You got laid off. Or you quit the job you really hated. That’s a fact and nothing else matters. The question is “What are you going to do now?” You know the job ads and recruitment campaigns telling you that joining a Fortune 500 company is easier than breathing. These campaigns have a very simple message. “If you at least roughly fit the desired profile, soon enough, you will be enjoying your shiny new cubicle and a salary three times higher than your previous one.” Given this representation of reality, how hard can job hunting be?

It’s the insecurity, stupid!

Starting from a scratch and finding a new job  is never easy and the road to the new employment is filled with perils. The leading negative factor that contributes to professional failure is insecurity often followed by despair. Even though it doesn’t seem so, people get desperate in the process of searching for new employment. In order to find out why, let’s look at the process of job hunting from two perspectives.

Employers’ perspective

Companies create job ads because they need to solve a problem and do it fast. If they don’t, their human capital would shrink and the profits would suffer. In order to make a good decision, they write the ads in general and sometimes even vague language. That gives them a large pool of people who think “I can do this job!” to choose from. The more of the applicants, the higher the chances for picking the right match. General language of the job description is a tool to lure in more people who might possess the right potential.

Job hunters’ perspective

The job hunters often ignore that the employer already has an exact idea of what kind of skills, abilities and mindset are needed for the job and what track record the employee should have. Furthermore, a majority of the applicants get lured in by the relative vagueness of the job ad, don’t do their research and don’t network right. Therefore, the companies reject them because they aren’t a good enough match. In the end result, unemployment unnecessarily prolongs, which leads to feelings of insecurity.

This also has a negative impact on your financial situation. The income stream is drying up, you get nervous about the rejection rate and start overanalysing things, often isolated from everybody else. What if I’m not good enough? What if I screwed up at the interview? What if the HR person doesn’t like me? This doubt results into full-fledged insecurity followed by despair. Failure becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Quitting the rat race

Now that you can see both perspectives, it is apparent that you know what to do and what not to do.

• Do your research about the position and network properly.
• Call the HR person and ask him further about the position in question.
• Take any job you can get your hands on (data entry, freelance writing, call centre) in order to maintain some stream of income.
• Attend networking events and get out. Don’t isolate yourself!
• Don’t take failure personally.

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Recently, I have had the “honor” to be introduced to a certain Czech insurance company. Being in a “job hunt” mode, I applied for their trainee program in marketing. The series of unfortunate events followed this decision.

The online application of mine was rejected in a matter of moments. On the other hand, I was called in for an interview without any specification of what the interview is going to be about. The situation felt somehow fishy, but I decided to give the company a benefit of the doubt, and scheduled the interview.

Not in my wildest dreams had I imagined the utter lack of quality and attitude of the interview. As soon as I walked in to the manager’s office, I was told that I’m being screened for a field sales position. It was a classic bait and switch. At that point, my interest in the company was over, but for some reason I didn’t leave the room. That proved to be another mistake in the long run.

The interviewer had no training in screening the applicants, so she asked me about my age. This is an illegal question. What was she thinking?! Later on, she even managed to insult my education and profession. Well done!

The point of writing this post is twofold. Graduates and even experienced job hunters should always expect the unexpected and be prepared to deflect the unlawful questions. I will write a detailed post about it later this week.

At the same time, the companies should invest in training their staff to be capable of asking questions and being good interviewers. Otherwise, their reputation will go down the drain.

Image credit: fireflythegreat

Throughout my studies, I became affiliated with a student organization called Impact. As time went by, my responsibilities slightly shifted from taking care of PR to Human Resources management. Recently, I am dabbling in recruitment and interviewing process.

Our candidates will be screened by the first interview, and those who make it through will be issued a case study. So far, it looks like a classic interview process. The funniest part starts after the case studies. The candidate will get a stance on an issue and must persuade the audience to support his / her point of view.

Needless to say, that the recruiting team has been trying to come up with as wacky and politically incorrect topics as possible, so we can see how well the candidate argues.

So far we came up with this:

• All priests must be chemically sterilized before starting their duty in a parish.
• All overweight children should be sent to fat camps.
• The government must enforce the survival lottery.
• Only people in the nude will be admitted to public beaches.

What topics would you give to the candidates to argue for?