After Jonathan Clanton was laid off from his job in talent acquisition earlier this year, he immediately began looking for a new role. Clanton, 39, soon found herself spending hours each day scrolling through job listings.
“It was like a combination of social media addiction and anxiety about having to find a job,” he told CNBC Make It.
The current word for that action is “doom job.” It’s a combination of doomscrolling and job search. Some job seekers are constantly updating job sites and desperately applying for new positions due to the stress of finding a job.
Ilya Bagrak, a Los Gatos, California-based product manager, posted about the term in a thread on March 25th: “I was laid off two weeks ago,” Baglak wrote. “My 8-year-old daughter saw me spending a lot of time on the LinkedIn app and called it a ‘disastrous task.'”
Baglak, 45, told CNBC Make It that losing her job has created “a lot of uncertainty.” Baglak, the main breadwinner for his family, which includes a wife and two young children, said his immediate concerns were paying medical bills and paying his mortgage.
The stress caused him to spend more and more time looking for and applying for jobs online.
Career and leadership coach Phoebe Gavin says that while scrolling through job postings may cause a temporary emotional itch, in her experience, it ultimately leaves job seekers feeling “more helpless, more hopeless, wondering when and how their job search will end.”
Why do “disastrous jobs” occur?
According to career coach Eliana Goldstein, job search anxiety has become more prevalent in recent years.
“The job market feels tougher than ever and people are feeling a lot of pressure,” she says.
Many candidates are realizing that traditional job search tactics aren’t changing the status quo, Goldstein said. “Traditionally, we’ve always been taught that if you need to find a job, you should go to a job site,” but every time a new job is posted, applications flood in “immediately.”
According to Greenhouse data reported by Business Insider, the average number of job openings in mid-2025 was 242, triple the 2017 average. The number of long-term unemployed people is also on the rise, with one in four unemployed people looking for work for more than six months, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Given the level of competition for each new job, many job seekers feel they need to apply to as many positions as possible as quickly as possible to have a chance of getting an interview, Goldstein says. A March survey by job site Monster found that 48% of job seekers say they often or regularly prioritize speed and quantity over selectivity in their job search, and 25% now apply for any job they can get remotely.
Clanton said she started spending more time on job sites because she felt pressured to be the first to apply for new jobs so her resume “didn’t get caught up in the shuffle.” “It’s impossible to keep up with that,” he says.
Bagrach feels the same way. “The job market is very tight right now, so time is of the essence,” he says. For the new role, “you’ll be encouraged to keep an eye on your searches and feeds.”
In Gavin’s experience, “destructive work” and other similar behaviors stem from a desire for stability. “Because so many aspects of the job search are outside of our control, we look for things that help us feel like we’re asserting some degree of control, even if it’s not particularly effective.”
“It’s going to make you doubt yourself.”
While a “destiny job” may make job seekers feel productive, it’s not a realistic way to search for a job, Goldstein said.
Applying to a large number of jobs doesn’t necessarily increase your odds of success, she says, and applying indiscriminately to roles you may not be suited for is likely to result in more rejections and fewer responses.
“It’s going to make you anxious. It’s going to make you doubt yourself, ‘Am I a bad candidate? What don’t people like about me?'” says Goldstein.
In her view, activities like “disastrous work” free up candidates’ time and energy to “work on more purposeful tasks like building relationships, building networks, (and) thinking about personal brand and how to make yourself stand out better,” she says.
It can also have a negative impact on your personal life, Goldstein said, something Clanton experienced firsthand. He says he realized that his habit of scrolling through job postings was getting in the way of seeing his three children.
“There was a time when I was sitting there talking to them and having fun and all of a sudden my dad opened his phone and I passed out,” he recalls.
After that, Clanton said, she decided to change her approach to job hunting “before it really impacts the rest of my life and the people around me.”
How to avoid “disastrous work”
Baglak said she had to “find more productive ways” to deal with the stress of job hunting. Here are three steps job seekers can take to deal with a “job disaster.”
1. Refine your search
Goldstein’s No. 1 tip for job seekers is to keep your search focused. “Before you approach job boards, you need to be clear about what you want to do and what role is best for you,” says Goldstein.
Given the competitive nature of the job market, she says it’s a waste of time to apply for positions that aren’t a good fit. “You can’t be a chameleon and fit every job in the world.”
Rather than defaulting to a “spray and pray” strategy, Gavin recommends slowing down and focusing on one job application at a time.
Clanton came to a similar conclusion. Rather than rushing to apply for a new role, she found it more effective to “take the time to reformat my resume and apply for jobs that really fit my background.”
To avoid the temptation to apply in droves, Goldstein recommends configuring job site filters to only show new roles that match your experience.
2. Limit the time you spend applying
Clanton says blocking out her time has helped her develop a healthier approach to the job search and cut down on “misery.” Rather than scrolling through job sites 24/7, he spends a certain amount of time each day on three specific tasks:
Apply for jobs, network and reach out to potential connections, increase your visibility by posting on platforms like LinkedIn
Outside of specific time blocks, I try to de-escalate by going for walks, catching up with friends, and spending time with family.
Setting time limits can prevent your job search from “crowding into every other aspect of your life,” Gavin says. She also recommends setting boundaries around when and where you “never” check work alerts. For example, while you’re sleeping or going out to dinner.
3. Leverage your network
Gavin says job seekers should prioritize building and strengthening connections rather than spending all their time applying. In her experience, she says, “candidates who come in laterally through relationships actually find jobs much faster than those who apply solely through job sites.”
While it’s fine to do cold outreach as one element of a broader strategy, Goldstein also recommends “actively reaching out to people in your warm network.” “At the end of the day, getting some introductions always dramatically increases your chances of getting a response or an opportunity,” she says.
It’s always more beneficial to invest time in interpersonal relationships rather than “just endlessly scrolling,” she says.
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