviewing. Some qualified applicants will be rejected. Others will eliminate themselves by giving employers avoidable reasons to question their suitability.

While there are countless reasons you could be eliminated, four common obstacles are:

• Mistakes and errors: Typos, spelling and grammar errors, or a chaotic layout suggest carelessness and may raise questions about the quality of your work.
• Lack of alignment: Your résumé and LinkedIn profile don’t explicitly reflect the core skills and experience the job posting requests.
• Unexplained employment gaps: Some employers view employment gaps as a red flag. Leaving them unexplained can create questions you may never get the opportunity to answer.
• Overqualification: Some employers worry that overqualified candidates will expect higher compensation, become dissatisfied or leave when a better opportunity appears.

You improve your chances of avoiding elimination by ensuring your résumé and LinkedIn profile are error-free, easy to read and focused on the position’s required qualifications and experience. Be prepared to explain employment gaps and why a position below your previous level genuinely interests you.

In hiring, perception can be the deciding factor.

Your résumé and LinkedIn profile create the initial impression that either encourages a recruiter or hiring manager to contact you or gives them a reason to move on. Phone screenings, video interviews and face-to-face meetings all shape that impression. Every word you say, every shift in your tone and every visual cue contribute to how an interviewer perceives you.

For example, saying you want a “stable” environment may come across as “can’t handle change.” What workplace is stable these days?

How you dress, read the room, project confidence and handle tough questions can influence whether an employer believes you’ll fit into the organization. Show up underdressed or overdressed for the workplace, and you may signal that you don’t fit in. Get defensive or deflect blame when asked about a past failure, and you risk being labelled arrogant or difficult to manage.

At the risk of sounding philosophical, you don’t own how others interpret your actions; you only own the choices that shape those interpretations.

Finally, your lifestyle overhead is your responsibility, not the employer’s.

I’ve never known an employer who hires candidates simply to help fund the lifestyle they’ve created. Your mortgage, car payments and debts are irrelevant when a company establishes what it’s prepared to pay for a position. Employers generally determine compensation according to the responsibilities of the role, market conditions and the value they expect an employee to contribute.

Show that contribution while taking personal responsibility: either reconsider your financial expectations or expand your skills and pursue better-paying opportunities.

None of this means employers always get hiring decisions right. Some overlook qualified candidates or make decisions based on questionable assumptions. Discrimination and other unlawful hiring practices can and should be challenged. Accepting hiring realities doesn’t mean surrendering your rights.

Getting angry at hiring realities won’t change them; you’ll only deplete your stamina and potentially prolong your unemployment. You can’t force employers to change how they hire. You can change how effectively you compete for the jobs they offer. Acknowledge what you can’t control, accept what you cannot change and adapt your strategy to land your next job.

Nick Kossovan is a syndicated columnist and career expert with over 20 years of experience in the corporate hiring landscape. He specializes in providing pragmatic, unsweetened advice on career navigation, workplace dynamics, and professional growth. Nick Kossovan decodes the psychological impact of AI and social media, helping us make sense of our evolving digital landscape.