Tips for Job Searching

Last updated 17-Jul-2023

I compiled behaviors that helped my job search that started in January of 2023. See the data tables at the bottom for rough quantitative measures of the described strategies.

List of exits (tied for best strategy): Compile a list of people that you think would help you find a job and companies where you’d like to work. Do this before you’re looking for work and always add to it and maintain it. Connect to the people on your list on LinkedIn and obtain their mobile phone number if possible. This list is where your job search starts. It’s one of your best methods for finding your next job. Select people and companies from the list and follow the using contacts process. Select companies from the list and follow the finding contacts process. Of the 26 interviews that I had, 12 of them came from my list of exits. 

Using contacts: Look up the people on LinkedIn. If you aren’t already connected on LinkedIn, then ask to connect. Find out where they work. Navigate to that company’s website. See if any jobs are a good fit for you. If you find one, apply, then contact your connection and catch up with them and give them the resume, cover letter, and job posting. Tell them that you’ve applied and that you’d like their help getting an interview.

How not to use contacts: Do not just call a friend and let them know that you’re looking for a job. They will likely react with great dismay as they feel compassion toward you. In their attempt to help, they are likely to ask what you’re looking for. You may believe that they should know already, but this is not a helpful perspective and is likely unjustified as well. Further, if you are prepared and actually manage to succinctly communicate what you’re looking for, by answering their question you will likely and counterintuitively further stress your friend and contact as they aren’t likely to know for what roles their company is currently hiring. This interaction is likely to make both of you feel terrible. It is much better to follow the using contacts process.

List of first degree contacts (tied for best strategy): In LinkedIn, open your list of contacts and go through them carefully and slowly. Give yourself ample breaks as reviewing personal relationships with former coworkers is difficult work and a positive mindset is necessary. Believe that everyone in your list of contacts wants to hear from you. This will be true for the vast majority of your contacts, and those that don’t will likely simply not respond. Negative interactions from anyone are very unlikely. Among people in your contacts list that you think would help you find employment at their company, go to their company’s website and search their careers page for a good fit. If you find one, apply, and then contact your connection as in using contacts. Of the 26 interviews that I had, 8 came from first-level connections on LinkedIn helping me find employment at their company.

Finding contacts (3rd best strategy): If you find a job on a public job board or anywhere that is a good fit for you, or if you just think you could contribute strongly at a particular company, try to find a contact at that company. One way of finding new companies is to browse the connections of your connections in LinkedIn. Navigate to that company’s LinkedIn page and select the People filter at the top of the page. Also, use the All Filters menu to select 1st and 2nd degree contacts. If you find a first degree connection, then apply and contact your connection as in using contacts. For each second degree connection, look in the small print underneath that individual and see who the common connections are. This is a list of people that are first connections of yours and first degree connections of the individual at the company to which you’re applying. If your first degree connection is someone that you think will help you and the second degree connection is someone that you think might help with the job application like someone in recruiting or someone in the business unit related to the job posting, then apply, and contact your first degree connection to ask them to forward your resume, cover letter, and the job posting to the second degree connection at the company. Of the 26 interviews that I received, 4 came from this technique.

Public job boards with no contacts (worst strategy): Applying to jobs posted on public job boards with no one to help you to get past the recruiters’ filters is the lowest priority for your effort. Unfortunately, it’s also the task where your effort is most straightforward to apply. Apply to jobs on public boards at companies you’ve never heard of only if there is some additional value to the task such as satisfying the requirements to collect unemployment or to give yourself something to do. Do not exhaust yourself with this task. Do something to benefit your mental state instead. I applied to 43 distinct companies during my job search with this technique and obtained 2 interviews from it. 

Table 1. Application depth count data from my job search. To be in the ‘Not declined’ column, the company must have interviewed me and then still be in process with moving the application forward. The ‘Interviews’ column counts total interviews, not distinct companies that interviewed me. Twelve different companies interviewed me, but some interviewed me multiple times.

Table 2. Quality of application data from my job search. The Company Count is the count of unique companies that were applied to using the technique at left. The At Least One Interview column shows the percentage of companies that granted at least one interview. The Multiple Interview column is the number of interviews granted by those companies divided by the Company Count as a percentage. For example, for First degree contacts, I applied to four unique companies and three unique companies granted an interview so At Least One Interview is 75%, but those companies granted eight total interviews, so the Multiple Interview column is 200%.

Conclusion

The top two methods seem indistinguishable. The list of exits and the first degree contacts seem similarly efficacious in producing interviews, genuine interest as measured by the Multiple Interview metric, and job offers. A significant drop in the effectiveness of an application occurs when the contact at a company is once removed from the applicant (me), and an additional significant drop occurs if there is no contact at all. Given these results, I’m taking as advice that careful selection and continued growth of my LinkedIn contact list is critical to my career security. Also, I should continue to take careful note of those that I have impressed with my work or companies that have impressed me to maintain a high-quality and long list of potential exits from whatever my current job may be. Further, I see the public job boards as broken and not worth the effort of using, unless some other value than finding the next job can be obtained.