The Quiet Part Out Loud
Time to say what nobody wants to hear.
It’s no fun being on the hunt for a new job. It’s never been a walk in the park, but it’s never been stranger than it is right now.
Through coaching and my other travels, I hear a lot from people who are out there in the trenches looking for work.
There’s a lot that goes unsaid about the process. Time for that to change.
There’s no good reason that an automated rejection email message should hurt. But they do, they fucking hurt. If you’ve interviewed a candidate, they deserve a personal message.
An exception: Rejection by a shit job you weren’t even serious about hurts even more than one you sort of wanted. Shitty employers: do us a solid and don’t bother sending rejection messages. Thanks!
Annoyingly, recruiters are the only people still making voice telephone calls and leaving so-called “voice mail messages.” For you young folks, voicemail is like a bit like email, but without emoji. In the old days, our parents would leave long voicemail messages sometimes, because their flip phones didn’t have keyboards.
I know that it appears, judging from your LinkedIn feed, that lots of marginally qualified people are landing jobs in just a few weeks. Curious, I spoke to some of these people. They ignored the warning signs during the interview process, like a multi-day “take home test”, or people referring to co-workers as “family.” They’ll be quitting their psycho bosses within a few months, and starting the cycle anew. Don’t compare yourself to these people.
Here’s a fresh proposal to resolve the “RTO” crisis. Workers agree to “return to office” for three days a week, but only if the senior executives agree to work from home, or like literally anywhere else, no less than seven days a week.
Here’s something nobody wants to say. Applicant Tracking Systems (online job applications) are horrible because companies and hiring managers want them that way. If they made it easier to apply, they’d have more applicants which is exactly what they don’t want.
The same companies that laid off thousands at the beginning of the year now have hundreds of jobs posted — many with the same job titles that were eliminated! Don’t the companies realize that they could hire back the people they fired? We know they are company material, since they’ve already hired them once. It doesn’t make any sense… unless the real reason they laid off all of those people was not because the roles were eliminated, but to avoid the expense and legal risk of firing people who they no longer wanted around.
That’s all for this week. What have I forgotten that needs to be said out loud about the job search? Post a comment or drop me a line. I’m always here for you.