Job Search Journal | #1 The Telco Giant

Looking for work in 2020 was a bit like looking for love in adolescence. Terrifying, frustrating, and ultimately more dependent on luck than just about anything. My first big job opportunity in 2020 was with one of the world’s biggest Telco's. The office was based in Europe, and the role was in commercial strategy – something I was eager to pursue. To make it to the interview stage with a company like this in the middle of 2020, in a Europe that had come to a grinding halt, took some creativity on my part. And herein lies the first and most important theme in my series of unfortunate events.

Sweat your assets

By assets I mean your contacts. The professional landscape has become so competitive and risk averse that companies today simply will not take the chance on someone that isn’t either a perfect fit with the job description (and comes with an exemplary background) or has been referred through a contact. Both scenarios allow search agents and HR managers to mitigate their own risk of promoting a candidate who falls through. And in many cases, this is really all that matters to them.

It’s unlikely that you fall into the first category, which means that you’ll need to use your contacts. This is how you do it;

1.    Make a list of all of your warm contacts working at target companies

2.    Subscribe to the careers pages and job alerts of these companies

3.    When the right role comes up, reach out to these contacts and ask to be referred

By the time the Telco vacancy came up I had already applied online for dozens of roles that seemed perfectly aligned with my background and skill set. However, I hadn’t received a single response. If you’re skeptical of my use of ‘perfect' here, consider this. I applied for exactly the same role that I had recently departed from, at the very same company before undergoing my MBA. I didn’t even make it to an interview for the role. The message here is clear. You have an infinitesimal chance of landing your next job using online applications.

"You have an infinitesimal chance of landing your next job using online applications"

Fortunately, I had a kick-ass contact at this Telco who referred me to the hiring manager, and despite a complete lack of industry experience, I was called in for an interview. Think about that for a moment. Dozens of roles that I would be perfect for, which I hadn’t even heard back about. And then a role in a sector that I had no business applying for, which I cruised into consideration for – simply because I was referred by a friend.

It wasn’t easy from that point, though. From the beginning I was told by HR that I was the wildcard. Which only made me more determined to prove them wrong. I got through interview 1, 2 and 3 after becoming an overnight specialist in industry know how. And herein lies another lesson.

There’s no excuse for being underprepared

It’s all out there to learn if you’re interviewing with a company from outside of your current orbit. Articles, financial statements and even colleagues to learn from. You have no reason not to become an expert in the field that you’re looking to join. I took a crash course in telecommunications from a few consultants in my MBA class, so I was a relative pro in a matter of weeks.

The final step in the process was a strategy deck that I was to present to the same team that I'd been interviewing with. Now, I’ve got a personal issue with this kind of process which favours candidates currently in the industry ahead of those coming from other categories, and is also brazenly exploitative of the IP that candidates end up handing over free of charge. These project briefs usually also arrive with unreasonable timelines which forces candidates to make huge sacrifices just to complete them in time. I had to miss an exam, but I’m sure many have made greater sacrifices in the pursuit of a position.

Two sleepless nights later I delivered what I considered to be a fresh & innovative strategy. The session went well, the team was glowing, and I was fairly sure that I’d landed the job after 3 months of interviews and assessments.

Then the lead went cold. After months of back and forth, background checks and psychometrics, I was officially ghosted. Finally, I reached out to the hiring manager directly. I texted him asking, “anything else you need from me?”

He called me the next day. He told me that they were sorry, that things had been crazy at the office. He then told me that I’d passed all of the tests and had surprised everyone to come from rank outsider to the race favourite. However, in the final stages of the process they’d decided to change the scope of the role entirely and had chosen someone from within the organisation.

I chose to lead my story series with this tale not because it’s unique, but because it isn’t. The truth is that if you’re undergoing a job search right now you’ve either been through something like this or you’re about to. And you need to keep your chin up. The final lesson is this.

Sometimes it’s out of your hands

This is not a perfect science. You can’t predict the way that organisations are going to behave, because you don’t know what is going on behind closed doors. If things don’t work out in your application, you need to identify lessons and move on – knowing that there’s a hiring manager out there who does know what they want. And that it’s you that they’re waiting for.