Fast Company
Landing a job has become so difficult that some frustrated applicants are paying Etsy witches for career spells.
The job market is so bad, people are buying career spells from witches
Author: Lindsay Dodgson
Chon Azzopardi-Brown had done everything career experts tell job seekers to do. She polished her CV, searched job boards, networked on LinkedIn, and tried to navigate a tough hiring market complete with AI screenings and applicant ghosting.
But after getting nowhere, there was one thing she hadn’t tried: witchcraft.
She turned to Etsy, where access to witches is plentiful, to see what they had to offer. Turns out, there are a lot of options that promise success, with names like “Extreme Job Spell” and “Powerful Career Spell.”
Like many job seekers, Azzopardi-Brown had started to feel the old advice no longer applied. Tailored cover letters and years of experience don’t necessarily guarantee even an interview anymore.
“We were told to have a strong CV, follow up, find the hiring manager, message them on LinkedIn. But that doesn’t work anymore,” she tells Fast Company. “So it’s like, well, what do we do?”
Peter Duris, CEO and cofounder of Kickresume, tells Fast Company the market has become “discouraging.” One recent company survey found that 58% of recent graduates said they were still looking for work, compared with 25% in previous years.
“When rejection becomes the norm rather than the exception, it’s understandable that people start looking for ways to feel more hopeful and more in control,” he says. “Paying for a spell can give job seekers a sense of agency at a point in the process when they otherwise feel powerless.”
Desperate times, unusual measures
Kyle Elliott, a career and executive coach, tells Fast Company he’s noticed a trend toward the mystical in the job sphere. In a recent coaching session, a tech professional, who he says tends to be very data driven and logical, told him they were considering a spell to help with their job search.
“I don’t blame them,” Elliott says. “The job market is incredibly tough right now. I’ve coached tech professionals for 10 years, during both employer and candidate markets, and this is one of the most challenging job markets I’ve seen.”
Matthew Warzel, president of the résumé-writing firm MJW Careers, says the uncertainty and frustration of modern job hunting explain why rituals can become so appealing. Buying a spell often comes after candidates feel they’ve exhausted every conventional option.
“Job searching today often feels like shouting into the void,” he says. “You submit an application, get no response, and have no idea whether you were rejected by a recruiter, filtered out by AI, or simply lost among hundreds of applicants.”
All job spells are slightly different, but they tend to follow a similar format: You request a certain potency up front (such as regular or powerful), then submit information, including your date of birth. Some witches ask for a picture. In one listing, a witch shows a video of tarot cards surrounded by flickering candles, explaining that the “heart-centered ritual” also uses “intention, herbs, and spiritual guidance” to enhance its power. Others cite using “charged crystals” to align with energies and desired outcomes, or recommend the buyer burn drawings to strengthen the spell afterward.
For the spell Azzopardi-Brown bought, the witch lit a candle on her altar and meditated over her wishes, which Azzopardi-Brown provided on a form. It included references of specific jobs, ideal employers, and a description of her desired work life. Then, she received a three-page PDF breakdown of what to expect and when.
The ritual itself may matter more than whether the spell works. When so much of the hiring process feels outside a candidate’s control, even unconventional practices like manifestation, horoscopes, and Etsy witches can restore a sense of agency.
“If a ritual helps someone feel more confident, optimistic, or motivated to keep showing up every day, there can be real psychological value in that—even if the spell itself isn’t what’s changing the outcome,” Warzel says.
Spooky coincidences, and manifesting your own luck
For Azzopardi-Brown, it felt like she had nothing to lose.
She’s in what she calls a strategic job transition, trying to find her feet after quitting her job in recruitment last September. Like many millennials, she reached a point where she realized she wasn’t fulfilled and wanted to pursue something different.
Azzopardi-Brown says she’s always been “a bit woo-woo,” so something spiritual felt like the way to go. She’d seen women on social media discussing their experiences with Etsy witches, and remembered one who had landed her dream job in three months thanks to one particular witch.
The witch she chose charged around £60 ($80)—more than many others on the platform. After filling out a questionnaire about her career goals and ideal employers, she received a detailed breakdown of the ritual and what to expect over the following weeks.
A month later, Azzopardi-Brown says she’s started to notice things shifting. It could all be coincidence, she admits, but she’s had three introductions to people who have offered to keep her CV on file, people have reached out through LinkedIn to offer support, and she’s been making new professional connections.
“In the PDF, it says at this point it’s all about networking and connections,” she says. “So yeah, it could be a coincidence. But it’s a little bit spooky.”
Lucy Kelly, a TV host and content creator, also bought a career spell—partly for fun, and partly because she thought it would make a good social media video. The video ended up helping her career far more than she’d expected.
“The Etsy witch video was one of those ones that I had put probably the least amount of time and effort and thought into,” Kelly tells Fast Company. “I was just like, ‘Oh, ha ha, I think people that follow me would think this would be funny.’ I . . . filmed it and uploaded it, and by that night it had outperformed anything I’d ever done.”
Kelly has since gained more than 11,000 followers—one of the things she’d asked the witch for.
“It’s almost quite a vulnerable thing to do, to put yourself out there and say, ‘I want to make my dreams come true, so this is what I’ve done,’” Kelly says. “I think people respond to vulnerability on the internet, and to people just being authentic and being real.”
In the end, it’s about making your own luck and “putting that out into the universe,” Kelly says.
Credits: TCA, LLC.