Encouragement For The “Depressed As Sh*t From Job Hunting” (+ tips for getting hired)

There are three things in life that possess the power to kill you — or at least permanently cripple your self-worth: job hunting, swimsuit shopping, and trying to become a writer.

What all three of these have in common is the collision of gross, drudge-up-your-childhood-scars-level vulnerability and guaranteed failure for the first 2340927532 attempts.

As someone who has helped lead an agency from 5 people to 170 in 4 years, and personally hired over 25 people in the past year — I’ve learned some veeeeeeeery interesting things about job hunting from the inside that I feel obligated to share with the planet. Call this public service or just helping slay the ugly depression dragon that feeds us evil lies while we try desperately to get an interview.

Ok here goes:

1. The reason you haven’t heard back after submitting your application 3 times in 2 months is not because you’re a worthless person. It’s 99% because HR is understaffed and the hiring manager is doing their own job and the job you’re applying for, which means they have less than zero time to find you. And sure, we look like royalty observing peasants from the high towers but we’re just as desperate as you.
2. The reason your dream job scheduled an interview and then cancelled on you the night before wasn’t because they found someone else and didn’t have the balls to tell you — it’s because 2 people on their team got sick, their boss left for vacation, and they found out they had to fly to Atlanta the next day and asdjfweruiwpeasdflaksdf just f*ck it for this week.
3. The reason why you couldn’t tell if the interview went well or not was because that was the other person’s first time doing an interview and they were more terrified than you were. The only thing more traumatizing than having someone else hold your future in their hands is HOLDING SOMEONE ELSE’S FUTURE IN YOUR HANDS.
4. The reason why you followed up, got an answer, replied, and then didn’t hear anything back was because hiring someone is like choosing your next long-term boyfriend after one or two dates and that shit is crippling. One can feel so guilty for not having a direct yes or no answer yet that we just have to wait in excruciating silence until we know what the right next move is. And by “move” I mean set of questions that we can ask to make it less likely that you’re a psychopath or just here for the monayyy.
5. Believe them when they say the position just closed, but to stick around because more jobs will open up any day. This is code for “I actually have a different job for you to do and want to hire you, but we’re trying to be fiscally responsible and have guaranteed revenue against your headcount before putting you in a possibly-laid-off-in-3-months situation.”

And now some tips:

1. For the love of God please send a meaningful, personal email to say anything: how much you love the company, why you’d love to work there, what interested you about the job posting, etc. It’s really hard to find people who care, and we all want to work with those people — so do a little bit more than just uploading a resume.
2. For the love of God please do not add every single person who works in the company on LinkedIn. They will all talk about it over lunch.
3. Microsoft Word is not a skill. Unless you also want to include successfully removing hair with a lint roller as a skill, in which case please draft a second resume for me to examine with my cat.
4. Ask questions. Going into an interview, we know everything about you that you put on a piece of paper (or 5). You know absolutely nothing! This could be a terrible job for you and you have no way of knowing unless you ask us really great questions.
5. Ignore the “must have degree in ______.” Those things are fake for most companies and agencies, and were thrown on there by someone other than the hiring manager — who is the person who will decide if you’re qualified or not.
6. If you have to make a decision by X date in order to pay your rent or accept another offer, tell us! We’re nice people. I want everyone’s rent to get paid.
7. Follow up. Even if you emailed twice already, you aren’t being annoying. Well, you might annoy some people — but for most others you’ll be the, “Hey this person is really into it & I can trust them to take a shit ton of iniatitive which we really need for this job — let’s revisit this person as a possibility!”

Alright — that’s enough for a Friday. If you have more questions about the hiring process from the inside, or just want to commiserate on how painful this is, leave a comment, yo.

Stay strong out there. The world needs your bright shiny magic and if you can’t sum it up in a resume SUM IT UP SOME OTHER WAY AND BE BOLD. ❤

ps. we’re hiring. come work with me.

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