3 ways abandoning common sense can benefit your job search
As a career strategist, I work with about 200 job seekers a year. Some are unemployed, but the majority are confidentially searching. After seeing so many smart and driven clients break their self-confidence against the same exact rocks, I found myself asking, “How can we better navigate this deeply emotional and uncontrollable process, while inflicting as little self-harm as possible? Candidates are simply doing what they think they should be doing, and yet…”
And then it hit me. Of course we’re disillusioned by the process; society has been grooming us since high school to believe that if we can become the smartest and the most accomplished, then we’ll be the “obvious” choice for what we apply for. I mean, in theory, it makes total sense. Who wouldn’t want to hire the best? But after 14 years in the employment sector, trust me – that commonsense approach to the how’s and why’s of job hunting is going to hurt you more than it’s going to help you.
Here are three hard truths I share with clients when it comes to shelving that common sense while applying, accompanied by a few suggestions on how to recognize when logic is misleading, so you can carve out a more effective path towards what you want.
Hard Truth #1: You will apply for lots of jobs that you’re a great fit for – and not even get a call.
Your inner logic screams, “Well that’s ridiculous! I’m a great fit for this! I meet every qualification outlined, and I didn’t even get a phone call before getting this canned rejection email? This isn’t fair.”
You’re right. Common sense tells us that if we’re a good fit, we should get a call. Unfortunately, “should” is never going to do you any favors here, and the sooner you can eliminate it from your vocabulary, the better. The reality is…this is a numbers game. If a recruiter has 100 applicants and even 20% are just as qualified as you, that means you’re still in competition for a first-round phone screen with at least 19 other people. If that recruiter has 30 openings (common), each with that much volume, there is no way they are screening 20 candidates before deciding who to pass on to the hiring manager. They review, they rank/sort, and they start lining up calls. That means if you rank towards the bottom of that 20, only 4 or 5 people in front of you need to crush that first call in order to advance. Your resume will most likely be “kept warm” in case the hiring manager doesn’t love anyone from the first batch of interviews, but now it’s a waiting game. (Remember, if you applied through an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and haven’t received a rejection email yet, that probably means you’re in holding, but hey – you’re still in this thing. Until it’s a no, it’s a maybe.)
So, what’s an applicant to do?! This is where Darwinism and strategy come in. The strongest – and shiniest – get the first calls. What are shiny candidates, you ask? The ones who catch our eye, sometimes unintentionally, like a little mirror in the distance. They may not have ranked as high as some others in the stack, but they follow-up on LinkedIn and lure us onto their profile where we see they have some transferable skills and a few recommendations (huge plus); or they voluntarily send over compelling samples of work; or they just find little pockets of opportunity to weave themselves into our line of sight over a few others.
If you don’t think you’re the strongest applicant in the stack, you need to try and be the shiniest. And if you DO think you’re one of the strongest, you STILL need to outshine the other strong contenders. If you think about it, they’re sitting behind their computer saying the exact same thing you are – “I’m a great fit. I deserve that call.” Yes… you all do. But that’s not always feasible given the volume or timeframe recruiters are navigating. Be strong, but more importantly, be shiny.
Hard Truth #2: Job boards don’t always show you “the best” matches for what you’re searching for. (And they’re okay with that.)
We are all Googlers at heart, no? Because of this relationship we have with search engines, we assume that when we use popular job boards, they’re operating the same way. Our logic tells us to plug in a job title, filter in some preferences, and boom, we should have a full list of any and all open roles that match our search criteria AND that we’re seeing the most relevant ones listed first. No… and definitely no. (And in all fairness, Google ranks their content too – just in a different way.) The reality is, when we go to Indeed, Glassdoor, or LinkedIn’s job board, to name a few front runners, we are engaging with highly monetized systems. These are job boards that sell companies access to your eyeballs for big bucks using algorithms to push certain roles in front of you to gain “impressions” before others. This also means that, unfortunately, the little guys who have less of a budget (or none), wind up in the way back – if they’re on the board at all – even if they have better matches for what you’re seeking.
So what do you do if you don’t want to work for those companies paying to push their roles in front of you? Or perhaps the roles are close to what you’re seeking, but not ideal? KEEP SEARCHING. Make sure you move past the first five pages. (In my opinion, the real gem in this space is Google For Jobs. It’s seamless, intuitive, and not monetized. If you need a crash course on how to find or use this one, schedule a Job Hunting 2.0 session with me and you’ll never go back to Indeed again.)
Hard Truth #3: You tell yourself that you’re only going to apply to certain roles that pop up because you really want to be “selective and intentional” this time around.
Common sense will agree with this sentiment ALL DAY LONG. If you’re confidentially searching, of course you’re not looking to jump ship for just any ol’ job. But here’s the reality of what you’re doing when you “spot apply” (aka: applying to one posting at a time; waiting and seeing what happens; and then running a new search once you get rejected or ghosted). On average, it’s 3-4 weeks to hear back from a submitted application. Why would you place all of your emotional eggs into one basket, only to potentially wait A MONTH for a rejection – and then start all over? We need you to be emotionally diversifying those eggs! This market is way too competitive with lots of confidential seekers and experienced applicants out there.
Having LOTS of irons in the fire allows you to: 1) have more than one option to consider (aka that whole “not settling thing” we were referring to); 2) have other interviews to practice with and gain insight from so you can compare said options; 3) potentially land multiple offers so you can leverage them against each other; and 4) avoid feeling like you got kicked in the gut every time you get rejected because it was your only app in the hopper.
Unfortunately, rejection is a PART of job hunting. Period. The only way to insulate yourself emotionally and maintain the mental stamina necessary to keep applying is to create and lean on your volume in hopes that it softens the blow when rejections start kicking in the front door of your inbox like you owe them money. Rule of thumb: Until you accept a role, keep applying. I don’t care if you land 10 interviews. Don’t mentally marry a company before the right one pops the question. There’s no monogamy in job hunting. Just. Keep. Applying.
To summarize, if the best, most deserving candidate always got the job, then a commonsense approach could make a better case for itself in the 2022 job market, but until then, don’t let logic hijack your self-esteem or your process. It has no place in a biased system. Think outside the box. Get shiny. And create a search strategy that centers your approach around the variables that actually make a difference – not just the ones that “should.” If you feel like you’ve tried this and it hasn’t worked, hop onto my calendar and we can dive into it.