Over the weekend I talked to a friend of mine who has recently begun job hunting. It's a "bitch" he said. "Job hunting is tedious, time-consuming, 95% of the jobs I see aren't what I want and dealing with recruiters is frustrating."
So do you agree? Is job hunting that bad? Take the poll and lets see.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Poll: Does Job Hunting Suck?
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8 comments:
Job hunting is stressful and frustrating at the same time. The interview process these days is far too long. You may have to go through 3 - 6 interviews.
Dan Schawbel
Personal Branding Spokesman
www.personalbrandingblog.com
Having a college degree doesn't mean as much anymore. Employers are looking for such specific talents and experience, it makes job hunting bad on prospective emplyees and employers.
Alot depends on the context. If you already have a steady income and you're jobhunting by choice, it can be alot of fun as an opportunity to improve your life. However, if you were laid off or worse, fired, and it destabilizes your family life, it's hard to enjoy the change even if you hated your job.
Yes Job hunting does suck. At least it does in my point of view. I find that it is way more fun to build relationships and find opportunities than it is to try and sell yourself to an employer. You often end up spending an impressive amount of time committing yourself to an opening which might not be that good after all. But I guess it kinda depends on your profession...
I chose "I love job hunting" because when I look at it from the side of what excitement it can create for me, I do enjoy it. Aspects I like about it include:
* I get to meet new people
* I get to do research on places, products and companies that interest me
* I engage in forms of interviewing a company long before they interview me
Does this mean everything is glamourous about job hunting? Absolutely not! If any activity will show you man's inhumanity to man, it has to be job hunting. It definitely shows the Golden Rule, the one about doing unto others like you'd like done unto you is pretty much absent with so many employers being so unreciprocating.
Just because a candidate takes great interest and devotion doesn't mean they'll be met in kind by employers. In fact, if you see how many employers get their jobs, they are completely unaware of the idea of someone actually researching a company, its management team, its place in the market, etc. Because they got their jobs through the "who you know" school, they're dumbfounded with applicants who demonstrate actual job competence when trying to get in.
It is really sickening to see how the recruiting industry has turned employers against "active candidates."
Still, I love going out and looking for employers, it's just that nowadays, the same way they cry about sifting through so much trash in a pile of 1,000 eResumes, we're now experiencing that treatment of candidates is so poor that the few good employers who are actually a joy to interview with and work for are becoming the exception. That's okay! For those of us who are as self-motivated self-starter as they claim they want, we're more than happy to discard and reject thousands of unmotivated employers for the ideal ones that matter!
Rising above the McJob hunt, what else can I say -- I'm lovin' it!
I like meeting the prospective employers and hearing what they are up to. I learn alot about the management and the company. I find that I can get into a rythym after a few interviews and really pick up my game. Of course, it helps to have come off a successfull job. Interviewing and prospecting after getting fired or otherwise being in the dumps is not fun.
Job hunting would be a lot easier if online applications ever went anywhere. As time goes by, I'm convinced that the online application process is an almost complete waste. As far as I can tell, the best ways are (in order of effectiveness/preference):
1) have an "in," like an employee referral (the more senior the contact, the better)
2) using the campus career center, or alumni network, or using your alma mater
3) a good headhunter, one who cares (it may be better to hire one)
4) directly mailing a hard copy to the immediate manager
5) cold calling, or calling contacts, or HR, despite their protests to the contrary
6) the most useless ones seem to be websites like vault, the ladders, monster, etc - long shots at best
Otherwise, from what I can tell, the online applications that we spend so much time on, registering, editing, carefuly crafting cover letters and cv's, just disappear into a big black hole, where indifferent or unbelievably picky recruiters and HR people tend to blow them off completely.
I don't mind job hunting personally. I find the expectation and anticipation quite exciting.
I do, however, find recruitment agencies quite irritating and i also find modern recruitment processes too long (although given the way employee law works these days I can see why they need to be so picky).
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