Joseph Haecker

Written by Joseph Haecker, founder of Open To Work Social I’ve been on LinkedIn since November of 2009. I’ve watched the platform grow from a simple place to park your resume into a strange, sprawling hybrid of professional networking, personal branding, performance marketing, and emotional confession booth. I’ve seen every phase of it. The era of polished corporate updates. The era of hustle culture. The era of personal brand gurus. The era of mass layoffs. The era of “open to work” banners....

By Joseph Haecker A couple of weeks ago, I ran a simple poll on LinkedIn: “What is the best way to land a job in today’s market?” The results were interesting: 🔹 Sending resumes & cover letters — 8% 🔹 A referral from a friend — 65% 🔹 Building a personal brand — 23% 🔹 Other — 4% Those numbers tell a story — but the story they tell isn’t the whole reality of how hiring actually happens today. Let’s unpack what people think works vs. what data shows actually works. Reality Check: Referrals...

If you’re job hunting right now, you’re not imagining it: the process feels colder, noisier, and more exhausting than it used to. We were promised efficiency. Instead, we got a system where: job seekers are encouraged to “apply everywhere,” employers are flooded with applicants, ...and software is tasked with deciding who deserves to be seen A lot of people respond to that reality by asking, “How do I beat the algorithm?” But here’s the uncomfortable truth: Algorithms and AI are only relevant...