There’s a word for aimlessly scrolling job ads without mustering the energy to apply to any of them. That word is “doomjobbing,” and it’s often fueled by the anxiety and uncertainty many workers are experiencing from navigating a turbulent and frustrating job market.
The term was seemingly coined by an 8-year-old girl who saw her dad scrolling jobs on LinkedIn after being laid off, and it perfectly captures the feeling of helplessness after redundancy or becoming dissatisfied in a work role. While a position may look interesting at first, the doomjobbing starts when clicking “apply” doesn’t seem worth it, knowing the relentless competition, the hoops you’ll have to jump through, and the possibility of an automatic rejection.
Doomjobbing sits in an uncomfortable middle ground where job seekers browse because they want a different future, but stop short of going for it because the process feels exhausting. Like doomscrolling on social media, the habit can become a way of engaging with a problem that feels outside your control. And the long-term consequence of that is a whole working generation who feel anxious and uninspired about the future.
Stuck between hope and resignation
Joe Patterson, the vice president of workforce and community education at National University in San Diego, tells Fast Company that while healthy career exploration is usually purposeful, with the impetus to follow through, doomjobbing is not.
“Doomjobbing tends to be reactive and emotionally driven. Instead of feeling empowered, they feel overwhelmed,” he says. “Over time, that cycle can heighten anxiety and deepen dissatisfaction with their current role, even if their situation hasn’t objectively changed.”
In 2026, artificial intelligence is reshaping industries, layoffs continue to ripple through sectors, and many workers are grappling with burnout. At the same time, candidates are using AI to generate polished applications at scale while employers deploy AI-powered filters to screen them, with both sides struggling to keep up.
That uncertainty helps explain why doomjobbing is taking hold. It reflects a growing sense that the future of work feels blurry and harder for individuals to plan for.
“It’s uniquely difficult, and I would say it’s getting worse,” Daniel Chait, CEO of the job board Greenhouse, tells Fast Company of the current job market.
“There’s times when there’s a hot job market and talent is really in control and feels good about their ability to get a job, and then there’s times when there’s a really soft job market and employers feel really good about their opportunity to scoop up talent,” Chait says. “This is one of the first times I can remember where both sides feel it isn’t working.”
The AI-powered hiring arms race
A 2025 report by the background check company Checkr shows how frustration is widespread. Of the 3,000 American job seekers surveyed, 58% said it felt impossible to get an interview or response through traditional job boards, while 62% said a lack of feedback hurt their confidence during the search process.
If employers and workers both feel the hiring process is broken, doomjobbing makes sense as a rational response, and isn’t a personal failing.
Jennifer Dulski, CEO of the workplace performance platform Rising Team, says it’s harder than ever for workers to feel confident about their next career move.
“We’re in a completely different job market than we’ve ever seen before,” Dulski, a veteran of Facebook, Google, and Yahoo, tells Fast Company. “We’ve never seen a job market flooded with AI—it’s really the first time in human history that has happened.”
The word “doomjobbing” is appropriate, she adds, because endless scrolling without action “can really make you feel worse.”
Patterson at National University says it can be likened to decision paralysis. When we’re faced with too many options or are unclear about what we actually want, we can freeze.
“It can be difficult to take the next step and follow through,” he says. “That leads to a loop of browsing without action. It’s not a lack of ambition, but more often a lack of clarity or confidence. Without a clear sense of direction, people stay in the exploration phase indefinitely.”
Dimitri Boylan, CEO of the recruitment platform Avature, tells Fast Company there’s an escalating technical arms race between applicants and hiring systems. Job seekers are using AI to create multiple polished résumés and cover letters while employers are implementing automation to screen candidates. It leads some to wonder why they should bother going through the process at all.
Breaking the doomjobbing cycle
Boylan’s advice for those in employment is to stop doomscrolling job boards and try to make the most of where they are.
“For some people, the grass is always greener—they get a job and they spend all that time at that job thinking about some other job that they don’t have,” he says.
Those who are unemployed should “resist the temptation to play the machine.”
“I don’t think that is going to get you very far,” Boylan says. “The idea of doomjobbing implies that you’re not really looking for another job, you’re just looking at them. If you have a really good representation of who you are and what you do, and you are realistic about what you can get, you should be able to, hopefully, get a job.”
Dulski at Rising Team says that while the AI-disrupted future is scary, it’s also full of opportunity, and workers should remember they still have some control over what happens. “I do believe people have agency over their own future,” she says.
Rather than endlessly browsing openings, Dulski recommends focusing on the jobs that stand out and feel motivating. For those roles, she says candidates should invest a little extra effort, whether that’s researching the company more deeply, or finding a creative way to demonstrate interest, like a short video or slideshow.
“If there’s doomjobbing, there’s probably ‘doomapplying’ also, which is the spray-and-pray approach,” she adds. “For people who really want to stand out, a tiny bit of effort goes a really long way.”
Doomjobbing may be a new term, but the feeling of desperately wanting change and struggling to take the next step is familiar. It may look like apathy from the outside, but for many workers, it’s a response to a job market that feels increasingly unpredictable.
In that environment, the leap from scrolling to applying may feel surprisingly difficult.
