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I’m tracking my job search results for a marketing job, and I decided to share always up-to-date data for others who may be in a similar situation. This is just one of my updates to the ongoing saga of living The American Dream!
Employment in 2023 has been a roller coaster for many of us.
To my chagrin, I found myself among the many victims of the mountain of lay offs towards the end of the year (December 1, to be exact). You know, the time of year when budgets are set, hiring is frozen, and everyone’s on vacation for the holiday? In other words, this is not the ideal time to receive a basket of underripe lemons.
What AM I Going to do?
This is the question I’m fighting and facing every hour of every day since unemployment fell into my fate. However, dwelling on this is not going to get me anywhere. I decided I’m going to do what I do best: tell a story with my job search data and figure out where I can make improvements.
Below are my initial findings from a Looker Studio dashboard of my woes. This one is for you, nerds—my form of lemonade. I’m keeping this dashboard updated as I move through the job search process. For you extra big nerds, you can view the full dashboard here. There you can interact with the data and drill down or filter by tapping or clicking on one of the stats.
What is my strategy?
Obviously, this isn’t a true scientific test so my analysis is going to be my best interpretation. There is certain criteria I’m looking at to filter which jobs to apply for and I’m being picky.
I’m going for a quality over quantity strategy. I’d rather not submit 100 apps where I don’t meet all qualifications for 75% of them. Instead, I’m applying for those jobs where I feel my experience and skillset fit best.
I am primarily searching for remote work, but will consider on-site or hybrid positions if the situation/location is right.
I decided to expand my search beyond just full-time positions and consider freelance options.
I’m going to evaluate where the bottlenecks are in the process. Is my resume/application not good enough? Am I applying to the wrong jobs? Am I having trouble getting through a specific interview?
Finding #1:
The few recruiters that are responding to applications are taking a while to do so.
Initial results are not promising. At the time of this post, I’ve applied to 40 jobs and only 4 of them (or 10%) have responded outside of a canned “we received your application” response. I’ve been unemployed for 6 days, but I technically applied for a job 27 days ago. That particular job took 20 days for a response of any kind (a rejection). This one job is skewing the average days to respond, but in total recruiters are taking 8 days on average to respond back with a substantial next step.
I’m going to give some defense to recruiters and employers as this is the holiday season. Many are on PTO for holiday or are not in a hurry to hire before the end of the year.
Finding #2:
For me, I’m finding the best postings from LinkedIn Jobs.
I realize that I could be looking at many other job search sites and apps, but LinkedIn Jobs has always provided the easiest way for me to filter down jobs. I’m able to filter by salary, whether or not it is remote, if I have any connections working there, and whether or not I’m a top candidate (I am using LinkedIn Premium). Therefore, it has been much easier for me to find jobs I want to apply to from LinkedIn. I also get the opportunity to mark whether or not I’ve applied to the job in LinkedIn giving me a nice place to check back into.
Source of all job postings that I have applied to.
I’ve also luckily been able to tap into my network and find a few jobs (5 so far) that are referrals. The jobs that I found directly from the company website are those companies I specifically would like to work for. I have yet to find many options to apply to from my recruiter.
But a better question: of the recruiters that have responded (4 of them), where were those jobs found?
Source of job postings of those who have responded to my applications.
This is probably also heavily skewed because I’ve applied to jobs from LinkedIn more than any other source, but it is interesting to note.
Finding #3:
Either my application timing is off, or recruiters are inundated with applications that they aren’t able to provide substantial rejection rationale.
Below are reasons I’ve received thus far from recruiters as to why I wasn’t selected to move forward in the process.
Responses from recruiters or employers as to why I was not selected to move forward for the role.
It is clear that I’m getting very canned responses and that not much thought is put into providing feedback on why I was rejected.
"After thoughtful consideration, we have decided not to move forward with your candidacy for this position.”
I would normally reply back to recruiters with a request for feedback on why I was not considered or areas that I could improve upon, but all four of these responses have been sent from “noreply” emails.
There is one response that indicates that the job opportunity had been open for some time before I was considered (ie: my timing was off). This was also the job that took 20 days to respond.
What Does this data mean?
The search is still in its early stages, but my initial thoughts are:
why is it so hard to get a response? It could be any number of the following factors:
Seasonality (this is peak holiday/vacation time for most companies)
I’m not applying for the best fitting opportunities
My resume needs work
People are feeling extra ghost-y
Overall thoughts:
I will need to consider either seriously increasing the amount of applications I apply to each day or workshop why I’m not reaching direct contact with employers.
At least I have this beautiful view to gaze upon as I ponder these findings.
The juxtaposition of being in such an uncomfortable position career-wise while also being in one of the most beautiful places on the planet (Laguna Beach, CA).
Let me know what you think!
I’m extremely interested to know what data you would like to see! Comment on this page and let me know your thoughts or suggestions for additional visualizations/data. We have to have fun somehow, right?
