Here's Why Rage Applying Won't Get You That High-Paying Job

After 'quiet quitting,' 'rage applying' is the latest workplace term to go viral.

After "quiet quitting" went viral by capturing a cultural shift around work-life balance, the floodgates have opened and dozens of new terms to describe workplace unhappiness began emerging.

Alongside "resenteeism" (growing increasingly frustrated with one's boss and but not taking steps to leave) and "boomerang employees" (workers who leave a company and then either come back or are re-recruited), there is also "rage applying" — as described by the TikTok user who helped the term go viral, this means channelling one's workplace frustration into applying furiously to any job one spots online.

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"I got mad at work and rage applied to like 15 jobs and then I got a job that gave me a $25,000 raise and it's a great place to work," Canadian TikTok user @redwees told over 370,000 followers in a December video that garnered 394,000 likes and over a million views. "So keep rage applying. It'll happen."

Here's Why Rage-Applying May Not Be The Best Career Strategy

By mid-January, searches for the term quickly started to take off on Google Trends  (GOOGL) - Get Free Report and spiked again at the end of March. Several HR professionals confirmed that they have also observed an increase in job applications during these time periods.

"People have impulsively applied for jobs during a moment of frustration for years," Jenna-lea Kelland wrote for Recruiting Daily. "However, the trending hashtag resonates with Gen Zs and millennials who have had enough of resolving themselves to jobs that make them desperate for the weekend."

Despite the Canadian TikToker's story of a $25,000 raise, career experts generally advise against using it as a way to climb the corporate ladder or chart one's career path — the impulsive nature of rage-applying can give one a motivating adrenaline rush but also lead into another job that is just as frustrating or simply not the right fit.

"A lot of the rage applying I've seen in my clients before they came to me has gotten them out of the frying pan and into the fire," Maggie Mistal, a career change coach working out of New York City, told Time Magazine. "It's a reaction against something rather than being bigger-minded about it saying, ‘this is a bad situation, but what would I love?"

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According to Mistal, rage-applying also allows people who may have been feeling stuck in a job realize that they have skills that are in demand. Despite fears of a recession, the U.S. workforce is still in a labor shortage of more than 10 million unfilled jobs — one report calculated that 50.5 million workers across the U.S quit their jobs in 2022 and, for the most part, quickly found others.

As many industries struggle to find skilled workers, leaving a job that isn't giving you the right opportunities for advancement doesn't have to reach the level of "rage-applying" desperation. Statistically, those who regularly evaluate where they want their career to go and look out for vacancies eventually find roles that align with their goals.

"Sometimes I think people say, 'I'll just make sure my resume matches the right words in the job description,'" Mistal said. "I think there's an opportunity to soul search and get some bigger picture perspective, and not just package yourself."