554 problems but a job ain’t one..now.

How are you doing, my wonderful potatoes on the internet?

I write this with a mixed bag of emotions. I am frustrated, excited, anxious, and grateful all at once. January has been filled with fear of the future, with some rather terrifying news stories circulating in the political realm and a sense of reminder that humanity exists in the world.

I refuse to get involved with politics, so I will not discuss that, but I will share some good news: Someone believed in me! I am now a working woman again! Finally some sense of security.
Before I get to the good news I wanted to share with you my own findings. I spent 4 hours one morning going through line by line on my own email (1 of 3) to try create a data-driven (industry buzz word 😉) picture for you.

Background:

I used recruiting sites(UK) and LinkedIn to find new job ads.

I used a combination of three emails, but only one was my “primary” on my CV and my applications, meaning not all the applications were counted. Especially those done via Linked In, easy apply OR messaging job recruiters on LinkedIn.

22nd May 2024 is the date my job hunt officially started in my “primary” email inbox.

I was ghosted by my first recruiter on 29th May 2024 after having spent 30mins on the phone about an exciting role.

1. I applied to 554 Jobs over the course of 211days (6.5ish months).
   
2. Outright rejections – 354. Meaning NO human interaction, just outright cold no via application.
   
3. 126 Interview Emails—Now, this does NOT mean I interviewed 126 times; it does include the same company interview rounds. For example, I did 4 rounds of interviews in a company, counting each of those emails as an individual.
   
4. 17 Emails where I rejected / Withdrew my application. Despite what felt like desperate times I was not willing to sacrifice certain pieces of myself on some places that offer RED Flags outright.
   

So CP, why are you telling us all this? Well, my potatoes, I wanted to paint just how challenging the fucked up market is. I have relevant experience in the land of SaaS Products and I STILL faced ridiculous rejections and awful interview experiences. It’s NOT you; it’s the broken system. The system is archaic and my god the level of incompetent people is on the rise. It blew my mind to see people in jobs they were so bad at and yet I was finding it difficult to even land an interview.

354/554 * 100 = 63.8
let’s round it to 64%.

64% chance of rejection at the point of applying, irrespective of experience, background and enthusiasm. Factor in the other usual blockers – gender, background, social backgrounds and that number starts to grow rapidly.

I interviewed at 17 unique companies for varying positions. This means I met someone within that organisation who was hiring for a role beyond a screening call. Usually after a screen call you have your assessments, hiring manager “informal” chats before the actual process even begins.

I’m going to round that 17 to 20 because, more than likely, I made mistakes and forgot to count some others. 126/20 = 6.3 .

That means the sadistic recruitment process for hiring tech people in 2024 equates to roughly 6 -7 calls/emails/rounds before companies HIRE someone. Do some of you even like your friends enough to meet them that many times over a month – two month? Average interview process taking anywhere between 3 – 8 weeks

17 withdrawn applications.

Plain and simply put, y’all gave me bad vibes. Interviewers hellbent on “mansplaining” my OWN job to me, being rude or disengaged while talking to me OR outright disrespectful behaviour that I could not bring myself to tolerate. Have the courtesy to sell me the dream like the other employers out there.

Do you get why the system is FUCKED? Any Entrepreneurs out there wanting to fix shit – this is a core problem right here!! Don’t even get me started on the non-sense AI hype. AI tools used in recruitment and blah blah blah.

Potatoes, it’s awful out there but there is hope yet. One small slither of hope but it exists. There will always be companies who forgot to “keep up with the times” and now need people that can help them. This rings true in especially bigger coperations where it’s physically impossible to keep up with the pace of change that technology goes through because to their industrial processes.

Morale of the story – There will always be a clusterfuck wanting to be de-clustered.

There are other alternatives to target, but I don’t want to lecture you on the whole thing because you only know what’s best for you. I’m here to share my story and how it works for me. In my many and wide job net I tried to cast out in the UK job market I got one big fish that wanted help to change. The process took it’s sweet as fucking time but here we are. Yours truly, a working woman trying to do her bit (as a small cog in a very big machine) to help a huge entity transform its tech for its user – one small data set at a time.

If the above interest in figures hadn’t provided the hint, I’m getting my nerd on! Not just because my new role will require it but also because numbers have always interested me. There is something beautiful in the “definability” of numbers. You can prove it, or you can’t. You’ll let me know if I have my numbers crossed or my understanding incorrect, won’t you?

Until next time, Keep your faith in yourself my potatoes, It does get better 💓

CP x