Look alive assholes✡️ Oh yeah — you’re not imagining that. The whole “job site” world has turned into a daisy chain of nonsense. It didn’t used to be this way, and that’s the part that really sticks in my craw. What’s actually going on (plainspoken) Most of those sites aren’t employment sites at all. They’re traffic mills. Here’s the loop: • You search for a job • You click what looks like a job board • That site scrapes listings from another site • Then forwards you to another site • Which forwards you again • Until you land on either: • an employer ATS (application portal), or • a dead listing, or • a “sign up to continue” trap Nobody’s minding the store. No foreman. No chalk line. No square. Why it feels endless Advertising money. That’s the whole engine. Most of these sites make money by: • reselling clicks • reselling resumes • reselling “leads” (that’s you) • or stuffing ads between every step They don’t care if a human ever gets hired — they care that you keep moving. So you get: • Indeed → Talent → Zip → Monster → CareerBuilder → “LocalJobsNow” → “USAJobsHiring” → etc. Half of those are just mirrors wearing different hats. The old way vs now There used to be: • employer → newspaper / bulletin board → human Simple. Coherent. Honest. Now it’s: • advertiser → aggregator → aggregator → reseller → algorithm → maybe a job That’s why it feels like wandering a hall of mirrors at a county fair. 🎪 The dirty little secret Many listings are: • already filled • never existed • posted just to harvest resumes • kept alive to make the site look “active” That’s why you’ll see the same job posted for 6–12 months. No shop runs that way in real life. Practical, no-BS advice (the carpenter’s rule) If you want real work, not click-chasing: 1. Go straight to the source • Company websites • Local businesses • Government / county / school system pages 2. Beware of anything that won’t tell you who’s hiring • No company name? Walk. • “Apply