I was unemployed for a full year and a week (post college). During that time I sent out over 300 résumés, and applied to around 100 online systems. This ranged from front-end jobs (what I’m at currently) and design jobs, all the way down to groundskeeper and Wal-Mart stocker.
I had exactly five phone interviews and three in-person interviews out of the entire year. (One of which was a scam.) Not even Wal-Mart would give me the time of day.
...Until I got a referral from a friend to a recruiter. She got me an interview with a nice company, which landed me an offer in 14 hours.
Your anecdote proves another anecdote is a strawman?
Kidding aside, I've been self employed most of my life and I've never written a resume up, so I don't know. Just sharing one story I heard.
Your experience is interesting. What do you think it was that helped? Was the recruiter good, or your friend a strong vouch? Would be curious to hear more about your experience, it's pretty shocking that you get barely any response with your credentials in 400 applications, but then a warm introduction lands you a job in a day. Well, I believe in the power of warm introductions, but you'd expect some interest if your credentials/skills stacked up, no? Would be curious to hear more.
"Your anecdote proves another anecdote is a strawman?"
A first-hand anecdote beats your vague, un-sourced, second-hand-at-best anecdote. Especially since the first-hand anecdote matches many other peoples' experience, mine included, and because you don't seem to have the personal experience required to have a working bullshit detector on the issue.
" Well, I believe in the power of warm introductions, but you'd expect some interest if your credentials/skills stacked up, no?"
After about 9 months, your credentials and skills don't really matter. It's like you have "I molest goats" on your resume in 96-point type. If you actually get a call you can hear the loss of interest once you explain that "yes, my resume is up to date".
> A first-hand anecdote beats your vague, un-sourced, second-hand-at-best anecdote. Especially since the first-hand anecdote matches many other peoples' experience, mine included,
My point was, both can be true in the same world. To layer more anecdotes onto the subject, the people I know that massively hustle don't ever stay out of work long, except by choice.
> and because you don't seem to have the personal experience required to have a working bullshit detector on the issue.
Eh, "Some people are complaining without getting off their asses" - not everyone but some people - is a hypothesis that absolutely jives with my bullshit detector. In fact, it matches tremendously a lot of experience.
> After about 9 months, your credentials and skills don't really matter. It's like you have "I molest goats" on your resume in 96-point type. If you actually get a call you can hear the loss of interest once you explain that "yes, my resume is up to date".
Ah, this is fascinating. See, that's just what I was looking for - great insight there, thanks.
Extrapolating from that, would it make sense to take a class or do some volunteer/charity work, or travel, or contribute to some open source project, or something to fill the blank in your resume?
I really don't know, this is all new stuff to me. I've looked at a few hundred resumes and proposals in my life for hires and outsourcers, but I haven't submitted one since I did an internship when I was 18 (did I even submit one there? not sure). I'm trying to think back to my own experiences choosing people, but back then I interviewed everyone with half-decent credentials because I didn't trust my resume-reading skills, and figured it couldn't hurt. Then I hired people who I jived with personally who seemed to have the skills and motivation. For outsourcers, it was all about portfolio and speed of their replies to my further questions, always. (This is a fascinating insight to me writing this, actually, I never realized that before - speed and portfolio were really the only two determining factors... written language less important, I contracted some people in India with spelling/grammar errors who obviously had the technical chops and speed one time, and then did a lot of work with them)
Okay, good discussion here Jon. Interesting stuff.
I would say the recruiter is the only reason I have a job currently. She has a very strong relationship with my employer’s parent corporation, and that got me past the tide of people who spam inboxes.
Good insights. Thanks for sharing the latter part too, that gives me some perspective. Congrats on the new position. Feel free to drop me an email sometime if I can be of service in whatever, and thanks for sharing.
"Kidding aside, I've been self employed most of my life and I've never written a resume up, so I don't know."
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"Was the recruiter good, or your friend a strong vouch?"
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"Would be curious to hear more about your experience"
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"credentials in 400 applications"
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"Well, I believe in the power of warm introductions."
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"Would be curious to hear more."
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I was unemployed for about six weeks last fall, and in that time I sent out (on average) about 5 resumes per day, every day. I got three phone interviews out of it - one turned into part-time contract work, and one became a full-time job.
There's definitely a relationship between the amount of work you put into a job search and the results, but it's dependent on so many factors (age, location, industry, experience, etc). I'm not sure how long I could have kept up that pace before I transitioned from motivated panic to resigned despair.
If there's work to be found, there's a relationship.
After a break for school I tried to find work in the Boston area just as Route 128 was dying. There were precious few openings available that I could commute to ... as I recall, I managed to land only one interview (with Polaroid). Eventually I was recruited by a friend into a company he'd licensed software to try to save it, but the recession killed it before we got far enough.
I then moved to the D.C. area (mid-'91) and had no trouble finding jobs until the dot.com/telecom crash (telecom was pretty big in that area, I was in fact working for Lucent when it started its descent from 106,000 employees to 35,000...). The less said about that period, the better.
I had exactly five phone interviews and three in-person interviews out of the entire year. (One of which was a scam.) Not even Wal-Mart would give me the time of day.
...Until I got a referral from a friend to a recruiter. She got me an interview with a nice company, which landed me an offer in 14 hours.
I’m sorry, but your anecdote is a straw man.