5 ms·

> So far, I got rejected from over twenty job opportunities. That's nothing. I've been continuously employed for over 20 years. I just got a job a few weeks

by maxk42 4y ago

> So far, I got rejected from over twenty job opportunities. That's nothing. I've been continuously employed for over 20 years. I just got a job a few weeks ago after two months of unemployment. I kept a record of every application and in the end there were more than 130 of them. I ended up with several offers and got a great job but I had far more than 20 rejections for every offer I received and I consider that a very good result for the outcome I had and wouldn't refer to it as "a slap in the face".

russellendicott 4y ago
Yeah, agree here. Even with a stream of continuous employment, nobody gets a job by submitting CV's to websites. You have to have a network. Best advice I would give to anyone taking a break from work is to stay in touch with your old coworkers-take them out to lunch occasionally, stop by the office and bring cookies, etc.
- aperson_hello 4y ago
  It's possible. I've done it twice. But it takes hundreds of applications for every "yes"
  - FunnyBadger 4y ago
    Absolutely true! Just like in programming, I'd rather write a hack program to replace that monotony. That hack program is networking. :-)
  - janeerie 4y ago
    Yes, I have gotten nearly every one of my jobs by applying through a website. If you're applying for roles that are a reasonable fit, you have a decent chance of getting a response.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- bradlys 4y ago
  > Yeah, agree here. Even with a stream of continuous employment, nobody gets a job by submitting CV's to websites. You have to have a network. I disagree. I've only gotten jobs through submitting CVs to websites. I've received over a dozen offers and had 6 jobs through this method. It does actually work. It gets better the better your resume gets. I've never used a referral to get a job offer even once.
status200 4y ago
Exactly... I was waiting for the happy ending and then I realized she has only been at the hunt for two weeks. Her spirit is great but you can tell that the ego needs to be worked on if she thought landing the perfect fit would happen so quickly after being out of the workforce for five years. I know people with glowing resumes that still take six months or more to get recruited into a role.
FunnyBadger 4y ago
In my other reply I mentioned I never lead job searches with resumes. It was exactly this kind of situation combined with how I actually got my job that led to this. In that situation, I'd sent out >100 resumes and got back 100 rejections. I still keep them all because I never wanted to forget the fundamental Epic Fail of looking for work that way. The thing that crystalized the lesson: 1. I ended up "networking" into a job interview - 15 minutes after I got an offer to start immediately 2. The company I ended up working for (Intel) sent a rejection letter also - to my original resume application - 6 weeks after I'd started working there!! I then got my next job use the same networking technique to get time in front of the hiring manager, and similarly I had a job within 15-30 minutes of interviewing. This contrasted with having spent time on resumes, postage (pre-Web) and actively corralling status from each company. Basically it's question of statistics: which will work more efficiently: 1. A random lottery-odds resume campaign where the resume has nearly no differentiating information to distinguish you from anyone else where the judge of that process doesn't have a STEM degree and is likely overworked and marginally paid above minimum wage 2. A 6-degrees of separation path (no more than 6 hops in a social network) via carefully selected people who likely have STEM training who each have an investment if they pass you through yet have far more knowledge about your qualification because they've talked to you as part of the network building. The math is pretty damn obvious and trivial. Lottery odds with a faceless bureaucracy or pretty good odds if you are half good with a small set of people who can judge your worth on your merits. I've used the latter for 40 years and its never failed. Any failures of mismatched jobs were 100% on me (biotech is a weird duck compared to computers or semiconductors).
susan100 4y ago
How many interviews did you have? I've been taking a break from work for the past few months but will need to start looking again soon. A few years ago a friend of mine did over 100 *interviews* before finding a job. She presented a talk about her experience https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzz5AaCWMps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzz5AaCWMps and blogged about it as well https://medium.com/codebuddies/my-adventures-in-job-searching-for-senior-engineer-roles-7050e1c2b1a5 https://medium.com/codebuddies/my-adventures-in-job-searchin...

by maxk42 4y ago

russellendicott 4y ago

Yeah, agree here. Even with a stream of continuous employment, nobody gets a job by submitting CV's to websites. You have to have a network. Best advice I would give to anyone taking a break from work is to stay in touch with your old coworkers-take them out to lunch occasionally, stop by the office and bring cookies, etc.

aperson_hello 4y ago
It's possible. I've done it twice. But it takes hundreds of applications for every "yes"
- FunnyBadger 4y ago
  Absolutely true! Just like in programming, I'd rather write a hack program to replace that monotony. That hack program is networking. :-)
- janeerie 4y ago
  Yes, I have gotten nearly every one of my jobs by applying through a website. If you're applying for roles that are a reasonable fit, you have a decent chance of getting a response.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bradlys 4y ago
> Yeah, agree here. Even with a stream of continuous employment, nobody gets a job by submitting CV's to websites. You have to have a network. I disagree. I've only gotten jobs through submitting CVs to websites. I've received over a dozen offers and had 6 jobs through this method. It does actually work. It gets better the better your resume gets. I've never used a referral to get a job offer even once.

status200 4y ago

Exactly... I was waiting for the happy ending and then I realized she has only been at the hunt for two weeks. Her spirit is great but you can tell that the ego needs to be worked on if she thought landing the perfect fit would happen so quickly after being out of the workforce for five years. I know people with glowing resumes that still take six months or more to get recruited into a role.

FunnyBadger 4y ago

In my other reply I mentioned I never lead job searches with resumes. It was exactly this kind of situation combined with how I actually got my job that led to this. In that situation, I'd sent out >100 resumes and got back 100 rejections. I still keep them all because I never wanted to forget the fundamental Epic Fail of looking for work that way. The thing that crystalized the lesson: 1. I ended up "networking" into a job interview - 15 minutes after I got an offer to start immediately 2. The company I ended up working for (Intel) sent a rejection letter also - to my original resume application - 6 weeks after I'd started working there!! I then got my next job use the same networking technique to get time in front of the hiring manager, and similarly I had a job within 15-30 minutes of interviewing. This contrasted with having spent time on resumes, postage (pre-Web) and actively corralling status from each company. Basically it's question of statistics: which will work more efficiently: 1. A random lottery-odds resume campaign where the resume has nearly no differentiating information to distinguish you from anyone else where the judge of that process doesn't have a STEM degree and is likely overworked and marginally paid above minimum wage 2. A 6-degrees of separation path (no more than 6 hops in a social network) via carefully selected people who likely have STEM training who each have an investment if they pass you through yet have far more knowledge about your qualification because they've talked to you as part of the network building. The math is pretty damn obvious and trivial. Lottery odds with a faceless bureaucracy or pretty good odds if you are half good with a small set of people who can judge your worth on your merits. I've used the latter for 40 years and its never failed. Any failures of mismatched jobs were 100% on me (biotech is a weird duck compared to computers or semiconductors).

susan100 4y ago

How many interviews did you have? I've been taking a break from work for the past few months but will need to start looking again soon. A few years ago a friend of mine did over 100 *interviews* before finding a job. She presented a talk about her experience https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzz5AaCWMps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzz5AaCWMps and blogged about it as well https://medium.com/codebuddies/my-adventures-in-job-searching-for-senior-engineer-roles-7050e1c2b1a5 https://medium.com/codebuddies/my-adventures-in-job-searchin...