The great job experiment of 2018.

Yesterday I received an email from a company I applied for a job with on March 20, 2018. A job I never heard back about, though I think it’s safe to say that after 14 months I didn’t get it. The unsolicited email informed me of all the “cool stuff” that this particular company’s sales and marketing department are up to lately. It was generic at best, even defining what sales and marketing mean in case I hadn’t found out in the 13+ years since I graduated college.

I don’t think I could have hit unsubscribe faster if I tried. Candidate experience fail.

If we know each other IRL, you might be wondering why the heck I was applying for jobs in the first place. And I could launch in the myriad of reasons why but frankly, that would be both boring and mostly irrelevant to my forthcoming pseudo-rant. So here’s what you need to know: In early 2018, I hit pause on some of what I’d been doing and decided to see what the job market looked like for me. Spoiler alert: it was a giant waste of time.

Still, I decided to keep track of every job I applied to: company, position, application process, outcomes, etc. And of the 52 that I documented, I never heard back from 36. That’s 69 percent that never so much as rejected me. Not even a form email. Nothing. No wonder they think they can try and send me some bullshit outreach email over a year later. I am not buying it.

If you’re thinking, yeah, but you probably weren’t qualified! I’m sure that’s true in a few cases though looking at those 36 today, that would be the exception, not the rule. These were almost exclusively writing or content jobs. That’s like…what I do? And I’d like to think I have a decent understanding of the recruiting process. Maybe even more than your average job seeker.

So that leaves us with 16 jobs. Eleven did reject me. A few on the spot. Knockout questions, intelligent ATS, whatever. And just like that, we’re down to four. Amazing, right?

The first, I rejected after advancing to the second round. Sorry but I’m not answering 150 questions before even scheduling an interview. Two and three had me jump through rounds of phone screens, assessments and even spec work before cutting me loose. OUCH. I asked both of these why. One, “a premier destination for young women,” gave me the most bullshit feedback imaginable. I thought about telling the interviewer not to answer next time. Actually, maybe I did…The other didn’t respond to my request. Even after making me take a completely insane personality test to see if I would be compatible with the manager. Pretty sure I dodged that bullet.

Oh, the last job? I got hooked up with a decent gig working for someone I knew tangentially. Proving to me that, at least for now, in the battle of (hu)man vs. machine – the human still wins. Work those networks, talk to a recruiter or staffing agency - and don’t deep end on the internet, folks.

Image by @pperkins.