How I Learned to Job Search Effectively

Hey! Are you on the job hunt? How is it going? Are you applying to jobs online with a click of a button?

Quick Apply. Submit. Send. Done.

Woo, nice. How is that going for you?

Hm, yea maybe not that well. Perhaps you've been doing this, but not getting very far in your job search. 👀

I would know, I was doing this process not too long ago. I was applying endlessly to jobs online and wanted to give up several times.

But eventually, I figured out how to job search effectively.

Now my career is focused on sharing everything I know about how to land a job in tech in weeks not months.

I LOVE my work, and I know how to land a job in 4 weeks. But I didn't always know the best strategies.

Let me tell you my brief origin story about how I figured out what works best in job searching.


April 2016.

I was a year into my first job in tech and wanted to make my next career move, mostly to make more money and work with a better product. I was fresh in the tech industry and excited for my new career path in tech sales.

I had gotten this first job by applying online (I think I even found the job on Craigslist 💀) and passing the interviews. My thought was this was the correct approach to job searching.

So I started applying to jobs online and waited for recruiters to eagerly respond to set up interviews.

After all, I was no longer totally new in tech and I was a top performer on the sales team. Of course they'd want to talk to me...right?

I did chat with a few. But mostly I got auto rejection emails for weeks on end. 😭

I was getting frustrated and didn't understand how to get past the ATS and stand out. Was it my resume? Was it my lack of experience? Was it my name?

It was unclear to me, but I just thought this was part of the process and eventually, if I sent enough applications, I'd get a response.

So I kept going even though it felt insane.

I had a good friend at my work at that time, George, who was also looking for a new job so we shared our experiences and updates about the process.

I noticed something interesting, George was getting interviews and offers at a waaay higher rate than me, even though we had a similar amount of work experience and I was exceeding my sales goals and he wasn't even close to hitting his KPIs.

Yea I didn't get it either at the time. How could a B player be getting interviews over an A player?

What was he doing so differently in his job search to get interviews?

I will tell you later why George was beating me in the getting job interviews despite his poorer performance on the sales floor. But for now, let's fast forward.
 

April 2020.

I'm now a career coach and I was working with a new client, Antoinette (names changed for privacy), who was early in her career and wanted to pivot from retail into tech.

She had no connections or network in the tech industry and had only worked in retail customer service prior to hiring me as her job coach.

We worked together and she landed a new job at a tech startup in 6 weeks to the day. 😍

Around the same time, another client Akila wanted to pivot into tech after working in the non-profit world. Her goal was to make $120k in her new tech role. 

Akila got an offer from a tech company that was $30k above her goal. And she did it in 5 weeks. 😳

Oh also, this was in the midst of a global pandemic when the job market flipped overnight to an employer market and the competition for jobs was very high.  

Many of my clients got competitive offers during this time in 2020. 

How did they do it so fast? What did I teach them that I didn't know yet for myself in 2016? 

The short answer is I taught them what I saw my friend George doing back in 2016 and what I figured out over time about how to actually land a job. 

The reason George was getting a lot more interviews and offers than me was not because he was better at his job than me...duh I already said that.

It was because he was applying sales strategies in his job search.

He built a job pipeline filled with opportunities, and he was not applying to jobs online at all. He was only prospecting and reaching out to hiring managers directly to pitch himself.

Wait wuuut, George didn't apply to jobs at all and was getting interviews?

Yup, correct. And I started to do the same and also got better results and eventually had an offer.

Even now, the best way to get a job is through people and connections. 

But, if you don't have the network or connections you need to do cold outreach to decision-makers. 👈🏽

Send cold outreach, have a compelling message, pitch yourself, follow up, and close people to get on a meeting with you. 

That is how you get interviews and offers, my homies.

Run your job search like a sales process for better results.

You can do it too. Not sure how? I can teach you. Apply for coaching!


P.S. My homie George ended up deciding sales wasn't for him and pursued his passion for dancing and is now a world-class performer. It's worth finding your passion and purpose.