I didn’t think I would be back in this position so soon nor did I think it would be under these circumstances. I am so disheartened that it is making job hunting very difficult. At the same time, I must move on.
Job hunting in the internet age is so different that when I graduated college in 1999. Back then, you bought a newspaper (yes, a newspaper) and went through the Want-ads, it was a paper version of Craigslist or you could say that Craigslist is a digital version of newspaper want-ads. I circled the jobs I wanted to apply for and made a logistical route of companies to visit. I got suited up with a stack of freshly printed resumes and a few black ink pens. Off I went out to apply for maybe 2 to 3 jobs per day depending upon the logistics of doing so.
You go into the company and ask for someone from HR. You shake their hand, give them a resume, and in most cases, filled out an application to submit with your resume. HR would then call you if they were interested in you. No matter what, somebody had your resume in hand. Presumably they read it unless it was placed in “file 13.” Imagine doing that these days especially in a city the size of Atlanta Metro. I was doing this in Huntsville, Alabama in 1999. Smaller city and fewer companies.
You could sometimes mail an application and resume into the company. That is the equivalent of submitting resumes in today’s modern job hunting. Now, you put in resumes via the company web site or some job search site not knowing if it will ever be read because of the volume of submissions. Computers are running algorithms against your submission looking for keywords and phrases that hiring managers and HR are looking for to pull your submission out to possibly be read. Sometimes, it feels like you submit for jobs and your submission is evaporated out in the ether… you can try to follow up but without an HR contact… it’s almost impossible. You can check the company website for updates, but maybe it isn’t updated and you think you are still in the running for the opportunity, but in reality, you aren’t. It’s very frustrating.
I am becoming a professional job hunter. Almost to the point, I should be hired by some company to just job hunt. Maybe even make YouTube videos on Job Hunting in the modern world. Actually, I am sure those already exist.
Here is the silver lining: trying to look for work in the Metro Atlanta area by the old method would take weeks to put in just a few applications because of the size of the area. It would be a logistical nightmare. I like being able to look a person in the eye and shake their hand as I am handing them a resume, but that experience is forever lost. For any of the reasons I have stated above: logistics and amount of submissions, I am glad that I can sit in my office chair and submit for jobs with a few clicks of a mouse but I wish that companies were more forward with application statuses.
I am using Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and LinkedIn Jobs for my search this time. I am not using Dice nor Monster this time. We shall see how that works out.