Okay, I need help (Job search related)

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve been on the job market pretty much for the past six months now and I’m getting a little tired of the nothing that I’m getting in return. I’ve gotten some decent job interviews that I think went well, but apparently the other side of the desk didn’t think so highly as I’m still stuck this side of hell in what feels like specialized, eternal damnation (cite).

For a while, it seemed like I was getting a lot of calls and interest based on my resume and cover letter, but I recently sent out 16 resumes and got exactly one “no thank you” as a result.

My high point on my search has been interviewing with two separate people (one of which was a former supervisor of mine) for a job that I’m completely qualified for, but was shot down anyway. I think they said they had over 25 people going for that job, so someone out there must have trumped me quite nicely. Or the other interview that went so well that I ended up talking with them for hours, but someone else was better than me there, too. At least I had a chance with these.

The low point was having to tell my current boss I had a doctor’s appointment so I could leave early and drive 35 miles to my north to a job interview for which the interviewer forgot to show up. Nothing like standing there like an idiot after hours in an office only to find out that your interviewer must have gone home (he later called and admitted that he just forgot about it). Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy I’m not unemployed, but there have been several moments where I was within inches of quitting without another job lined up and taking my chances with the world.

So I need help. Any help I can get is greatly appreciated, including resume critique, cover letter critique, general advice, anything. I’m beginning to feel that I truly am cursed right now because of the 150 things that could go right both in my personal and professional life in the last year, 149 didn’t. As everyone knows, Dopers are the smartest people on the planet, so if your advice doesn’t work, practically nothing will.

If you could please post your email in this thread or mention that it’s in your profile (or hell, email me at interface2x at hotmail), I’ll email over my stuff. And since I’m the one asking for free help, I’ll work to your schedule.

Thanks for your time.

2

A couple things come to mind:

Are you in a really competitive job market? Sometimes there’s just a lot more qualified people than you and it takes a hell of a long time.

Are you getting a chance to sell your strengths in the interviews? If there’s something you think makes you good for the job, make sure you work it in. The interviewers won’t always ask you. I get stuck interviewing people because, well, I’m there. Really. Some of us doing interviews really aren’t good at it. So don’t wait to be asked before you bring up why you’d be great in the position.

Are you sending follow up/thank you emails? I know there’s some debate about whether or not they’re effective. From my standpoint, they are. I was interviewing interns a while back and had it narrowed down to two. One (who we were leaning towards) sent a cursory “thanks for your time/I’m really interested/call me to let me know about the job” email. The other (who was about to get a rejection) sent an email with all the standard “thanks for the opportunity/I’m interested” stuff and then went into a nice list of how she planned to take on some of the challenges we’d discussed in the interview. She got the offer.

What do you say is your reason for looking for another job? Be careful that you’re not indicating something is bad in your old place that could be just as bad in the new place. I recently interviewed two candidates for a position. Both seemed like they could do the job really well and the department has an immediate (and pretty severe) need to bring someone in. However, I found out today that neither is getting an offer. Based on their stated reasons for looking, the hiring manager worried that they’d be bored in the position and wouldn’t stick around. They both said they were looking to move beyond the process oriented work they were doing and start making more strategic decisions. The job they were interviewing for is probably 80% process and 20% strategic decsions. That’s something they could have learned had they listend to what the interviewers were saying.

When you’re asked about your strengths, do you give examples to support them? I’ve asked people several times whether they feel they’re a more creative or analytical type. There’s really no right answer. Either would be good for the positions they’re looking for. I ask because I’d like to see how they respond to a tough question like that (no one wants to imply that they’re less than stellar in either area) and how they back up their answer.

Finally, you seem to really hate your current boss. That’s fair and maybe he deserves the hatred. However, make sure that no negativity comes through in your interviews. It may be fully justified, but no one wants someone coming in who seems to have a negative attitude. Even if you’re not bashing your current boss or employer, make sure that you’re not letting your dislike come through. I asked one candidate about an example of leadership and he started out with “management made a really stupid decision to do XYZ and here’s how I fixed it.” Not a good move. It would have been better to say there was a situation that was causing these problems and here’s how he fixed it without saying anything about management making a stupid decision. It’s sometimes hard to see for yourself how that negativity comes through, so go through your examples and explanation with an eye towards “does this make me seem like an energetic, positive person or a complainer?”

3

Great advice above!

I will add that it is always good to focus on selling yourself first, then asking questions about salary, vacation, etc. after you have an offer.

Coming up with examples is a great idea. This will help if someone uses “behavioral interviewing.” It is also a great way to strengthen your response to even hypothetical questions, like “how would you handle conflicting deadlines” rather than answering “I would…” you can answer “Well, recently we had conflicting deadlines for 2 projects and I … that worked well so I’d take a similar approach in the future.”

Watch yourself in the mirror for any fidgeting you might do that people would find distracting. Dress like you would if you got the job and had an important meeting or presentation in that role. In other words, like you would on a good day if you worked there.

Never do anything rude to an interviewer - be late, set your stuff on his desk, bring a drink, answer your cell phone… (yeah, sux about the guy who was rude to you.)

Use a chronological, not functional resume. Quantify anything you can on your resume (or in the interview, for that matter). Not “sold advertising” but “Sold $80-100K in advertising per month.” Focus on the results you got, not the process you went through. “Reduced defects by 3%” not “led quality circle to reduce defects.”

Good luck!

4

Thanks for the advice!

I’ve done my best to sell myself in all of my interviews - always focusing on the big positives (i.e. personally performing the analyses that led to the signing of five new clients, presenting to both potential and current clients, etc.), when asked to provide a weakness, I provide a REAL weakness (none of that “I’m a bit of a perfectionist!” crap) that I have worked and continue to work on overcoming, and provide examples on how I’m overcoming it. I also always send a nice thank you note afterward. I also try to ask another question (always task-related) about the position and reiterate my interest. This is usually through email - would I be better served to send a real letter, as well?

Generally, when they ask why I’m looking to move on, I explain that my current job is my first job out of college. I’ve been there for over five years and I feel that I’d like to learn new facets of the industry, grow in my knowledge and position, and see the industry from a different perspective. I never never NEVER say anything negative about my company and never hint that I feel I’m getting screwed in any way. Instead, I focus on how grateful I am for the vast amount of experience that I’ve gotten through this job, which I am. While I’m extremely angry at how I’ve been treated in the last year, I still went into this company with zero knowledge of marketing and have excelled at every opportunity.

I’m also always 10-15 minutes early for every interview, dressed in a business suit, and carrying copies of my resume and references printed on good quality paper with me. By nature, I’m extremely polite and I’m always very conscious of any fidgeting or nervous behavior that I may be exhibiting.

Honestly, I don’t know what else I could do with the interviewing process. Is my answer for why I want to leave my company adequate? I think that the market here is definitely competitive at the moment, so I understand that. I’m just extremely frustrated that, while I have scores of people both at my company and outside who are willing to sing my praises and back me however they can, I’m still getting screwed where I am and not even given a chance elsewhere.

5

ask to be the last person interviewed.

i have zero scientific proof to back up this suggestion, but having hired many people over the years, i can tell you from a personal experience perspective that the last person interviewed is the one who is freshest in your mind when making a decision. this is of course assuming that the person was a good fit for the position.

6

I disagree with this advice. If you make the right impression, it will be lasting, no matter what order you’re interviewed in. Also, there is always the chance that someone coming in before you could be so impressive that they’re offered the position on the spot (it’s happened to me) and they cancel any other scheduled interviews. Or, it could happen to you, and you get the offer and they cancel everyone else!

It sounds to me like you’re doing everything right as far as the interviewing and follow-up process goes, but there might be a few things you could do to simply increase the odds in your favor. I was in the personnel services industry for many years, so I have my share of experience on both sides of the interview table, and so long as you’re qualified, professional, polite and “do all the right things” (follow-up letters, no spelling errors on your résumé, etc.), which you seem to be doing, it just becomes a numbers game. So here are my recommendations…

If you feel it’s safe to do so (meaning your boss wouldn’t discover it), and haven’t already, put your résumé online. Register with several job search sites, such as Monster, Careerbuilders, etc., and also get your own web space and put it up there, as well. When my husband moved here from Denmark and started looking for work, I had him do this and we were pleasantly surprised that people really did contact him from having found his résumé online. In fact, that’s precisely how he got recruited away by a headhunter, from his first job at Universal Studios to his current job at Paramount.

Also, don’t just answer ads, be proactive and send your résumé to companies you’d have an interest in working for, even if they say they aren’t hiring at the moment. Mostly, it will probably just get tossed out or stuck in a file and never seen again, but since it is a numbers game, you might also hit paydirt.

Do you have the kind of job where you can start your own business and do freelance work? I don’t suggest that you quit your current one to do so, but if that type of thing is possible, I recommend getting a business license and start looking for side projects that you can do on evenings and weekends. My husband did that and kept himself quite busy while he was looking for full-time work, met some great contacts, and still gets offers for small projects from time to time. You can meet (and impress!) all kinds of people that way, and quite possibly get hired on full-time by someone who brings you in on a small project initially. Or if they aren’t hiring, they may know someone who is or might be. Network, network, network!! That’s the most effective way to play the game.

Best of luck!

7

Quick pseudo update: the above portion of my OP is not as accurate as I would have thought. I did just hear from the recruiter there today and was told that the company decided not to hire for that position right now. However, I got the impression from her email that, had they hired for it, I had a hell of a chance of getting it. I was told that if the position comes back up or if any position in that department is available, she will contact me immediately.

It sucks that the position is currently inactive, but it’s nice to get some encouraging words from the other side of the table.

I’ve currently got my resume up on Careerbuilder.com, Monster.com, and hotjobs.com and have gotten a couple of bites, but they’re either the usual credit card companies and life insurance places or (which I prefer but is generally as useless) a company interested in skills I have none of. I got one recently that asked about my PEARL and Visual Basic coding skills … I would have liked to have said “They’re great!”, but I don’t even know what PEARL is and my Visual Basic coding is relegated to the occasional debugging of an Excel Macro.

I wish I could do freelance work, but my line of work is very dependent on resources (i.e. contact lists, databases, etc.) so I wouldn’t really be able to do anything on my own without a company’s resources at my disposal. Networking has worked thus far, though, I have to admit. I was offered one job in Southern California through networking in March, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that company wasn’t the right choice for me. Also, the situation mentioned above was the result of being name-dropped by an employee there that used to work with my company.

That is a good idea about sending unsolicited resumes, though, I’ll have to try that. There are several companies that I would like to work for, so I imagine it couldn’t hurt to take a few minutes to let them know that I’m interested. Thanks!