Candidates: How to get a job

My ex-boss often organised "come to Jesus moments" - where everybody put their cards on the table, and said it how it was. Sometimes those meetings could be brutal - but as a way to clear the air - with some honest no-BS conversations - they were highly effective.

Deities other than Jesus are available of course (I'm an atheist, in case you're wondering), but the premise of those meetings was about getting stuff off your chest - and moving forward. And they worked. People stopped bitching, and started to come up with solutions to challenges. Resentment and bitterness gone, replaced with positive actions that changed things.

What's my point? This post is one of those moments. It's meant to cut through the crap candidates are hearing from so called "influencers" on LinkedIn, with their ridiculous claims of hiring the most unlikely (and unsuitable) candidates, that falsely give people hope (it's the hope that kills you) as opposed to providing any practical advice.

It's also meant to let you know why you really aren't getting the jobs you're applying for, so you can sort your own stuff out - rather than finding a reason to blame others.

I'll walk through some of the steps of the recruitment process that you may have not been successful at, and I'll try to give you some helpful, honest (possibly brutal) advice. Then I'll give you some more insight in to why you can't get a job, and how to future proof yourself.

This isn't meant as a fluffy piece. I'm not trying to give you a virtual hug here and tell you everything is going to be OK "if you only believe in yourself". If you're looking for someone to give you that false hope - without changing anything - then keep reading the shallow, completely fabricated, crap that far more popular people than I put out.

Here goes. If you're sensitive - look away now:-

STEP 1 - You can't find a job that's suitable for you to even apply for

Erm. Let's move on. That's down to you, nobody else. You need to reset your expectations, or re-skill. Simple as that. Cut your cloth accordingly.

STEP 2 - You're not getting past the application stage

There's a couple of reasons you might not be getting past the application stage.

One reason is the number of other applicants - i.e. you're applying for jobs that thousands of others also have the right skills for, so the odds are stacked against you [more on this later].

Low skill roles (yep, I said low skill) such as customer service, retail, logistics, assembly work, driving, manual labour, administration, and other entry level positions (I'm losing friends fast here) often receive hundreds of applications.

If you keep applying for jobs where there is an excess of candidates - all with similar experience to you - you're always going to be playing the numbers game. Unless you can find a way to stand out, the chances of you getting called for interview are probably the same as you winning a round of bingo - i.e. pot luck.

Standing out from a crowd isn't easy of course. You could achieve it through tenacity (be the person who follows up on their application), creativity (include something original in your application/CV/resume, rather than a cut & paste of every other application you've ever made), or networking (see if you know someone who already works there, and ask if they can put a good word in for you).

Another reason is your CV/resume/application/online profile isn't demonstrating that you have the right skills/experience for the job. Your CV may not demonstrate you have the right skills because either a) it's written badly (that's your fault, either buck up your ideas or get someone to help you) OR b) you don't have the skills/experience for the role, and probably shouldn't have applied for it in the first place.

I'm not going to labour the point on how to write a CV/resume/application/profile - there's hundreds of CV writers making a living out of that - what is important though, is point b) - not having the skills/experience for the role you've applied for.

For roles where there is a shortage of qualified talent, a hiring manager will probably look at candidates who meet 80% of their requirements - knowing they can up-skill most people in 6 months. If you think you're 80% there, applying for a role where there aren't going to be hundreds of other applicants might be worth a punt.

How can you find out whether you're going to be competing against a horde of other, better, more suitable candidates - before making the decision to apply? Ask someone, get in touch with the recruiter/HR, be proactive - a simple "I'd really like to apply for this role, but would need to learn more about x/y/z" will be worth the effort.

If they don't reply, there probably isn't a shortage of available talent. If they do reply, the recruiter/HR will (mostly) be honest - they'll either say "go for it" or try to manage your expectations accordingly.

A third reason is they've check you out and decided they don't like you. Yep, guess what - a decent recruiter (rightly or wrongly) will see what you're like online. If they (highly subjectively) decide you're a "bit of dick" - they just might not call you for interview. Especially if other candidates are a) equally skilled & experienced AND b) not dicks.

If (unlike me) you have an exceptionally rare and highly sought-after set of skills, you might get away with acting like the aforementioned appendage. If you don't, you won't.

As someone who can sometime be a bit of dick himself, I'm not sure I'm the best person to advise you on this - but perhaps listening to others could be a good starting point. If someone says "woh, are you sure you should be saying that" or people often call you out on things, these might be signals that you're acting like a bit of dick. Try not to be, it will help.

STEP 3 - You're getting to chat with a recruiter, but you're not getting an interview with the hiring manager

Telephone screening calls. Every candidate's favourite thing, never.

This is where the recruiter decides whether put you forward to the hiring manager (so the hiring manager can decide whether they want to interview you). Guess what? Many internal recruiters are handling 20-30 requisitions (open roles) at any one time. This means they're screening a lot of candidates.

Do they hope that the next candidate that picks up their call is an idiot, who doesn't have the right skills for the role they're hiring for? Do they want to screen you out? Are they looking to catch you out with a sneaky left field question?

NO. (No. No. No. No.). Don't get dragged in to a conspiracy theory. Recruiters aren't looking to screen you out for minor reasons, they'd love every candidate to be a good fit.

It is however the recruiter's job to check that you're right for the hiring manager's team - that you have the right skills & experience, and that (dare I say it) you're a fit for their business. If they ask you questions, it's to check their understanding of your skills & experience. They will probably dig in to things to see if what you've said on your CV stacks up.

The recruiter might not be an expert in your field, they may ask what you feel are odd questions. Patronising them - or just generally be an obnoxious git - isn't the way forward here. Get over yourself.

They're doing their job, so help them. Be friendly & professional and there's a much higher chance of them putting you forward. If those things are beyond you, it's going to be much harder - because trust me, they'll be others for whom those things aren't hard.

As per the previous step, unless you have a rare set of skills (Taken style) that very few other people have, you'll be coming up against other candidates. Assuming a level playing field - skills wise - the candidates that get on best with the recruiter are likely to be the ones going forward to the hiring manager.

STEP 4 - You're getting an interview with a hiring manager, but you're not getting an offer

Sometimes, that's just how things roll. You've probably evidenced you're an option for the role, at this point, and that you're not a complete dick - so missing out on that offer can be heart-breaking.

Ask yourself this, is it me or is it them? Perhaps it's both, perhaps it's neither. The feedback "there was a better candidate on the day" might be generic but guess what - it's often true. It doesn't mean you weren't good enough for the role, or that you performed badly, it's just that for whatever reason a candidate did that little bit better that you in the interview process.

On paper, they might not be as experienced as you. They might not have the level of qualifications you do. They might not even have the skills you claim to have. But, ultimately, people hire people who impress them and who they feel they can work with. Pieces of paper can't perform the tasks necessary of a role. Qualifications aren't going to be part of the hiring manager's team. A human being is.

Let's get something straight. 99.9% of hiring managers don't have the time to interview people they don't think there's a chance they'll offer the role to. Why would they waste their time? You were invited to interview because the hiring manager thought they might hire you. They didn't, because someone else they thought they might want to hire impressed them more on the day. Tough, but you did well to get this far.

The best way to deal with interview rejection? Get some feedback and move on gracefully. That hiring manager might not want to hire you (just now), but they - or one of their colleagues - might want to soon. Keep things friendly, and don't shut the door.

Yes, some hiring managers are terrible at interviewing. But they'll be terrible at interviewing everyone, not just you. It's not personal. Feel free to leave some feedback on Glassdoor or tell the recruiter about your experience - but burning bridges is only going to make you feel bitter, and isn't going to help in the long term.

Or it might be all your fault of course. You could have bombed. Take an honest look at yourself and ask "did I do everything I possibly could, without appearing needy?". If you didn't, then work out what you should do next time and practice. They'll be other interviews.

Want more? Old skills = no job. New skills = job

So, this is going to sound cruel - but you just might be unemployable, either now or sometime in the not too distant future. Unless you do something about it.

There's currently far more unskilled (I gave you my definition of these earlier) workers than there are unskilled jobs. Far more. On the flipside for "skilled" work, there is almost the reverse - in that there are far more jobs than there are workers.

With automation in areas such as logistics, driving, customer service, retail and others (including big chunks of recruitment) already here, and automation arriving thick and fast in other areas, even if you have skills that are in demand currently, they're not always going to be. What you class as a skill now, may become irrelevant in the future. A non-skill, if you like.

Get some new skills - whether you have any that are currently relevant or not - and keep adding to them. Skills are the new career currency, and getting skills that there is a shortage of will be gold. Letting yourself fall behind or staying in a role that is easy to automate, will be like committing career seppuku.

Finally, remember this

A recruiter & hiring manager's jobs are to hire the best person for the role they're looking to fill, in an as efficient and timely manner as possible. It's not to provide careers advice, feedback on your CV or a shoulder to cry on.

An organisation has a responsibility to be successful as possible - whether that's measured through profitability or share value for businesses, or via the delivery of public services in as efficient and cost-effective manner as possible for government departments. Or however charities measure themselves these days.

To do that, they must hire the people who are most suitable for the roles they're trying to fill, people with the skills for now and the short-term future. Their responsibility isn't to give you a job, because you need or want one.

I may seem like a cruel, heartless bastard - but I'm not. I do want you to have a job in the future, I do want you to be happy, I do want you to be financially comfortable - but offering other some trite (shite) words of motivational encouragement isn't going to get you there.

Neither is moaning about others, a situation, a company or what's happened in the past. The only way you're going to be successful is by taking control yourself.

Pull your finger out and get on with it.

Walker out. Tough love over.