After 395 days of job hunting, I have finally secured a job! It’s within my area of expertise, pays well, and is at the level I was looking for. I’m extremely excited, but let’s talk about what it took to get to this moment.
Because I love data, and quickly realized this job market was unlike anything I’ve ever seen, I tracked my job search (mostly). I’m sharing the below information in the hopes that it helps others explain to friends and family what it’s like out here, validates others struggles, and better tells the real story of the job market that economists haven’t realized yet.
Things to note about my job search:
- Searching for Sr. Manager to C-Suite Roles (I landed a C-Suite role)
- I am in the field of business operations, so I was within for-profit and non-profit with a wide range of industries generally only excluding areas that required very specialized experience such as healthcare, crypto, etc.
- I have over 10 years of experience within my field
- 95%+ was cold applying, I tried networking with a wide net cast across former coworkers, family, friends, and other professional contacts. In general, people weren’t hiring in my area of work
- I applied primarily M-F with occasional weekends, I would apply to everything applicable I could find on job sites for 2-5 hours until I ran out of things to apply for
- My resume and cover letters were ATS optimized
- I was laid off and not working while job searching aside from a small about of consulting/freelance work
The Data
https://preview.redd.it/jgteny0bw6rd1.png?width=1484&format=png&auto=webp&s=2a9761c9820fcf681025890480612d5c47dd219a
* Notations
- There were another 75-100 applications not tracked from easy apply on Linked In and applications to things outside of my field such as local retail and restaurants
- I only started applying to relocation opportunities 9 months into my search due to a life situation change that made relocation viable
- The 12 Activities Completed were requested by the employer prior to any kind of interview and included personality tests, one-way pre-recorded video phone screens, long form questionnaire, webinar attendance. etc. These activities took as little as 30 minutes and some up to 4 hours
- Interview Activity Complete consisted of company strategy recommendations, creating new examples of work, and problem-solving activities. These took between 2-8 hours each
Things I Learned and my Biggest Advice to Job Seekers
- You must apply to A LOT of jobs to get a job
- It’s an employer market, you will have to jump through a ton of hoops to do get a job. This also means leaving your ego at the door, you will need to do activities and other BS, you will need to proactively follow up, you will have to go above and beyond to express interest in order to stand out
- Employers are getting hundreds of applications, don’t take no response or automatic rejections personally
- Companies that post ghost jobs are evil: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FAYkoAeTVU
I experienced a lot of hardship in this job search as well. I also couldn’t just STOP job hunting in the middle of these hardships… If you experience any of these, you have my heart in my hands for you.
During my job search I:
- Spent all of my savings (thank god I had some)
- Incurred about $5K of Debt
- Had to sell my house and donated/sold 75% of my possessions, moved into month-to-month housing
- Separated from my spouse (amicable but very sad, my job search was not the main cause but the stress it caused definitely added to the timeline of this happening and potentially it happening in general)
Good luck to everyone still doing the grind, I genuinely wish you all the luck and success. You’re going to be okay, hang in there.
(If you see any errors please let me know, I am SO tired after over a year of all of this and I am probably not producing my best work right now. I have a few weeks until the new job starts to both recuperate and move thankfully!)
