Hi Zee. Just curious, did applying for your last job really suck?
I was looking for a full-time job before starting MatterBetter and it was a pretty demoralizing process.
Dear Zee. So, serious question. How brutal was applying for your last job?
I’m old enough to remember faxing resumes or ‘pounding the pavement’ as my mom would call it and going to door-to-door with my carefully printed resume, that I would hand to a human. I’ve been at this whole job thing for awhile.
Let me set the stage, I’d just been laid off. I hadn’t formally applied for a full-time role in almost a decade. Most of my work had come through relationships, referrals, contracts and people knowing how I worked. So when I stepped back into modern hiring, I expected it to be different. What I didn’t expect was a complete crisis in how humans hire other humans. Somewhere along the way, recruitment stopped feeling like networking and relationship-building and started feeling like a weird automated obstacle course.
Here’s the modern process as I experienced it. Let me know if you relate.
A company uses AI to write a job description.
The applicant uses AI to optimize their resume and cover letter.
The company then uses AI to scan the AI-generated application.
Then the applicant receives an AI automated rejection letter (yah that’s right, you just got dumped by a robot)
This is supposed to be a meaningful human interaction!?! (Where’s that eye-roll emoji when I need it?)
At the end of this ‘application process’ nobody knows anything about anyone. We’ve optimized the process so aggressively (from both sides) that we’ve started removing humans entirely. I don’t know about you, but after dozens of applications and many (almost immediate) rejection letters, I felt my self-worth slowly start to drain from my body.
Apparently I’m not alone. Recent Canadian hiring data suggests most applicants only hear back from 2-3% of the jobs they apply to. Hundreds of resumes just disappear into complete silence and applicants feel genuinely purposeless.
I did get “lucky enough” to land an interview during my journey. But that was weird too! After a first round interview, this company sent me a “short assessment” that took nearly two full days to complete. I had to respond to different scenarios which ultimately included analysis, strategic recommendations and essentially a whole bunch of real, unpaid work. And then, I went through another 2.5 hour interview to discuss and present the work I prepared. While parts of the process were genuinely interesting, it highlighted how blurry the line could be between evaluating candidates and extracting unpaid labour.
I recently heard from someone that a job they were in the running for had 8 (yes EIGHT) rounds of interviews included in the screening process. And there was a project they had to complete. All unpaid! Can you believe that?
If you’re wondering, I did get offered the role and opted to decline. I figured if just the interview phase was that disrespectful of my time and value, I couldn’t imagine what working there would be like. See Zee, your generation has already taught this old gal a few things about boundaries.
In reflection, I don’t blame anyone for this messy, heartless, disgusting, borderline exploitive hiring process we’ve found ourselves in. I think companies are overwhelmed and trying to assess talent in different ways. And applicants forced to apply to huge volumes of opportunities need to leverage efficiencies via tech. But there has to be a better way, right?
I think everyone is frustrated and I hear it from all sides (candidates, employers, recruiters). For some reason though, we all keep participating in this strange performance where human beings barely interact until the very end of the process. For all our advances in technology and emphasis on workplace culture, applying for a job somehow feels less human than ever.
I think the messed up state of this critical entry point is saying something pretty significant about the state of modern work.
What do you think Zee?