Navigating the post-pandemic job market is really tough. Trying to make sense of the avalanche of seemingly contradictory advice on social media doesn’t make it any easier. Although most users of LinkedIn and TikTok likely believe they’re doing a public service by re-sharing hacks and tips, they’re actually helping to perpetuate myths that are not helpful to your job search. Here are five of the most persistent job search myths, with explanations of what’s actually happening.

1. The Hidden Job Market

The term “hidden jobs” can be traced all the way back to the 1950s, when it was coined in relation to a summer jobs program for teenagers in Iowa. In 1974, Harvard sociologist Mark Granovetter developed a theory describing the importance of “weak ties” in job searches, which gave rise to the oft-quoted statistic that “80% of jobs are not advertised.” These concepts were fused and popularized by Richard Bolles in his 1980 book, “What Color Is Your Parachute?”

Much of the advice circulating on LinkedIn and TikTok today centers on this notion that 80% of jobs are not advertised, and that you need to invest time networking to get access to these “hidden jobs.” Whether or not that was true in the 1980s (and even then, it would have been difficult to prove, because by definition the jobs weren’t advertised) it is definitely not true today. At both the Fortune 500 companies where I led talent acquisition, non-advertised jobs were always <1% of our total activity, and typically would only happen for c-suite roles, or when we were actively trying to replace someone that was currently in-seat.

2. There Are Bots Inside the ATS

There is no question that we have entered a new era of Artificial Intelligence, and that it will have a transformative effect on how companies recruit. However, despite widespread claims to the contrary, we have yet to see large-scale deployment of AI inside applicant tracking systems. Furthermore, once we do see broad adoption of AI tools for recruiting, unless existing legislation changes, then those tools will be used to “opt-in” candidates, and not to reject them.

The only currently permissible automatic rejection of candidates is via the binary questions some ATS systems feature, for basic role qualifications. Examples include “are you at least 18 years old?” and “do you have the right to work in the country you’re applying to?” Beyond that, any rejection of your application requires the intervention of a human recruiter.

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