Candidate experience: a job seekers story
I recently found myself seeking new work options – my first active job search for many years. It was an interesting and surprising exercise, and a great eye opener into the frustrations and disappointments that so many people appear to be experiencing as part of the “norm” of job seeking.
By way of background - I’d started my career in recruitment, working in-house within large corporations, before moving into other specialist but complementary fields of work. At this point in my life though, I was keen to return to my passion for recruitment. Whilst I suspected I might experience some challenges given I wouldn’t be able to talk about recent achievements relevant to sourcing and selection, it turns out my search would turn out to be more difficult than I could ever have imagined.
For context, I was focussed on applying for jobs I knew I could do, where I matched most if not all of the advertised criteria. In the first month of my search, I sent targeted applications for 32 vacancies. Apart from one exploratory call, I had no responses to my applications. Absolutely zero acknowledgement.
The pattern continued in the following weeks. I was disappointed, and frustrated. In addition to my skills as a recruiter, my suite of skills today includes expertise for coaching, training and outplacement management, and I’ve worked across a variety of industry sectors.
I came to realise that applying for vacancies online is a lonely business. You can spend hours trawling the job boards, researching companies, tailoring your cover letter and CV to every specific job vacancy; and then over and over again, hear nothing from the companies and/or agencies advertising that hiring need.
Were recruiters just finding it too difficult to place me into whatever “box” they needed to fill, or was my work history just too varied and too much of a challenge to convince a hiring leader of the transferable skills I could offer? Was my CV simply under a pile of hundreds of other CVs whilst the hiring leaders were on summer holidays? Was my lack of recent TA experience really an issue or were my past skills deemed out of date? Was I regarded as too old for the pace of a recruitment agency or an internal talent acquisition job?
After 3 months of focus on my job search, and still no acknowledgements, I was starting to consider that I might not have any chance to get back into the type of work I’d done so successfully many years ago. It knocked my confidence.
“Experience is not what happens to you — it’s how you interpret what happens to you.”
Finally, I decided to reach out to the broader LinkedIn community, and very publicly let everyone know I was looking for work. Ironically, as part of my coaching of others, I’m always quick to promote the need to network with new and old connections, inclusive of social media channels. Targeted networking can connect you immediately with people who make hiring decisions. It’s also a great way to find the ‘hidden’ jobs that don’t go on the regular job boards or out to mainstream staffing agencies.
So why hadn’t I utilised social media networking for myself from the outset? Truthfully, it was my pride that got in the way. Ask my friends and family and they’ll tell you, I’m fiercely independent and reaching out so publicly felt like an admission for help on something that I should have been good at, but wasn’t able to achieve myself.
Anyway, the post on LinkedIn generated lots of conversations, lots of offers of help, referrals and suggestions - not just from my own network but from recruiters and other professionals I didn’t know.
“Networking is a lot like nutrition and fitness: we know what to do, the hard part is making it a top priority.”
Within days, I was talking with a member of my network who hadn’t been aware that I was seeking new work options. Which led to a referral to the Carter Morris HR Search team. Who then helped me through the assessment process with one of their hiring clients, whilst resulted in me joining the company I am working for today.
My candidate experience through their hiring process was outstanding - fast communications, detailed feedback and constant management of expectations for action plans. Plus a generosity of time spent with all parties to ensure a great hiring match.
Today, with my job search now successfully completed, here is my advice to anyone else seeking work, regardless of level of experience and expertise:
6 tips to help to help your job search
Expect the unexpected.
Even when you have unique skills, or when the market is clearly busy for hiring your type of expertise, sometimes job seeking is just a numbers game.
When your job search isn’t going as you expect, you may experience a roller coaster of emotions, inclusive of frustration, disappointment, concern, worry, and fear. For many of us, our emotions drive our actions – whether it is “fight, flight, or freeze”. It will help if you can see the value of your emotions, and gain the self-awareness, self-regulation, and motivation to channel that energy into positive action.
Align yourself with a strong support network – people who authentically care about you and can help to keep you focussed and in good spirits. For me, I was fortunate to secure emotional support from family, friends and ex-colleagues. And I was able to continually “reality check” my skills for market competitiveness through talking to other HR and TA professionals.
Applying hours of time and effort into reworking and reworking and reworking your resume, and continually applying for jobs may not give you the results you expect.
Do not underestimate the power of active networking. And be prepared to ask openly and widely for help - nearly everyone has been a job seeker at some point in their professional lives, so many people understand the challenges of this, and genuinely want to assist.
Finally. If you have the privilege of being employed, and if you’re responsible for hiring others into your company, I urge you, wherever you can, provide acknowledgement to your job applicants. Even if it is just an automated “thank you but no”. And if you have the option to provide any kind of feedback that might help the applicant to be more successful in the future, know that it should be gratefully appreciated. Hearing something is always better than hearing nothing at all.
About the Author
Leanne Morris is well known as a both an outspoken advocate and critic of the HR profession. With long standing networks across 94 countries in all specialist areas of the function, and a multi- continent work history, she is a sought after subject matter expert on international HR hiring trends and HR hiring best practice.