Can you buy your way into a job?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 796 Ratings
🗓️ 19 October 2025
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We look at a growing industry where candidates are spending on career coaching, résumé redesigns, AI tools, and job boards.
In a tough job market, with companies cutting staff due to artificial intelligence and rising costs, is this the way to get ahead?
We talk to job seekers about whether these tools really help and share what you can do to find work without spending money.
Presenter: Megan Lawton Producer: Sam Gruet
(Image: Giovanna Ventola, who runs an online community for jobhunters. Credit: Frank Ventola)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:06.1 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC Wild Service. |
| 0:10.8 | I'm Megan Lawton. |
| 0:12.1 | Today, employers today, very few of them can identify the skills they think they will need in five years. |
| 0:19.0 | As the hunt for a job continues to be difficult, |
| 0:22.8 | we're investigating a growing industry. A lot of people have paid for job search AI tools. A lot of |
| 0:29.9 | people have paid for career coaches. With what some are calling a growing pressure to AI-proof careers. |
| 0:36.7 | Over the next five, ten years, I believe career |
| 0:39.4 | reinvention is going to be something that most people are going to be thinking about. In the US right |
| 0:43.8 | now, government estimates suggest it can take 24 weeks for candidates to find a new job. And there |
| 0:50.1 | are similar struggles in the UK and Canada. Sixt,000 fewer jobs in the month of August. |
| 0:57.4 | Have you found it hard to get a job in a bar or pub recently? |
| 1:00.8 | Today we'll hear from career coaches, recruiters and job seekers, |
| 1:05.3 | learning about the paid tools people are turning to in their search for work. |
| 1:10.2 | That's coming up on Business Daily. |
| 1:15.1 | TikTok has many uses, whether that's finding new recipes or discovering places to holiday. |
| 1:21.4 | But as a journalist, I find it useful for highlighting trends. |
| 1:25.4 | Okay, so unemployment and big life transitions can feel really hard because... |
| 1:30.9 | In recent months, I've seen more and more videos about unemployment |
| 1:34.6 | and the struggles of the current job market with thousands of likes. |
| 1:39.0 | I just heard the best job search tip that I've probably ever... |
| 1:43.5 | Just like this one from Giovanna Ventola, so I arranged a call with her. |
... |
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