Patty Matton, an Ontario-based business student, was looking for a way to make some money to get through university. Reading tarot cards had been her party trick for some time, and she was curious about the world of witchery. So she opened up Etsy, hired a witch to cast a money spell to manifest herself a few bucks, and waited.
There was no grandiose ceremony of fire and blood. Instead, Matton just filled in a form, and within a few days received her proof: a photo of her name written on a bay leaf. The spell had been cast.
A month later, Matton had a sudden urge to post TikToks about her tarot hobby. Her first video hit 400,000 views within a matter of days, as did the next dozen or so. Riding the momentum, she opened an Etsy shop for remote tarot readings, and had sales within the first month. To Matton, that was the money spell at work: she’d turned a party trick into a job. Since then, she’s joined the ranks of the witches, offering spellwork learned from books by longtime practitioners.
Even for those uninterested in the magical arts, hiring a witch on Etsy to help with a job hunt has become the latest Gen Z TikTok trend. Over 18,000 posts use the ‘Etsy witch’ hashtag, most of whom are searching for work in a difficult job market for younger people.
“The Canadian unemployment rate has been elevated, and job vacancy rates have been low, which means there are a lot of people looking for work and not many jobs available,” says Tammy Schirle, a professor of economics at Wilfrid Laurier University. “It has been a difficult job market for younger people for the past few years.”
That may explain why Canadian witches have reported a rise in career-related requests. They include Madame Phoenix, an Ontario-based witch. “I think the generalized existential dread of late-stage capitalism is definitely hanging over younger people,” she says. “Finding meaning, strength, and empowerment through magical work is great.”
Another Canadian witch, who we’ll call Justin, says roughly 20% of their sales are job hunt-related. Justin asked to stay anonymous, because they don’t want their shop taken down. (Etsy bans spells that promise an outcome – including these job success spells – and requires sellers to deliver a “tangible good.” Madame Phoenix, for her part, says enforcement is spotty at best.)
The dismal job market is part of why Matton figured hiring an Etsy witch was a better bet than visiting a career counsellor.
“What are we supposed to do with the rise of AI? There are a lot of jobs being taken,” Matton says. When post-graduate jobs require years of industry experience out of the gate, she says, Gen Zs feel like they need a "miracle” to happen – or maybe some magic.
People turning to witches aren’t who you might expect. On TikTok, William Rath, a licensed attorney, has been documenting his Etsy witch journey and claims to have landed far more interviews since engaging their services. Plenty of others are doing the same: University of Cambridge graduates, content creators, and PhD scientists also post openly about their spellwork, with some crediting it for interviews and even job offers.
Gen Z may be leading the trend on TikTok, but the witches’ clients are from a variety of demographics. Madame Phoenix says most of her clients are somewhere between their late-20s and mid-40s. Justin, the anonymous witch, says they recently cast a job-success spell for a professor at an Ivy League university.
How is a spell cast?
It’s surprisingly simple to hire an Etsy witch.
Some witches sell a ‘find a job’ spell, which those in the know call the ‘Crown of Success.’ To be charmed by one, you pay the spell price (usually between $5 to $35), then hand over a few basics: your name, a photo, the status of your job search, and what you want to gain from it. Then you wait for the witch to do their thing. Proof usually arrives in the form of a photo of the ritual (bay leaves and all).
For Madame Phoenix, the spell starts with a candle. She carves symbols into it, anoints it with oil, and sets it at her altar surrounded by herbs and crystals. Then she ‘connects energetically’ with the client through their name and photo – this is when she might start to chant phrases to a higher being – and lights the candle once the energy has “reached its peak.” She tends it daily as it burns, re-dressing it with oil.
She also sells candles and anointing oils separately, which can be shipped for personal use. Madame Phoenix sells her Crown of Success candle for $43.99, while her job success anointing oil goes for $22.99. It’s surprisingly fragrant, with an earthy base for “material manifestation,” a sweetness purported to attract abundance, citrus for good fortune, and mint “to speed things up.” She encourages clients to splash the oil on their wallet, bills, front door, and body.
“There is clearly no evidence supporting witchcraft as a solution to a challenging job market."
As for her qualifications, there’s no central governing body handing out degrees, allowing for multiple routes into witchcraft. “The old joke is if you ask three witches, you’ll get four opinions,” Madame Phoenix says.
Her own path started at age 12, when she wasn’t finding what she wanted in traditional religions. Instead, she started to build her own spiritual system out of lunar cycles, nature, polytheism, and magic. “Imagine my surprise when a few years later, I discovered that this already existed,” she says.
In her late teens, she joined a traditional witchcraft and a traditional Wicca coven in Toronto, where she trained in ritual structure, magical theory, and practical teaching while “building profound relationships with deities and spirits.” Through years of training, Madame Phoenix has qualified as a ‘High Priestess,’ a title that means she can lead rituals, but says her training is far from over. “Being a witch is more of a verb than a noun,” she said, “it’s a lifetime of practice and devotion and deep personal improvement and spiritual growth.”
Does it work?
Tammy Schirle, the economics professor, isn’t sold on the employment spells. “There is clearly no evidence supporting witchcraft as a solution to a challenging job market,” she says. Alan Saks, a professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough who researches organizational entry (a fancy word for job searching), also pushed back on the trend. He said that the sample size of TikTok success stories is too small, that negative results likely aren’t reported, and that factors aren’t controlled enough to claim Etsy witches are actually boosting job search outcomes.
But witches argue that the spell’s effectiveness could come from within. Justin suggests that individuals often feel overwhelmed by the challenge of getting a job, and a relatively small fee is worth the confidence boost. “When someone believes that they will be successful, they are far more likely to achieve that success than if they were to go on weighed down by doubt,” they say.
Schirle concedes there might be something in that. “Whenever economists are evaluating a policy intervention to support job search, we make sure we account for the possibility of placebo effects,” she says. “Sometimes a simple prompt or bit of encouragement on its own can matter for people’s effort and outcomes.” That said, Schirle says she’d also want to know whether paying for that encouragement has an effect of its own.
Even if confidence does give job searchers a boost, spellcraft might not help.
Saks also says that confidence is an important factor for job search success. It’s referred to as ‘job search self-efficacy’ in the lingo, and is a “strong predictor of job search intensity and outcomes,” he says. And yet, even if confidence does give job searchers a boost, spellcraft might not help. "It could have the opposite effect by making you think you will only be successful because of the witch, not your own ability or efforts, which might even lower your job search intensity,” he says.
Saks labelled the spells as “false hope” and stressed that it would be more productive to improve your job search skills, for example by attending classes focused on job hunting. “You might feel better about it for a while, but ultimately it comes down to your job search intensity and behavior,” he says.
What I think Saks is underselling is just how soul-destroying a job search can be. I have personally sent out more than a hundred applications in recent months. I’ve heard back from a handful, interviewed for a few, and landed none. Eventually, you start entertaining ideas you'd have laughed at before.
The previously-mentioned licensed attorney Rath was 17 months into a job search with nothing to show for it when he turned to magic. The pressure piles up (money, family, ego), and people get desperate. So, why not turn to magic? At a minimum, it’ll give you a fleeting confidence boost to keep going, which in turn could lead to stronger job search intensity. At best, you land the job – and you'll never know whether the spell had anything to do with it.
