If you follow this blog in the slightest, you know that I have been job hunting. What a fascinating – and disturbing – adventure into the darkest side of human nature.
Remember the good old days when a resume was on paper and applying for a job involved an envelope and a stamp?
Today’s job hunt is a never-ending encounter with websites, online forms, resume parsers, and – if you’re lucky – emails thanking you for applying and (sometimes) informing you that they will not be moving forward with your application. More often than not, the silence is deafening after the application confirmation.
The online application process through Indeed or LinkedIn is this incredible time suck – time you will never get back. First, before you get started, you spend hours and hours filling out your profile – essentially your resume online, but not the same, but similar. While the Indeed profile is more straight forward, the sky is the limit with the LinkedIn profile with way too much white space to communicate your passions, personality, and past accomplishments. Count on several days to get it “just right,” and know that – no matter how good it is – it is never done. Like a giant professional Tamagotchi (would you believe those are still around), your LinkedIn profile must be regularly fed and updated and tweaked, or you risk falling away into professional oblivion. But at long last, you’ve hired the headshot photographer to produce the most perfect of profile photos, and after picking that perfect image (warm and friendly, but serious and professional; dressed appropriately, but don’t overdue it; putting your absolute best face forward, but rest assured…you are strictly being hired for the content of your CV, not the color of your background), you upload the pic, and you’re ready to apply for jobs.
Thankfully, when you embark on your journey, you aren’t aware that LinkedIn has 772,000,000 users, with 176,000,000 in the U.S. It might be encouraging to know that three people are hired every minute, as long as you don’t know that there are 55 job applications made every second – 100,000,000 job applications submitted each month. Nevertheless, there are 14,000,000 jobs currently on LinkedIn, and you only need one, right? How hard can this be?
With fear and trepidation, you approach the search box. Job title, company, location, full or part-time, W2 or 1099, onsite, remote, or hybrid…it’s all there, and more. One of my favorite filters is the experience level. Here, you can choose from things like entry level, executive, etc. “Sweet!” I think as I mentally fist pump my great fortune. “Project coordinator, fully remote, full-time/part-time/contract, entry-level…” all filled out, hit search. Voila! 9,243 results…scroll to the first posting. I can already picture my first direct deposit from my new job. “Project Coordinator, US/remote, Acme Corporation, actively recruiting…” open the post and scroll to the “About the Job” section. “Seeking a senior project manager with 10 years’ experience and a PMP certification for this hybrid role, located in Austin, TX.” Wash, rinse, repeat through several more search results, and you quickly realize that you’re going to need another cup – pot – of coffee. You’re in for the long haul.
At long last, after scrolling and clicking and dismissing those “job saved successfully” messages for the 200th time, you are ready to apply. After navigating to the Jobs/My Jobs section, you scroll to the first job in your list and click the “apply” button. Frequently, you are immediately greeted with “apply on company website.” “What the…?” you mentally scream. If I’m just going to apply on the company website, why did I spend all that time creating my profile? For the next 15 to 45 minutes – depending on the nature of the job and the anal retentiveness of the employer – you enter and re-enter all of the information you spent days creating and perfecting on your profile, because despite the fact that the job was posted on the job board and the button reads “easy apply,” apparently the only thing the job board can pass along is your name, email address, and phone number. Ain’t technology grand? This is progress, right?
While it is entirely possible to remain a user of the free version of LinkedIn (ask me how I know), you are being encouraged to subscribe to the premium version (free 30-day trial) at every mouse click on the site. While a premium membership isn’t too terribly expensive, the irony remains…”I am unemployed…can I afford that?” As one would expect, a premium membership offers up a myriad of special features not available to the freeloader such as myself. You are reminded of one of these features when you locate a job posting of interest. “Get premium and see how you compare to 1,924 other applicants.”
At this point, several things become crystal clear. First of all, there is no way a human being is going to actually read your resume or peruse your profile. The same algorithm that sent you the senior level hybrid position as a result for your entry-level, fully remote job search is going to predetermine if you are a good fit for the job. Once you realize this, you understand why it takes 55 job applications every second for a successful match 3 times a minute. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Secondly, you have one of those epiphany moments when you realized that you’ve been totally scammed. Since you’ve now fully grasped the reality that no one is actually reading the content of your profile, then you also realize that no one is viewing your profile photo. You could have skipped the professional photographer and become a premium member for 6 months. On the other hand, maybe you should become a professional headshot photographer? Business is booming. Just ask the two new LinkedIn members that join the site every two seconds.
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