How interviewing and dating are surprisingly similar
“He just wasn’t quite what I’m looking for. And that other guy? He was great… but I’m still interested in seeing if next week brings a better fit.”
Wait, are we talking about dating or… hiring? How about both? Whether you’re dating or job interviewing, your goal is to put your best foot forward to impress the other party. If you’re one of the lucky ones out there who have found your soulmate and a rewarding, challenging job — we’re thrilled for you. But many more of you are deep in the jungle of your searches, right now. Some of you are in the market not just for a job, but also for a partner. And some, like The Cut’s Allie Volpe, have shared how to deal with both.
You attend interviews by day, and date by night. You’ve “told them about yourself” so many times that your pitch plays on repeat, like sleep music. And as you lay in bed listening to another replay of “I’m deeply passionate about building products that make the world a better place”, you wonder: will they call?
Layoff-Aid connects downsized technologists with the many SF Bay Area companies on the lookout for qualified candidates. And we’ve found that the parties involved in interviewing, like in dating, face similar challenges:
Unrealistic expectations
The bad news? Job seekers, talent acquisition pros, and folks in the dating scene all have unrealistic expectations. The good news? All of us of have unrealistic expectations, so if we are mindful of that, we can uncover diamonds in the rough. This doesn’t mean selling ourselves short in the search for a partner or our next career move. It just means taking a more accurate stock of where we are, what’s out there, and how we can find what we really want, rather than what we think we may want.
If you were a Senior Software Engineer in your previous role, you could search for similar positions rather than trying to make multiple career leaps forward during this time of transition. Likewise, if you recruit for a barely-funded startup, you might want to focus on your growth potential or opportunity for impact rather than promoting perks like unlimited soda when wooing highly-compensated talent. That doesn’t mean that you can’t hire great people from the best companies, but you may want to broaden your candidate pool and be more strategic about your recruitment.
Overwhelmed by an abundance of choices
There are many bagels for your coffee, and many job postings on the web. The Paradox of Choice in the worlds of dating and jobs is truly overwhelming. And this can work against job seekers and recruiters, just as it works against singles looking for a partner, since it leaves all parties wondering what better opportunities might be out there. Mitigate this by sharpening your focus. In dating you might say to yourself that you will only meet folks who plan to stay in the Bay Area, because that’s where you want to build your life. As a candidate, ask yourself what niche are you looking for? With what stage startup will you feel most comfortable? What skills are you interested in honing? As a recruiter, consider what strengths in a candidate are most important, and focus on those, rather than nixing great candidates who happen to have the odd weakness. As Ben Horowitz might say, hire for strength rather than for lack of weakness. Most importantly for candidates, recruiters, and daters: go with your gut, and when you see the skills you need — consider moving forward, rather than overanalyzing.
You always want what you can’t have
It’s meeting the man of my dreams, and then meeting his beautiful wife.
Instead of moving on, we mull over why the stars were not aligned. One position at a job seekers’ dream company becomes the gold standard to which all other options are compared. Recruiters get excited about candidates they can’t have. Since we’ve already established how many candidates and companies are out there, why not focus on identifying the right fit rather than look for some concept of perfection that does not exist? Easier said than done, we know. Layoff-Aid for Hiring sorts through that pool and delivers targeted, qualified candidates directly to SF startups looking for a competitive edge when recruiting.
Finding the right mate, like the perfect job, is hard. Remember that dating, like interviewing, is good practice if nothing else. The time you spend meeting badly-fitting potential partners, like the time you spend at job interviews that lead nowhere, is not time wasted. Give us some claps if you agree!
