The Modern Job Search is Broken (A Hate Letter)

The modern job search can be demoralizing, depressing, and downright infuriating. 

I’m sure you’ve heard of stories like these:

• - People getting ghosted by recruiters.
• - People applying for 300+ and 500+ jobs without finding anything. 
• - People casually job searching for 1 Year+. Perhaps submitting a few times a week, and not finding anything.
• - People going through multiple LONG rounds at multiple companies, and still not landing anything. Some are even getting offers rescinded! 

Why is this happening? And even if you’re not a victim, why should you care?

The blunt truth is that the interview & hiring process is broken. 

I’ll cut to the chase. Here are the main reasons why:

⓵ HR & recruiters teams are understaffed 

⓶ The economy leaves companies cautious to hire (budget constraints) 

⓷ The job market is becoming increasingly globalized daily (saturation)

⓸ AI is filtering applications (no way a robot can make better decisions)

⓹ Digital access to applications results in many unqualified applicants applying (saturation)

What is Even, “Hiring Process?”

Now, let’s get down to the brass tax of the hiring process. Companies do not want to hire strangers, people they don’t know, people off the street. All companies prefer to hire internally or hire people who are recommended/referred. But it’s practically impossible to find all of your talent that way.

So companies, through HR and recruiters, turn to the job boards. 

But they actually don’t want to. That’s part of the reason why some employees feel ‘toyed’ with. It’s because once you apply on a job board, you’re already fighting a losing battle. 

Hiring Process in a Perfect World vs. Reality

Ideally, a recruiter or hiring should try to get to know every single job candidate very well. Perhaps meeting them all face-to-face and having references (like ex-colleagues) for all of them. That would be nice. But the truth is that it’s impossible, so recruiters create processes to get to know candidates reasonably quickly. 

For this reason, people should not take rejections too seriously, because (generally speaking) these companies don’t truly know. They just know a tiny bit about you, and they make a decision based on that. 

Due to the limitations of recruiters and talent acquisition specialists, companies have turned to AI to help them filter applications. 

But what’s the problem with that?

⓵ Humans Judge Humans Better

⓶ Some Resumes Are Just Bad, Even Though the Person is Good

⓷ Some Professionals Don’t Have “Picture Perfect” Experience, But They’re Still Capable

In short, AI is screwing you over.

It would be much better if companies accepted an unlimited amount of applications, carefully looked over each resume, each LinkedIn profile, and had a chat with each candidate. 

Job Boards are Poisonous

Despite all of these challenges, preferences, and barrier to entry… Jobseekers still turn to job boards like it’s 10-years-ago. 

I compare job boards to poison 🧪. Why?

Here are the top 3 reasons:

⓵ Bad Companies Will Be the First to Interview You 

⓶ Job Applications Lead to Dead-Ends

⓷ Recruiters Will Treat You Like Trash

And this all leads to anxiety, depression, hopium (hope as a drug that just brings disappointment), AND wasting huge amounts of time that could be used for something more . . . PRODUCTIVE! And REAL! 

⓵ Bad Companies will Be the First to Interview You 👎🏾

When it comes to applying on job boards, we know that it typically takes hundreds of applications within a relatively short timeframe (6 months or less) to get results. But the sad part is when you FINALLY get some interviews, the interviews can be really bad. Why? Because the top companies are going to be relying a lot of referrals and hunting.

Less profitable and less structured companies are going to use the less effective way, “Let’s just pull in random people off the street!” It’s demoralizing because people send out hundreds of applications, get happy when they get some responses, only to be shortly disappointed soon after. And it doesn’t help that many applicants are not very familiar with the majority of the companies they’re applying to. 

Now, maybe you’re thinking that, “If it’s a good company, it’ll be a better process, right?” Not exactly. Because those companies still prefer referrals, you will be among the least prioritized candidates.

⓶ Job Applications Lead to Dead-Ends ⚠️

Many people spend hours and hours into job applications… People who are jobless are putting in 8 hours a day (or more) into applying. And it’s an automatically known thing that they won’t hear back from most of those companies. 

Silence.

Even if they qualify, even if they tailor their resume, even if they apply early, even if their resume is good…. For the majority of jobs applied to, they’ll hear nothing back. Why? It’s the system, as previously mentioned. 

I compare job applications to dead-ends, while I compare networking to roads that never end. What do I mean by that? When you connect with someone socially, you can always talk to that person. 

↳ Even if you get ghosted by someone that you DMed on LinkedIn, you can still continually message that person.

↳ Even if you fail a job interview process, you can still reach out to recruiters/hiring managers. 

↳ If you text message or call someone you personally know, you can reach out again. 

↳ If you are in an online community, you can keep reaching out to that community. 

↳ If you had a coffee chat with someone, you can have another coffee chat.  

↳ If you go to an in-person event, you can go to another in-person event. 

Therefore, 100 real professional social interactions will always do you better than 100 job apps. But when you spend time filling out applications, it’s almost like you’re wasting time because you will not get too much in return. I, personally, like getting a nice return of my invested time. 

⓷ Recruiters Will Treat You Like Trash 🗑️

There’s so much competition, the economy is so bad, and recruiters are busy.

Because they have their ‘pickings’ and mane are overloaded….

→ Expect to be ghosted. 

→ Expect poor communication. 

→ Expect to not feel valued or dignified. 

I mentioned hopium earlier. Recruiters fuel hopium. There are great and reputable recruiters. However, many recruiters don’t actually care about job candidates… Just like many software developers don’t care about their code. Or sales people don’t care about their buyers. They just care about their paycheck. 

Point: don’t get your hopes too high in recruiters in this chaotic job market. 

How Should We Treat Job Boards?

Should you still use job boards? Yes. However, treat job boards as a limited tool. 

Just like there’s some things you can eat, but when consumed too much can poison you.. Job boards can poison you. 

I encourage corporate professionals to have a holistic job search, leveraging:

👉🏾 Personal Brand

👉🏾 Online Community

👉🏾 Networking (Building Relationships)

These methods don’t only help you with finding your next job, but they benefit your entire career. 

This is what the modern job search has become, whether you like it or not.

Are you ready to take on the challenge? 

Q&A

Since job boards are so bad, do resumes still matter?

Yes. Resumes still matter. Some times people get less responses via job boards because their resumes are bad. However, because someone may have non-traditional experience or some other complications, their resumes/applications wile ALWAYS perform worse on job boards due to their competition. 

Lastly, some fields are extremely oversaturated and may actually be more prone to lay-offs than other fields/professions. If you know your field and know your work history well, you must strategically decide where you will focus your efforts. 

Picture this: have a perfect resume in the hand of a perfect connection working at a perfect company on a perfect team. As you can see, resumes are important, but these other areas are important as well. 

Chris Barnes

chris @ hanging-fruit .com

www.linkedin.com/in/chris-barnes-52398a3b