Reframing the Job Search Process
We often apply to jobs under the assumption that we’ll be considered and judged on our merits. The reality is, the process is full of invisible filters to make workloads manageable for recruiters. Recruiters rarely need more than 3 or 4 interview-worthy candidates to end up with a good hire, and if 50+ people applied to a role, that means the vast majority of applications aren’t even looked at. And because candidates have no visibility into these logistical realities, they come away with frustration, self-doubt, and exhaustion after being frequently rejected or ghosted, believing they were poor fits for the job when the odds were simply not in their favor. What can you do to improve your chances?
I entered the job market after college, spending a year and a half collecting experiences like this. The frustration and confusion I felt through this time was an incredible burden, and it became easy to lose hope and doubt the quality of my experience. My work experience since then has been in corporate recruiting, in various functions, and I’ve had a chance to see how recruiters and their systems work. I’ve been able to use my experience on both sides of this process - as frustrated candidate and busy recruiting staff - to help friends and family improve their resume and LinkedIn presence, and I’d like to help others avoid similar frustrations.
Who I am, and who I am not
My experience begins in the Bay Area after graduating with a Bachelor’s degree. I worked two minimum-wage retail jobs with gig work on the side while I spun my wheels seeking work that used my degree. While my school and degree were average, I had unique experience that felt like it had to be hirable. What confused and demoralized me was being ignored for roles that seemed to be a perfect fit for my obscure experience. Compounding this was a feeling that I could not understand what was wrong, or what I could do about it. I worried about whether a particular change would harm or help my chances and lost confidence in my ability to drive my own job search.
After a year and a half, I found temp work in HR for a small accounting firm, and was eventually able to turn that experience into different corporate roles as recruiting support. In these roles, I’ve had a chance to support recruiters through every step of the recruiting process - from sourcing, to interviewing, to background checks, to onboarding, to orientation. While I have never worked as a recruiter myself, I’ve worked with over 30 recruiters in my career, with different focuses, specializations, organizational roles, and workflows. While every industry, company, and recruiter may handle things in their own way, I’ve picked up enough general rules of this process to offer them to friends and family in need, and almost all of them tell me shortly after about the interviews they’ve been on and recruiters they’ve spoken to.
What I’m qualified to help with
Writing and formatting a resume that appeals to both software and recruiters
What’s important in a resume and what isn’t
How to tailor your resume to a specific role or company that is particularly exciting to you
Teaching you how to approach this process, so you can feel confident taking your fate into your own hands.
Building a LinkedIn presence that brings recruiters right to your inbox
Helping you understand what may be happening behind the scenes after you apply
Getting you from application to contact with recruiter
How organizations of different sizes approach the hiring process.
How companies generally approach background checks in the hiring process (Note: varies across organizations and discussing this would not constitute legal advice).
Where I have limited knowledge
How to impress recruiters (I know how to avoid common mistakes and have some experience sourcing, but I haven’t been in a situation where I’m making decisions on who should interview)
How much or how little diversity and inclusion initiatives affect your chances (I have some general knowledge of how these elements are worked into a company’s recruiting strategy, but this varies greatly across organizations, and what I know might not be relevant for you)
How to describe technical experience (while I work with technical recruiters, I am not one. I do know some general principles, though and I have helped clients with technical backgrounds)
Offer negotiation (while I’ve learned some general principles that may be of value, I’m not equipped to advise in personalized detail).
What I’m not
A career coach: I’m not any more qualified than you are in deciding what roles you should aspire towards, how to develop your career within your organization, or branding.
A resume writer: It’s my belief that nobody is better at describing your background than you. While delivering a strong resume might save you time, it doesn’t leave you with a better understanding of why that resume is strong. I think the benefits of working together will be more authentic, lasting, and empowering if you learn how this is done, instead of having it done for you. If our work is successful, you won’t need to come back here when you search for work next, and that’s not always the case with resume writing services.
A recruiter: I feel it’s important to make it clear that I while I have experienced virtually every step in the recruiting process in my career, have never held the role of recruiter. This means, I have never been in a position where I am evaluating candidates, discussing compensation with candidates, presenting candidates to hiring managers, or making offers to candidates. I’m not always plugged into discussions of strategy where recruiters decide which candidates or skills to pursue. While I feel qualified to advise on the earliest phase of the hiring process (based on consistently positive results from people I’ve advised), I feel it’s ethically important to be as clear as possible about where gaps in my experience exist.
You: You know better than anyone - anyone - what you’ve done, what you can do, and why you’re worth hiring. There’s no amount of recruiting experience a person could accumulate to make them more qualified than you to express these things. My goal is to help you gain the knowledge and confidence to express that in a way that’s authentic, honest, and strategically sound. Most folks I work with are well qualified. Most folks I work with know how to talk about themselves. Most folks just don’t know how to play this very specific game of pleasing the algorithms within recruiting software, and those folks likely aren’t aware that that may be where they’re losing.