Job Hunting - Understanding the game

 Hi All,

As I mentioned in my last post, I currently looking for job. Living in a first world country and in one of the world's most populous cities means that job-hunting is a stressful and full time job. When I first moved to London 6 years ago, I was pretty naiive - I thought as long as I had the qualifications, the experience and the confidence, I could do anything I wanted. It became clear after a few weeks that things don't work that way in a saturated job market. It's a dog-eat-dog world where the only shrewdest and well-connected survive.

6 years later, I am back in the job hunting game and amazed at how much crazier the whole process has become. After weeks of sending applications directly to companies, scouring online job boards and applying to dozens of jobs, contacting agencies, registering on every known job website, I haven't had any success. I am being hounded by agencies daily, but all they want is information about my last company or companies I have applied to (I explain why below) - once they have that information, you never hear from them again.

It was getting insane and I needed to understand what was going on. So I decided to do a bit of research into how the whole system works and what I needed to do to get that job I wanted. Speaking to few people about this, I received all sorts of advice - from suggestions that I register with every agency and jobsite on the planet and just apply for everything, to suggestions that I change my name (apparently if it sounds foreign, they won't shortlist you), to suggestions that I "pad up" my CV (or lie a little bit) just to get in the door, and so much more. After a while I concluded that this was a crazy game and noone had any idea what the rules were. 

My research began by looking at what was going on the recruiter's side. What were companies/hiring managers doing? How were the recruiting agencies playing this game? And more importantly, what were they doing with our CVs and applications?



To put this into context, the job market in the UK at the moment is pretty rough - the levels of unemployment are going up as public sector workers get laid off. As of last week, it was estimated at 2.6 million. This means there is an excess supply of labour in the market. With estimates of 5 people applying for every job, this means that there is a lot of pressure on firms and agencies in terms of the applications they receive. But could this pressure also be due to some of their more self-serving motives as well?

For example:

• Some recruitment agencies post fake jobs to attract candidates. Once you register or apply for the job, they approach your current/previous employer as a prospective client knowing there will soon be a vacancy when you leave. These are the agencies you never hear from again usually. If you do hear from them, they just want to know who you have applied to for the same reason I have just mentioned. You are simply a way for them to get new clients;
• Some companies post jobs to make themselves look good - they look like they have all these positions open and are actively recruiting when in reality they are not. A little bit of PR, perhaps?
• Hiring managers, realising there is a large supply of labour are getting picky and holding out for that perfect candidate who can do everything from programming to legal litigation. They hold the position open for months on end, waiting for that "gem";
• Some companies advertise externally when there are serious candidates applying internally.  They may shortlist a couple of external candidates to just satisfy legal requirements which means that any external candidate has very little chance.

With this in mind, I have estimated that 1 out of every 10 applications I have sent was for a genuine job. Pretty depressing, hey?

Once you finally stumble across an actual job opening, and you send your CV in, what happens next? Well, if it is through a recruitment agency, you should know that nowadays, they use programmes or applicant tracking systems that scan CVs for specific key words. If your CV does not include these words, they are immediately trashed. If it does get through the initial scan, you get allocated a score and the system goes on to look for key companies, key universities and years of experience. The higher your score, the better chances your CV has of seeing a human face. Only the top scoring CVs make it to the recruiter's desk. The rest get stored somewhere and candidates get that email that says something like ".....due to the overwhelming response to this role, we regret to inform you that your application has been unsuccessful..."
As an systems enthusiast, I actually find these systems quite fascinating and very innovative. And I can understand that with the number of applications agencies and companies are receiving, there needs to be a system to sift through the fluff.  The unfortunate thing though is that even if you are an excellent candidate, if your CV doesn't match a specified algorithm, you are tipped into the trash pile without a second consideration!

So knowing all this, what can one do?? Well, you can do one of two things. On one hand, you can play the game and find ways to beat the system (one tip I had was that I should randomly include the buzz words to trick the system). This requires lots of time and  I don't think it produce significant results to warrant the time spent.

Or, you can stop the madness and use the contacts you have to get yourself a job. Get networking and talking to people. It is more likely that it is the people around you who will give you the job you want and not some random jobsite. This is how the successful and the rich operate. Plus they say that only 8% of  all successful applications come from job boards or sites, so do the math.A  useful tool is LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com). LinkedIn provides good opportunities to network with people as well as job postings that are not anywhere else. There are discussion boards which have a wealth of information.  If there is a company you want to work for, you can follow them and be alerted is job openings comes up.

Going forward, I have decided to stop the madness and use the networking technique. It is harder and requires more leg work, but it makes more sense to me. I have removed myself from all the job boards and agency sites I have registered with. They have been the source of a lot of stress and noise for me with no real payback. Someone once said the value of something is in opposite proportion to its availability.

I hope this has been helpful for someone out there. I had to find this out the long and hard way and I decided to writing this up so I could help someone understand the game.

Comments and other bits of information are very welcome so please comment below.