Improving Job Market in the US? A video with a tech recruiter I saw

So I saw an interview on the Dice jobsite YouTube channel today "Inside the 2026 Job Market" with a tech recruiter (Ted Hellmuth from IQ Clarity, Denver, Colorado).\* What he said he was seeing was pretty intriguing. He saw the market much better in early 2026 than in 2025, as if finally coming off from rock bottom. There was more interest in particularly lead and experienced tech engineers, with companies using third-party recruiters more and some engineers getting multiple job offers. AI skills were (unsurprisingly) a big thing his clients were looking for. Most roles expected some AI experience. In terms of candidates he was seeing, they fell into the three camps below - 1) working in places that ban or discourage AI use and dev tools 2) in companies who had started tentatively piloting AI workflows and tooling for devs 3) working in companies that had set up already well established AI productivity workflows that were "making the magic" as he calls it Companies had little interest in the first two. They were very keen on principal engineers from the third category, and they were getting offers within a week. Entry level roles were not entirely disappearing, but they were being changed fundamentally and quickly. Interestingly, he said that entry level or junior candidates who had used AI in their studies may be faring better than experienced candidates who didn't or couldn't demonstrate use of AI in their work. However, remote roles were still getting up to a thousand applicants in the first few days. He said that all the AI-written resumes were causing a real problem and made up hundreds of the above applications. He suggested doing things to make a resume appear more human, even putting in the odd spelling mistake (incredibly). He did as a counterpoint say that good candidates were being rejected without being seen by a human. The typical advice of relying on networking and referrals was restated. It's not a question but I thought it was worth sharing and may encourage comment. \*I am not promoting this recruiter or Dice as a jobs platform (never applied through either) - just stating the person being interviewed for clarity. I haven't put the URL in in case that is seen as promotion.