The Job Market Is Thawing

The job market is slowly emerging from stasis as hiring pace recovers. Dataford, an interview prep platform, analyzed candidate behavior between January and June 2026, recording over 200,000 candidates across 231k sessions. By tracking which companies, roles, and levels users study for, Dataford provides an early read on market trends. Because candidate preparation typically precedes official hiring data, these insights offer a preliminary view of where the current employment landscape is heading.