Happy New Year, Get Her Hired readers!
If you’re job hunting right now, you’ve probably noticed the disconnect: the labor market can look “fine” in the headlines while the actual process feels… sticky. Roles stay open. Interviews drag. Decisions stall.
That tension is likely to define Q1 2026. Employers still say they plan to hire, but they’re doing it cautiously, filling very specific gaps rather than adding broad headcount. For candidates, that usually translates to fewer “we need someone yesterday” opportunities and more “we’ll keep looking until we find an exact match.”
Here’s what I’m watching, and the simplest way to respond: make your résumé read less like a job description and more like the business case for hiring you.
What I’m seeing in Q1 2026 is a labor market that’s still moving, just slowly. Employers are signaling they intend to hire, but they’re acting like every headcount decision needs a mini board meeting. That’s why so many roles are staying open longer, and why “we’ll circle back” has become a personality trait.
A few signals are lining up around the same story: ManpowerGroup’s Q1 outlook still shows positive hiring intent (+27%). But forecasts for job growth are much more muted: Robert Half points to projections around ~57,000 net new jobs per month in Q1, and Morgan Stanley expects ~55–60k/month with unemployment drifting higher into 2026. Translation: no mass layoffs, but not a lot of fresh oxygen either.
So if you’re feeling like the job search is taking longer, requiring more rounds, and demanding more specificity than it used to… yes. That’s the market.
And that brings us to the part that matters most for you:
Q1 2026 is a precision-hiring quarter.
Not a boom. Not a free fall. A sorting mechanism.
Hiring managers aren’t rewarding “potential” right now. They’re rewarding proof, because cautious companies don’t want a maybe. They want a sure thing.
And this is where smart women get screwed. Not because we aren’t qualified, but because we’re walking into a precision market with general materials. When hiring gets cautious, companies don’t magically become better decision-makers. They become more risk-averse. And risk-averse hiring managers don’t reward potential. They reward proof.
Precision hiring means your résumé can’t read like a job description.
Stop writing like an employee. Start writing like a business case.
Because if a hiring manager can’t see the ROI in 12 seconds, you’re getting filed under “maybe later.”
So here’s what to do this week — not someday — to make your ROI obvious.
If you haven’t documented your wins and numbers yet, now is the time. Get your proof out of your head and into your materials. At Get Her Hired, we write bullets like this (because it works): Action → Outcome → Context
Example:
Weak: “Led cross-functional team to implement new system.”
Strong: “Led a 12-person cross-functional rollout of X, cutting cycle time 22% and enabling Y business unit to absorb 15% volume growth without adding headcount.”
In 2026, AI-adjacent + data fluency is a major differentiator
In a market where job growth is modest and employers are choosy, “I’m a fast learner” doesn’t differentiate you. Specific capability does. Here’s the standard I want for you:
Can you use AI tools to speed up work without lowering quality?
Can you read a dashboard and say, “this is what matters”?
Do you understand automation basics (even if you’re not building it)?
Do you have cloud/security hygiene fundamentals so you’re not a risk?
This is how you stay competitive across functions, even if your title isn’t “data” anything.
Get Her Hired is here to be your resource.
In 2026, we’re not here to yell “the market is weird” into the void. We’re here to give you moves:
what the numbers mean in human terms
what to do next (one clean action)
the language/templates to execute
And if you’re still trying to job search in 2026 without AI in your workflow… respectfully, what are we doing.
On January 23, I’m teaching an AI Certification course with Empressa.ai.
We’re making AI your unfair advantage: clean, credible, and actually useful. Register here: https://events.humanitix.com/empressaaifoundations?c=getherhired
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