I can't get a job to save my life (1500+ applications) | Tech 2024

all right today I want to film more of a raw and real video I'm not going to try to make this video super cute and organized I just want to go over how I have been job hunting for 10 and a half months I still don't have a full-time job and I am struggling pretty bad uh not just with finding a job but also mentally and emotionally so let me go into first my layoff story I got laid off in July of 2023 I work in technology as product manager and I remember seeing a calendar invite on my computer saying like hey quick sync with the chief product officer at that point in time I knew that I was going to get laid off a lot of people also got laid off so it was a layoff round uh so overall I would say my honest read on the situation is was it performance related I would say no because there are a lot of people that got laid off I would say if I were a superstar amazing unicorn product manager would I have not gotten laid off it's possible but you know that's really just kind of neither here nor there uh so anyways after that happened I went to Brazil for like a month or for a few weeks and I just wanted to clear my head then I went into the job hunting phase I focused on cold applications you know applying for jobs myself I also hired a VA to apply for jobs on my behalf this was my friend's basically career service he was doing something as a proof of concept to test out whether or not he could s this as a service so overall I was sending out applications the VA was sending out applications I also use AI Auto appliers because I was really curious about these uh new job application tools and overall you know I got some interviews however you know things were really up and down and ultimately things didn't really pan out so then I focus on just like cutting everything out and just focusing on applying for jobs myself I got some interviews and a few times actually got to final rounds and ultimately things did not work out so then I went on to the next round of my job hunt strategy which is to really just focus on networking and that's kind of been what I've been focused on the past month or so so here are the results of what I tried when it comes to getting interviews and ultimately a job there's a lot of different stats I have but basically when I apply for jobs I have around a 5% application to interview rate so basically if I apply to 100 jobs by myself I'll get five interviews the VA applied to around 1,300 jobs and the application at interview rate was0 45% if you see my eyes moving it's I'm looking at the computer screen for networking referrals back in the day before this crazy job marketing Tech I would always get an interview if I got referred this dropped down to 20% so if I got a refer referral basically 20% of the time I'll actually get an interview so that was interesting if a recruiter reaches out to me there's an 80% chance that I'm actually going to get an interview this is not surprising because often times when a recruiter reaches out they want to they want to set up a call so that's not really surprising and there's a 40% chance that when a outside recruiter so basically a recruiter that's just basically sourcing candidates for different company when they actually reach out to me there's a 40% chance I actually might get an interview so this is basically a third party recruiter obviously based on these stats it's very clear that the most Superior and effective application strategy for me should be focus on networking and referrals this is pretty obvious however I do want to focus on more of the horror stories I have never been in such a bad jaw Market in my life admittedly I'm only 35 but really this has been the most difficult job market and Technology I've ever been a part of in the past when I was looking for a job within a month or two I would get a job offer I may not take the job offer however I would get a job offer it's already been 10 and a half months and even though I've gotten two job offers they've fallen through and let me explain why the first job and the company honestly I just want to put them on blast because they suck basically I went through all the interview rounds pretty normal nothing like crazy and I felt like I was going to get an offer but then they completely ghosted me so I finish all the rounds I thought it went well I never got any feedback from them so around one to two months later they actually just send the stock rejection notice and I was just like why the hell will you send me this at this point in time you might as well just not contact me funny thing is after setting that rejection notice like two to three weeks later they reached back out to me the you know head of Technology reaches back out to me saying like hey you were our second option the other person didn't work out uh are you still open to a conversation and getting an offer so I'm like sure I'm happy to talk about it but I have some concerns so I end up having a call with you know the head of Technology then I have a call with a product team member and the product team member kind of works to assuage my fears and concerns and he's like hey if you really want to offer I'm more than happy to send you the offer I was like yeah I would love to see an offer and writing and what ends up happening is this person ghost me so this company basically ghosted me after I went through final rounds they reached back out to me saying they want to give me an offer they say they're going to give me an offer and they ghost me again the sad thing about all this actually is the person that I spoke to at the end the product team member the reason why I got this interview with this company in the first place is because I nwork with this product person so I actually thought him and I were at least cool or at least we would have common courtesy with each other but for him to also basically ghost me that wasn't a good feeling it really made me feel like they just didn't really value my efforts or they just didn't care and ultimately is that a company I would want to work for absolutely not but it's still Stu the second Horror Story is it's not so much a Horror Story actually it was a job offer I was about to get I went through all the interview rounds it went pretty smoothly the team liked me the hiring manager really wanted to get me an offer as soon as possible because you knew I was interviewing with other companies and was in final rounds and I get this text message from him he's like hey do you have time to chat and this was a Friday right because I was so confident I was going to get a job offer I was like no I'm good you know like uh you know I'm busy I'm hiking right now like let's chat on Monday obviously I'm saying this very casually I was obviously professional but on Monday when I talk to him he tells me that the executives decided to put the role on hold so I went from getting an offer or potentially getting an offer to basically hey this role no longer exists uh so that was not a good feeling because I was around 5 months to the job hunt so I always felt like you know I would get a job within six months the other Horror Story is I went through final rounds with another company they were very responsive initially but after going through final rounds and saying that that they would get back to me they basically ghosted me so I never heard back from them I did reach out to them and they said like hey we'll get back to you but then ultimately I never heard back so overall it's just been a really really bad experience it's been very very demoralizing there had been multiple times I thought I was going to get an offer and then something happens another case is me going through final rounds with Tik Tok overall the communication with Tik Tok was really fast and smooth it seems like they really wanted to get me through the interview rounds and I felt like I was moving towards the offer however ultimately after the final round they said like hey you know actually I would want you to meet the stakeholder so the stakeholder is based in China they try to set up a call there's a little bit of scheduling difficulties which is understandable but as we try to reschedule like the communication with the HR person became less and less and less and less you know that feeling when you just feel like you're being ghosted slowly or being like let off the hook very slowly it was basically like that these are just a few stories of my experience okay so how am I really feeling number one I have really started to doubt my capability as a product manager and I know this is very very common by the way I'm not saying like oh no one's ever experienced this of course you know everyone experiences this have you've been on the job for 10 and a half months and you don't have an offer any normal sane person is going to doubt their capability so I know it's not necessarily me it's also just primarily the market giving me this feedback making me feel this way but do I still feel like I'm not that good of a product manager the answer is yes the second emotional thing I've been feeling a lot or not a lot but here and there is really just jealousy of those with jobs because they don't really understand how nightmarish the tech job market is I'm also just jealous of how number one they're making money but number two how they're able to maintain or Advance their career so I feel like I'm being left behind and you know it's not fair for me to kind of put that pressure on myself but you know I do feel that and I'm just being really real here the third thing that I feel is I wonder if I should just switch out of technology completely Tech does go through different Cycles there's booms and bust like there was like what the 2008 crisis there was also the 2011.com bust Etc but you know this whole experience is making me think like dude I just don't want to deal with this industry like it's just exhausting so I'm also just kind of considering maybe not seriously but I have thought about switching out of Technology the positive thing that's come out of this is making me really AIT what do I want in a career what do I fulfilling is a Tech Career actually going to be fulfilling me is a product career and Technology going to be fulfilling for me so a lot of questions have been scolling in my head but you know I got to just say like just to conclude everything 10 and a half months thousands of job applications later trying everything from vas AI Auto appliers cold applications networking you know having recruiters reach out to me I'm really at a point where emotionally I am done I don't mean with life but just like with job hunting and I just want to film this video because if you're going through it if you've been hunting for a while if you feel like you can't get a job to save your life I am right there with you by the way I just do want to give a shout out if you know of anyone that's hiring for a senior product manager or a product manager that has a background on BB SAS marketing technology e-commerce and affiliate and content management please send that my way I am at a point where I'm just throwing this out to the world because you never know what might happen

Channel: Life with Jeremy

Views: 133,625

Keywords: job hunting 2024, Unemployed, Can't find a job, jobless, how to find a job, software engineering, product management, job market, career, unemployment, why can nobody find a job, job shortage, ghost jobs, are companies hiring, why finding a job is so hard, most in demand jobs, highest paid jobs, tech jobs, the great resignation, job search strategies, career advice, hard to find a job, interviewing rejection, applicant tracking system, how to get a job, job search tips

Id: ptqFdNiaysg

Length: 11min 11sec (671 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 17 2024