4 weeks ago I wrote a personal and open hearted LinkedIn post where I shared my unsuccessful, frustrating and de-humanizing experience as a job hunter looking for a job in the past 4 months, where I have sendt 51 applications (until today), got 11 first time interviews, 5 second time interviews, and got to be 2 times second candidate… 'Close, but No Cigar.
After the initial virality, debate and engagement with the post in LinkedIn, I was encouraged and challenge by lots of people to share it here in my own blogg and with my own tribe. So here you are the original post in Facili-station, and the follow-up in LinkedIn.
Since I got the unfortunately news of my downsizing and redundancy in Telenor at the end of April, I have been actively looking for a new job and my personal experience with most of the "professional" recruiters in Norway and the recruitment process, it couldn't have been worse and I feel disappointed and disillusioned with that industry and profession.
I have been feeling....
🫣 Harassed - One senior external "recruiter" got pissed off and said so to me to shut up, because I asked lots of questions in the first job interview, making me feel bad, like an idiot, disrespected and harassed , just for doing my job as a candidate... to ask relevant questions to figure out if the company, position and myself are a good match.
🫣 Ghosted - After sending some well thought and well written applications and even after some first interviews, I heard nothing at all from the recruiter or company.
🫣 Judged by "incompetent" people - In some cases the recruiters did not have any competence, experience nor understanding of my profession and industry, but nevertheless they could judge me and decide my career future.
🫣 Used - I have spend my fair share of personal and mental time, answering some personality and intelligence tests (and working on cases), but in some cases I never got an explanation and the test on how I scored and what it meant to me. The company may have gotten an psychological "understanding" of me, but I never got wiser on the results, because ther were never explained to me.
🫣 Being an object and commodity - some recruiters use candidates as an object be used and thrown away and a transaction to fill they pockets with money, rather than a fellow human being to be treated with empathic and respect in a difficult part of life.
🫣 Forgotten - In some situations after some first interviews where I didn't go further, I got no feedback on neither why I didn't go further in the process, not what I could have done different and work on for such position in the future.
🫣 Being lied to my face (Untrustworthiness) - In some processes I got said that I was going to get an answer by some date, but when the date come, I got crickets (read ghosted)
🫣 Jumping hoops: "the system says NO!" - I saddens me to say the some of the worst UX (User Experience) I have encountered in my life with dark patterns and terrible usability all over, are recruitment systems where you have, each time, to fill 1.000 of separate fields to entre your experience. I just want to upload my CV!
Talk about building trust, psychological safety and human relations...
The process is broken and the customer / candidate experience is TERRIBLE, to say the least.
What can we do to improve it and bring humanity and respect to it?
What has been your personal experience?
After the overwhelming positive response and lots of DMs where people asked for help and guidance in the rigged and broken process , I have decided to run a one-day Market Value Canvas onsite workshop in Oslo (Norway) in October.
https://miro.com/miroverse/market-value-canvas/
Do you want to learn how to hack the system, design your career, find your dream job and have tons of fun with the process?
The Market Value Canvas is a powerful career tool for people who want to design and level up their career by finding and landing their dream job.
In the workshop you will learn how to find your real market value, your target employer, and design your career path in a step-by-step process on how to bridge the gap and bring your value to the market, achieving candidate-market fit: the value you bring to potential employees and how to find them.
Have look at this video and if you are interested and want to know more, book an video appointment with me so we can figure out if this is something for you.
Career Design Workshop in Oslo 🌟 - Watch Video
Want to know more about the Market Value Canvas?
Join my coming webinar "Market Value Canvas" workshop walkthrough” on Wednesday, September 18, 2024 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM CEST