When Doing More Doesn't Work Anymore

No secret to anyone who’s been even half paying attention: this has been an extremely brutal job market.

If you’re a hiring manager, it’s been noise on top of noise. Fake applicants. People cheating on technical assessments. AI tools promising to quietly run interviews and evaluations in the background. Hundreds of resumes flooding in, many of them not real, not qualified, or not even written by the person who applied.

If you’re a candidate, it’s been just as brutal in a different way. Applying to job after job. Getting rejected from roles you know you’re qualified for. Reaching out to recruiters and hiring managers and hearing nothing back. Some people are using AI to apply to hundreds of jobs a day just to feel like they’re doing something, which only floods the market further and makes it harder for anyone to stand out.

And then there are recruiters.

Recruiters don’t control the job market. But this job market is how we support our families.

I say this as someone who genuinely tries to show up well, to respond when I can, to help where it makes sense. This year, the sheer volume of inbound messages alone has been overwhelming. I’ve dropped balls. I’ve apologized more than I ever have. And that’s been humbling, because I consider myself one of the “good ones,” and I couldn’t keep up with everything this year.

That’s how heavy it’s been.

This year didn’t test effort. It didn’t test talent. It didn’t even test skill.

It tested adaptability.

I’ve seen this from multiple angles. Not just running Rogue since 2018, but also through my role as an advisor to a startup building an all-in-one recruiting platform. This year, that meant a lot of discovery calls with small agency owners. Real conversations. No polish.

Those calls were hard.

We spoke with owners who were absolutely drowning. Smart, experienced people who had built solid businesses over the years and suddenly couldn’t get traction. A few months later, some of those agencies had closed their doors entirely.

At the same time, we talked with another group of agency owners. Still busy. Still overwhelmed. Still tired. But making placements. Doing good work. Having strong quarters in one of the worst markets we’ve seen.

That contrast stuck with me.

Because I’ve also personally watched highly tenured recruiters, people who’ve been successful for ten or twenty years, bang their heads against the wall this year. They were doing everything they’d been taught to do. Keeping activity high. Following the same playbook that worked for a decade plus.

And it wasn’t working.

Meanwhile, other recruiters adjusted. They questioned assumptions. Changed how they spent their time. Rebuilt workflows. They weren’t louder. They weren’t flashier. They were more intentional.

That’s the difference this year exposed.

For a long time, the recruiting formula felt reliable. If I do X, then Y will happen. Post the job. Run searches. Send messages. Keep the activity high. Eventually, the placement comes.

That logic worked for years. It trained an entire industry.

The problem is, the environment changed.

Inbox noise exploded. Response rates dropped. LinkedIn Recruiter got more expensive. Data became less reliable. Messaging people and hoping for the best stopped being a reliable strategy.

Breaking that habit is incredibly hard. Especially when your income depends on it. Especially when you’re being told, “Just keep doing the work. It’ll pay off.”

This year forced people to confront a brutal truth: activity alone isn’t enough if the activity itself no longer fits the market.

When I came back from maternity leave earlier this year, I leaned hard into LinkedIn.

I had posts scheduled every day. I told myself, “The market is noisy. I’ll out-noise the noise.” And honestly? On paper, it worked.

One of my posts hit over 400,000 impressions. Engagement was strong. People were responding. It felt good.

But then I realized something uncomfortable.

I was really good at writing content that performed well with other recruiters. And recruiters are not my target market.

The metrics looked great. The posts looked successful. But they weren’t actually moving the business forward in the way I needed them to.

So I adjusted.

I’m still active on LinkedIn, but I spend a lot less time there. Less performance. More alignment. More intention around where my energy actually creates value.

It was quieter. Less flashy. And far more effective.

The week before the largest billing quarter of my entire career, I was done.

Burned out. Exhausted. So done that I was half-joking with friends about whether someone would just buy Rogue from me for a dollar and put me out of my misery.

I’m not exaggerating…but the be fair I had a lot of personal things going on that made me even more stretched thin.

Nothing felt like it was clicking. The pressure was constant. I couldn’t see what was coming next.

And then things shifted.

Not because I suddenly worked harder. Not because I found a magic tool. But because the small, intentional adjustments I’d been making finally compounded.

That’s another thing this year reinforced: momentum often shows up after the point where you’re convinced you’re out of gas.

This year didn’t reward volume. It didn’t reward noise. It didn’t reward doing more of the same.

It rewarded people who were willing to adapt, even when adapting felt risky. Even when it meant letting go of strategies that used to feel safe.

If this year felt brutal for you, you’re not alone. And if it forced you to rethink how you work, how you show up, or where you focus your energy, that doesn’t mean you failed.

It might mean you were being reshaped for what comes next.

See you next Monday,
Robin

#GoRogue

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