Consider the best job that you've had recently.
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I know the feeling of CV help feeling pointless.
But I've also had a glimpse from the other side. Almost all hires at my company are strangers applying through the process. How much CVs matter varies wildly.
CVs matter since it’s what the hiring committee will squint at while they try to figure out what to do.
Introduction letters are not as important in my limited experience with small companies colleges and schools.
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Consider the best job that you've had recently.
Let's call "recently" in the past 10 years. (What makes a job "best" is up to you.)
Regardless of how you applied, online, in person, etc. did you:
@futurebird My last job was from talking to a guy at a bar. He was the brother of someone I used to work with at a different job. That job I got through my brother in law.
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Consider the best job that you've had recently.
Let's call "recently" in the past 10 years. (What makes a job "best" is up to you.)
Regardless of how you applied, online, in person, etc. did you:
@futurebird Half the third option and half the last one, basically in Brasil we do a selective processes by doing some tests for public jobs. I got first place in mine and got the job.
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Consider the best job that you've had recently.
Let's call "recently" in the past 10 years. (What makes a job "best" is up to you.)
Regardless of how you applied, online, in person, etc. did you:
@futurebird
At the time I was known to be actively volunteering within the community and had contacts with the local people*. Someone asked me if I knew anyone local who would be interested in a particular part time job. I decided to apply for it myself. I have been there for 11 years now.*I didn't know many people really, but everyone seems to think I know everyone, but in reality everyone seems to know me. I am not sure that is a good thing or not. I have been referred to as 'a local character'!
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That sounds like a weird reason.
At small and medium organizations “hiring” is extra work pawned off on already busy people and simply being the easiest to locate person who those tasked with the hire can trust won’t cause them embarrassment is the process rather than reading 100 CVs
Calls to previous employers matter a great deal.
This is because smaller orgs don’t budget any time to do this work.
I totally agree it sounds weird.
She was applying from a freelance museum educator to a low ranking museum admin position. And apparently it was read as "not being enthusiastic enough about getting this position".
A good friend of hers was actually involved in the hiring process, and could correct the impression.
The museum overlooked her already when she was applying for a job in customer requests. And now she might do some of it as extra hours to her new job.
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Consider the best job that you've had recently.
Let's call "recently" in the past 10 years. (What makes a job "best" is up to you.)
Regardless of how you applied, online, in person, etc. did you:
@futurebird I got my current job, literally the best job I've ever had, by working as a contractor for about a year and a half. They finally decided to hire me on permanentl in June 2024. Since I graduated from college in 2012 (and got married in 2013), I've not had a job that pays this much or offers this many benefits before. We were pretty poor before this job, often going to food pantries.
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Consider the best job that you've had recently.
Let's call "recently" in the past 10 years. (What makes a job "best" is up to you.)
Regardless of how you applied, online, in person, etc. did you:
@futurebird
In the middle of 2019 I flipped a toggle on LinkedIn saying I was looking for a new position.
Recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn based on my then-current position (I literally flipped the switch and sat there, didn't apply to anything)
Few interview rounds later I was hired, moved cross country.
Still work there.Probably could never happen that way again.
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Consider the best job that you've had recently.
Let's call "recently" in the past 10 years. (What makes a job "best" is up to you.)
Regardless of how you applied, online, in person, etc. did you:
@futurebird am still working my best job (in IT) after 20 years and I was contacted by a recruiter to apply for it. I gather the job market has changed somewhat in the intervening years.
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Consider the best job that you've had recently.
Let's call "recently" in the past 10 years. (What makes a job "best" is up to you.)
Regardless of how you applied, online, in person, etc. did you:
@futurebird I've *never* got the job through the "cold process" in my career except for my very first job out of college - which I didn't like and only stayed at for four months.
I'm currently unemployed, and in my state a condition of unemployment insurance is to record three 'search activities' each week, which usually means applications.
Over nearly sixteen weeks, exactly one cold application has received a *reply* (that one at least I'm optimistic about right now) -
CVs matter since it’s what the hiring committee will squint at while they try to figure out what to do.
Introduction letters are not as important in my limited experience with small companies colleges and schools.
Absolutely.
And there's an obvious part to it: Showing how you fit the requirements of the job and how the company would profit from having you.
There's a less obvious part in adressing worries and risks the employer might have. (Unless you are applying for a large international company, speaking German is one such aspect.)
And then there's the voodoo stuff. Appearing highly motivated, but not desperate. Appearing very capable, but not out of reach. Etc.
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Consider the best job that you've had recently.
Let's call "recently" in the past 10 years. (What makes a job "best" is up to you.)
Regardless of how you applied, online, in person, etc. did you:
@futurebird @JeniParsons In my vase it was starting my own company. We grew by personal recommendations and have transitioned to being employee owned
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Absolutely.
And there's an obvious part to it: Showing how you fit the requirements of the job and how the company would profit from having you.
There's a less obvious part in adressing worries and risks the employer might have. (Unless you are applying for a large international company, speaking German is one such aspect.)
And then there's the voodoo stuff. Appearing highly motivated, but not desperate. Appearing very capable, but not out of reach. Etc.
In a lot of cases, "knowing someone at the company" doesn't give the person a higher score in competence.
But it's seen as a protection against "We missed that this person is a lazy jerk".
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Consider the best job that you've had recently.
Let's call "recently" in the past 10 years. (What makes a job "best" is up to you.)
Regardless of how you applied, online, in person, etc. did you:
@futurebird
I have been working for the same company for more than 20 years. The last 10y I've worked at the same position. And I am very glad and proud of having managed to establish a very stable IT team. Which means no one have left for more than 6y now. In my opinion the most valuable items are trust in each other and appreciation for each other.
Personally speaking I did only apply formally, I was offered the job beforehand and had to move to another country. I did a contraction job there the year before. -
Consider the best job that you've had recently.
Let's call "recently" in the past 10 years. (What makes a job "best" is up to you.)
Regardless of how you applied, online, in person, etc. did you:
@futurebird It was a cold application because I was desperate to get away from a former boss who was a bit of an asshole. After a bunch of auto-rejections all over the place, I saw a company I actually like who had a position open and it just happened to cross my LinkedIn feed (LinkedIn was never good, btw).
What really helped is the guy who was doing the hiring/vetting was really weird and disorganized (just like me). We hit it off instantly.
Up to that point, no prior connections.
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Consider the best job that you've had recently.
Let's call "recently" in the past 10 years. (What makes a job "best" is up to you.)
Regardless of how you applied, online, in person, etc. did you:
@futurebird I literally replied to a Craigslist ad, for an out of state job. This was c. 2008; I was living in Boston, and the job was in DC at a major, global brand.
This is probably not a realistic scenario anymore…
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Consider the best job that you've had recently.
Let's call "recently" in the past 10 years. (What makes a job "best" is up to you.)
Regardless of how you applied, online, in person, etc. did you:
@futurebird I'm retired and only worked part-time and temporary for the last few years of employment, so none of these really fit...
However, I am able to take the long view of my working life, in retrospect, so I will again say that none of these fit, but for a different reason. The "best" job I ever had ("best" meaning most satisfying and morally best) I got by starting as a volunteer. After almost two months I was hired in a paid role.
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That sounds like a weird reason.
At small and medium organizations “hiring” is extra work pawned off on already busy people and simply being the easiest to locate person who those tasked with the hire can trust won’t cause them embarrassment is the process rather than reading 100 CVs
Calls to previous employers matter a great deal.
This is because smaller orgs don’t budget any time to do this work.
At small and medium organizations “hiring” is extra work pawned off on already busy people
Often this pressure works the other way around. At a small organisation, the person who is going to be responsible for the work that the person does is also responsible for all steps in hiring. This can cause issues with bias, but at least the incentives are aligned.
In a larger organisation, CVs are typically filtered by HR / recruiters. At Microsoft, they had an annoying habit of filtering out the most qualified candidates because they lacked a traditional educational background (because they'd spent their time doing exactly the thing you were hiring for instead). You had to work quite closely with them to avoid this.
The problem is that you get a lot of applicants for some posts, but you get very few good ones. Someone has to do a deselection pass so that the selection pass isn't overwhelmed.
LinkedIn now has an AI thing that does this. For an LLVM compiler rôle, it filtered out 80% of applicants who had worked on LLVM previously and hid them in the default view. Utterly useless. And, at the same time, their one-button-apply thing meant that I was flooded with unqualified people.
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At small and medium organizations “hiring” is extra work pawned off on already busy people
Often this pressure works the other way around. At a small organisation, the person who is going to be responsible for the work that the person does is also responsible for all steps in hiring. This can cause issues with bias, but at least the incentives are aligned.
In a larger organisation, CVs are typically filtered by HR / recruiters. At Microsoft, they had an annoying habit of filtering out the most qualified candidates because they lacked a traditional educational background (because they'd spent their time doing exactly the thing you were hiring for instead). You had to work quite closely with them to avoid this.
The problem is that you get a lot of applicants for some posts, but you get very few good ones. Someone has to do a deselection pass so that the selection pass isn't overwhelmed.
LinkedIn now has an AI thing that does this. For an LLVM compiler rôle, it filtered out 80% of applicants who had worked on LLVM previously and hid them in the default view. Utterly useless. And, at the same time, their one-button-apply thing meant that I was flooded with unqualified people.
@david_chisnall @futurebird @billiglarper “filtering out the most qualified candidates because they lacked a traditional educational background (because they'd spent their time doing exactly the thing you were hiring for instead)” over and over, I’ve been a hiring manager at the end of a pipeline that would have filtered me out
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@david_chisnall @futurebird @billiglarper “filtering out the most qualified candidates because they lacked a traditional educational background (because they'd spent their time doing exactly the thing you were hiring for instead)” over and over, I’ve been a hiring manager at the end of a pipeline that would have filtered me out
@puercomal hit the road, Jack, I guess 🥲
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Consider the best job that you've had recently.
Let's call "recently" in the past 10 years. (What makes a job "best" is up to you.)
Regardless of how you applied, online, in person, etc. did you:
@futurebird best is hard.
Most fulfilling: got through the process with a cold application and am really proud of that
Best quality of life: went through a process but there was a recruiter involved so that's like knowing a person
