4 questions you should ask yourself if you’re not getting interviews
In 2015, I was dying inside, friend.
When we first moved back to San Francisco, I worked as an office coordinator and I was so happy to get that job because I had wanted to get into tech after working at Whole Foods Market for five years.
All I wanted was a magic wand to get me into recruiting.
Office management was not a good match for me: stocking the kitchen with soda (!), fixing the dishwasher, recording weekly all-company meetings, and setting up new employee laptops.
My strengths lend themselves to relationship development. Definitely not attention to detail, which all of those activities required.
I should just be grateful to have a job.
(Have you heard yourself, or someone else, say that to you? ← a lesson for another time)
I had been networking like crazy to get that office coordinator job just a few months earlier.
I thought, “what will people think if I leave this job so soon after starting?”
(what will people think? ← Another common & annoying thought…).
After months of being frustrated and lacking any challenge at work, and not getting any responses from my applications I was starting to lose hope (and sleep!).
Maybe it appeared suspicious that I wanted to leave after only eight months?
Maybe it was my lack of clear tech recruiting experience?
Maybe it was just bad timing?
Because of all of these factors I couldn’t control, I knew I had to get creative… so I got the idea to ask one of my co-workers who worked in recruiting to start sending me her LinkedIn messages from recruiters trying to hire her.
She was not looking for a new job, but she was getting messages from recruiters.
So I asked her to say, “I'm not looking, but my friend Nic is amazing,” and then she’d connect me with them.
As you can imagine… This worked!
(Otherwise, why would I be telling you this story?)
I pivoted into recruiting and got the job from her message, even after showing up 45-minutes late to my interviews. (← remember that attention to detail thing?!!!!).
“What does this amazing result have to do with me,” you ask?
I’m guessing if you’re reading this, you’re trying to figure out why you’re not getting any interviews.
Maybe you’re sending out tons of resumes. Like over 100.
Or your referrals aren’t panning out.
Perhaps you’re networking your booty off and nothing’s happening.
Maybe you believe it’s because you lack the right education or because of your career gap, etc., etc.
And it’s starting to feel extremely frustrating and keeps you up at night because you don’t have health insurance and you want to start a family soon or just need to pay your damn rent.
And you need a job like yesterday!!!
Well, I’m gonna let you in on a little secret 🤫 that we all forget when we’re in the weeds about any new goal we want to accomplish.
You need to start leveraging the right things and STOP doing the things that don’t matter (like sending 1,000 resumes to all of the job postings you see that might give you a decent salary).
Here are a few questions to get you thinking about what you can leverage in your job search:
Are you just “checking a box” by sending resumes out and crossing your fingers you get an interview?
Are you applying to jobs you don’t actually want?
Do you avoid speaking about your expertise with your network and just talk to them out of desperation?
Are you feeling overwhelmed and exhausted by all of the moving parts of a job search and not taking time to relax?
If you answered yes to most of the above questions you might need a new strategy.
Of course, there are times when shooting off resumes feels like a really great use of our time.
And sometimes our referrals set us up with another success story in the future.
But making sure that you’re using all of your tools, not just sending resumes, is how you’re going to get through this job search marathon.
If you want to stop wasting time and start leveraging your strengths in your job search, let’s chat. Click here to book a call.
To your inevitable success!
Love,
—Nic
PS. One of my clients revealed to me that she’s started taking just five minutes in the morning and evening to herself. (I say revealed because her previous “homework” was to just go to bed at a reasonable time. Instead of feeling bad about not doing what we talked about, she chose something that works for her!)
She uses this time to stretch, read, meditate or just drink her cup of coffee without interruption.
She is finding that she is so much calmer and less likely to snap on her children and husband. She looks forward to it every day. In the beginning she felt it was “selfish,” and now she’s grateful for the time to fill her cup first thing in the morning and then help out with the rest of the house.
What’s something bringing you calm during this intense, bizarre time?
