Unemployment Update no. 6
A wild ride & a freebie.
We are about to enter into the fourth month of being unemployed, which is wild. Time truly means nothing. And I’ll tell you what, job hunting is a rollercoaster I would very much like to get off.
Let’s start this one with the stats, and then I’ll move into a random selection of job hunting related things.
You’ll see that I did make it to a second interview round with one company. I was really excited about this one! I thought both calls went well and it seemed like a great fit. And then…crickets. It’s been about a week, so I suppose they could still come back to me, but I don’t think the odds are very good.
Overwhelmingly I either hear nothing or get a form rejection letter. Finding jobs I even want to apply for is also getting trickier. I’m hoping we’ll see a little Q2 boost in job postings, but I’m also afraid the economic uncertainty is having a negative impact and companies may be playing their budgets a bit closer to the vest this year.
A Few Things
Cover Letters, Who Needs ‘Em?
I’ve almost completely stopped including cover letters with my applications. This goes against past advice I’ve followed, but with this volume of applications it just takes too long to write a cover letter when it’s not even a sure thing anyone will look at it. So far it doesn’t seem to have any bearing on whether or not I get an interview. The job I got to the second round interview for isn’t one I wrote a cover letter for.
The only times I do use a cover letter is if why I’m applying for the role needs a bit more explanation or if it’s at a company I’m really interested in working with.
Resume Tailoring
I also don’t tailor my resume anymore. Most of the jobs I’m applying to are similar enough that what I have on my resume applies just fine. Again, the only time I might make an exception is if I need to highlight different skills for a role. For example, I’ve applied for a few Marketing Project Manager type roles, so I have a separate resume I’d use for those, since my primary resume is geared toward Email Marketing Manager roles.
Ain’t Too Proud to Beg
While nosing around on Reddit, I saw someone post a bunch of tips that helped them in their job hunt, and they recommended messaging recruiters on LinkedIn at the companies where you’ve applied. I tried this a handful of times even though it feels yucky, and it didn’t help whatsoever. I got one reply saying they followed up with every application and then a few weeks later got a form rejection email. This might work for someone going for a higher-level role, but I don’t think this is going to do anything for me except make me look desperate. (I mean, I am desperate, but.)
LinkedIn is So 2020
Remember Indeed and Monster.com? They haven’t gone anywhere, but I don’t think many people are still using them to look for jobs. Everyone is on LinkedIn, and their job search capabilities are garbage.
Half of it is sponsored posts, the other half are junk jobs, and anything left over has 800 applicants in the first fifteen minutes. Reddit steered me to Hiring Cafe, and this is the way. You can set up
Wait.
Hold the phone.
I literally just got an email from that company I was excited about, the one where I did the second interview? They want me to move to the next step! Omg I am freaking out. Doing third round interviews next week! Next time I do one of these updates I’ll have to update my chart, what a thrill.
Anyway, what was I saying?
Oh right, Hiring Cafe. You can set up searches for specific job titles and drill down by location, salary, industry, date job was posted, etc. and save those searches. The only downside is there doesn’t seem to be a way to have these results sent to you in real time, so you have to be periodically checking the site to see if anything new has popped up.
Apparently it makes a world of difference if you’re one of the first people to apply for a role, so if you see it as soon as it gets posted and apply then and there, you’re more likely to get an interview. This makes sense in theory, but I haven’t put it into practice so I can’t say for sure. Seeing as one of the interviews I did was for a job I had applied to 32 days before, I’d take this advice with a grain of salt and not make yourself crazy trying to speed-apply for jobs.
Bonus Freebie
I have been diligently tracking my applications for the last 3+ months in a Google sheet, and I thought it may be helpful to anyone else who is in the trenches of job hunting, so I’m sharing it here:
That link should prompt you to make a copy for yourself. There’s an example row filled out, but customize this to your needs. I’ve found this very helpful for keeping track of roles I’ve applied to and having lots of information available at a glance. Hope it helps someone!
Much like the act of job hunting, this post was a wild ride. I spent a lot of last week feeling really down in the dumps about this job hunt, and then by the end of the week (when I got the news about those next-round interviews) I was riding a high. Such is a week in the life of the unemployed. Thanks for coming on this journey with me, and keep your fingers and toes crossed these interviews go well!
Great news on callback - Good luck!!❤️