Frustrations with interviewing in this wild job market

So the interview for the marketing job went OK, the pay issue didn't come up in the initial interview but I'm getting the impression that I'm overqualified and not in quite the right areas again, it turns out that counter to the job description there is zero web dev work involved, they may just be looking for a kid who can snap photos and videos on a phone and post them to the 'gram in between vape drags. I'm fine with whichever way that one goes really.

In industry news, it looks like the AI bubble pop may have happened this morning, with Nvidia losing clean over half a trillion dollars of value today...but rather than coming with a collapse of LLM use due to investors no longer subsidizing their affordability, it may come with an explosion of LLM use as everyone and their dog sets up a local DeepSeek instance they can run for dirt cheap.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

It might be more accurate to say the US AI bubble has been deflated a bit, by the Chinese demonstrating a cheaper alternative?

You might want to create a new thread and give your perspective on it, you can probably do it better than most.

I would certainly hope, even if the Chinese are doing it "better" that western countries would not jump in with Chinese based AI! (as in contributing to it's knowledge base)  Of course, it still means it's rather helpful to China.  You might be able to clarify the situation better.

Well since last weeks  hopeful post things have gone quiet again.  Today's frustration is a job I had seen and applied for already.  When it was last advertised it named the company, but the posting was via a third party.  I went through all the steps to apply, then just got a 'thank you for applying' automated email from another company! then nothing.  Today I saw the position reposted on LinkedIn, but by the actual company this time.  So I went through the full application process, then when I hit Apply for the final time is tells me No, no, you've already applied.  AAgghh.  Now trying to find people inside the company to communicate with and see if I can get my application looked at.  Grrrr. 

In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :

Sounds like you are chasing it on all the appropriate ways (like you're serious and making the best effort).  
 

I'm sorry it's so frustrating. 

Just saw news that the official IT unemployment rate in the US jumped from 3.9% to 5.7% over the last month:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/it-unemployment-rises-to-57-as-ai-hits-tech-jobs/ar-AA1yCPHP

From my own job hunting experience it seems like the IT job posts have been picking up over the last couple of months.

I also noticed that motorsports job I interviewed for was still posted a couple days ago, but today it's not just expired but totally gone, last time I saw it I noticed that they seemed to be dialing down the language requirements. I've seen it expire and reappear a few times but this is the first time it's disappeared completely, so they may have hired someone else for it.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Call them and ask

In reply to GameboyRMH :

If you want the job, go there in person and just say you were passing by and thought you would stop in and see if there was any updates about the position.

Companies like to see people with initiative.

If you do stop by, make sure you phone has Google Translate fired up an maybe see if that will do for what needs they do have. Maybe make it a bit casual and imply you are stopping by because it is well within your interests and it's someplace you would visit even if you didn't work there.

I mean, if they have to decide between someone who can speak the languages, and someone who actually knows what they are talking about, is within their personal interests, and needs to use Google Translate occasionally...

I was thinking of giving them a call if the job post was still up in mid/late February, but the fact that it's totally gone now after so many cycles of being briefly expired and quickly reposted tells me they're not looking to hear from any potential applicants anymore...at best they've finally decided they have all the candidates they need or are going to get and will make a decision soon, at worst they've already hired someone. In the interview I probably came off closer to "might shoot up the office if I was fired" than "not terribly interested in the job" (another reason I'm not keen to stop by the place which is probably still under construction and is tucked away with only 1 other building) and they have my info...

Yeah, if they are still under construction, a casual stop by is far less casual and more stalkerish.

If they are still under construction, it's also possible that the construction is behind schedule and they are delaying the hiring. If it's a new building that is very likely right now.

GameboyRMH said:

Just saw news that the official IT unemployment rate in the US jumped from 3.9% to 5.7% over the last month:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/it-unemployment-rises-to-57-as-ai-hits-tech-jobs/ar-AA1yCPHP

From my own job hunting experience it seems like the IT job posts have been picking up over the last couple of months.

I'm not in your industry, but there have been a lot of reports that US companies are trying to reduce or eliminate remote work and force workers back to in office work. I would suspect that IT workers are a big part of this and some have probably quit instead of giving up remote work, resulting in increased IT unemployment numbers and more IT job postings.

GameboyRMH said:

In the interview I probably came off closer to "might shoot up the office if I was fired" than "not terribly interested in the job" 

Have you tried maybe, not doing that?

In reply to iansane :

It was a calculated risk, I just might've overcooked it slightly. I know that motorsports industry jobs really want people who are passionate about racing above all else (probably so that they'll do heroic work for low pay).

GameboyRMH said:

In the interview I probably came off closer to "might shoot up the office if I was fired" than "not terribly interested in the job"

How does one come off this way during an interview???

In reply to yupididit :

Being a little too passionate about the work, saying it's a lifelong dream to get a job in the industry and joking that one might have an unhealthy addiction to it, things like that...I thought that joke would hit close to home with any other serious motorsports enthusiasts and show that I'm one of them quickly, but it barely got a chuckle.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

You spend WAAY too much energy trying to figure out what other people are thinking or why they are doing what they are doing. 
 

Just show up. Be real. Stop trying to guess what they want and pretending to be that. 
 

The fact that you have ruled out so many jobs and aren't energetically following up communicates that you don't really want a job. 

insert pic of what's his name from that movie, pointing up and saying "he's right, you know."

It's true, I don't want *a job* where that can mean just any job because there are a lot of spectacularly terrible jobs out there these days. I'm looking for fairly regular hours, not necessarily good pay, but pay that matches the skill and effort required (or at least makes up for a bad skill/effort to pay ratio with fun), and not a notoriously terrible workplace. If I could make minimum wage by stocking supermarket shelves or flipping burgers at regular-ish hours I'd be doing that already (one job I applied to and got no response from was moving and sorting goods in the back room of a thrift store, I've also applied to be a pump attendant at a gas station). A major part of the problem is that I'm hardly getting any responses on jobs that don't fit my previous career trajectory, which was already a weird one that doesn't fit anything well. The comforting idea that I could always support myself by finding basic full-time work turned out to be false, because companies don't want to hire people with non-basic skills for basic work. One guy at my last tech job said that his fallback plan was to get a job at the front desk of a clinic that used our software since anyone with a technician's level of knowledge of it would be a shoe-in. I did exactly this and my application was quickly rejected, so he was wrong too.

I wasn't lying to the motorsports company, the guy who's overly enthusiastic about motorsports and makes self-effacing dark humor jokes was the real me. The calculated risk I took was to be real. I would like to get that job even though the pay is rather low.

In my experience if a company is interested in having you work for them after you've gone through the trouble of submitting an application, they contact you, usually within 1-3 days, and don't need any unsolicited contact throughout the application/interview process. I have made some unsolicited contact with companies over the last year and I've had no hint of success with that approach. It's only resulted in one interaction that could be seen as positive. Some are pretty clearly annoyed by it. Recently I've seen some job posts specifically asking people to apply online only and not contact their front desk. I have to think the job market around here is not the "show up ready to work, receive job" type but the "fill out the form, don't call us, we'll call you" type. So I don't think a lack of energetic followups, in a process that is generally clear about what kind of contact to expect and when, is hurting my chances or sending any bad signals. What would I say? "Hi, remember when you told me to wait for an email I would get last week if I was selected for the next stage of the interview process but you didn't email me during that week, would you like to reconsider?" My idea for calling the motorsports company if the job post was still up was to see if they'd be interested in hiring me temporarily to do setup before they open for business just so I could make a little side money, since they'd be running low on time (if they're still on schedule), and if that caused them to give me a second look I'd consider it a bonus.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Again, you are giving excuses and assuming that you have a clue about what is motivating that company. 

The path to that job you want isn't that you just walk in, they see you are a good  fit, pay you fairly, and voila! Happily ever after!

The path is that you start SOMEWHERE and work your way up. Change jobs a couple times and improve.  Deliver pizza, clean trash cans, whatever it takes. Act like you WANT to work, not like they owe you something.

If you wanted to work, you'd be working. And you would have moved up several times by now and likely have a position very close to what you want to be doing. 

In reply to SV reX :

So why couldn't I have started with any of the 140+ jobs I've applied to so far, where probably over 1/3rd of them are very basic? The only one I turned down after getting some response was driving for Amazon, do all paths to employment run through dangerous road crossings, 10hr+ days and curbside poop breaks, or do I have to apply for the extra E36 M3ty jobs I've avoided, the ones with chaotic schedules? If my overqualification is a problem, those jobs should logically be even less likely to respond. I only got an interview offer from Amazon after all. Maybe the theory that there's a "somewhere" to start from if I would just lower my standards deep enough below ground is mistaken.

I've been full-time job seeking for the last week now, after having made a hobby of it for the preceding three months.  I'm working with a career coach, but I honestly don't know enough to tell you if that is helpful or not yet since I've only met with him once (since it's only been a week).  Before getting laid off, I had interviews in two different places - one I was extremely interested in and got fairly far in the down-selection process, and the other would have been just a job and I didn't get too far with it.  One of the bits of advice from the coach was to start reaching out to as many people as I had good relationships with and get them somewhere for a cup of coffee.  I'm picking their brains on what types of opportunities they are aware of, and getting them to introduce me to people they know.  So far, I've got a couple leads within a large storage vendor and a number of people that are helping me to shop my resume around. 

The number one thing that seems to not work at all is submitting applications to open positions found on job boards and/or company websites.  Even with paying for an AI service that will "help" to craft resumes and cover letters and run things against ATS, I'm just not finding that there's a lot of traction there.  The only real progress that I seem to be able to get is in reaching out to people that I know or that know people that I know and having my resume put directly into the hands of people that are either decision makers or influencers.  Frankly, it is absolutely no different than a run-of-the-mill outside sales job.  The only difference, of course, is that what I'm selling now is me and it's a 100% comission job.

I am probably benefiting from the fact that I've been in the industry for a while.  In fact, the gentleman that I met with yesterday - who, by the way, gave me a list of about half a dozen names with whom he is going to connect me - used to work as a recruiter "back in the day" and I first met him in 1999 when he was walking me into a hospital to sell me to them on a short-term contract gig.  The people that I'm talking with at a large storage vendor don't have open positions, but when they heard that I was rather suddenly available, they reached out with variations on the theme of "let's talk and figure something out".  There's another outfit that is currently hiring for a position that I think would be a good fit and I have one contact there myself - who has told other people "Bill won't be on the market long" when he heard about my situation - and I've got a couple other contacts who have contacts there - all of whom are ways for me to make sure my resume finds it way into a human's hands.

Even if you don't already know people like that, though, there's still a lot of opportunity to leverage what contacts you do have.  For example, in the position for which I interviewed multiple times a couple months back, I've since been in touch with the sales rep - he's an influencer, but not the hiring manager - who has been helpful in getting me connected with some other people.  I also reached out to the actual hiring manager on LinkedIn and thanked him again for his consideration, explained that I was caught up in a RIF, and asked if I could have some of his time to pick his brain about what I might be able to do to improve and if he knew of anything else out there that might be a good fit for me.  For everyone I talk to, I'm also asking "what is missing from my resume that I might be able to work on right now?" 

Now I know that this is all just process right now.  I'm having a lot of conversations with people and we all know that talk is exceptionally cheap.  I may come back to this message in a bottle in October and lament that I'm still not able to find anything and I've pumped my well of contacts completely dry.  But I think what has always been true before continues to be true now:  It's all about relationships and who you know is far more important than what you know.  Follow up every interaction with a written thank you - even if it's just a single sentence on LinkedIn - because once you've had that conversation, you now have a contact.  If you're introverted and not comfortable having those types of very forward conversations, well, you're going to need to suck it up because you're in outside sales now.  I, too, find it very uncomfortable to ask people for things and to reach out to people that I don't know.  But I find that being unemployed entails a much greater degree of discomfort.  Find someone that you can practice with.  Maybe that's reaching out to someone that you don't need to care about on a topic that is irrelevant - like Tommy Boy trying to order some wings.  Maybe it's doing practice interviews or conversations with someone you trust.  Either way, just like pretty much everything else in this world, it always comes down to relationships.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

I don't believe your primary problem is overqualification.  I think it's likely that the people you are reaching out to are picking up a very negative vibe from you. 

Even on this site, you post a really large quantity of things that basically say "the world is a E36 M3ty place".  Links to articles about corporate berkeleyups, comments about how badly people are running their businesses, helpless victimized attitude about how much is out of your control, statements like "a lot of spectacularly terrible jobs out there...", comments about your desire to walk into an interview and tell them how terrible their salary offer is, etc, etc.  It really is a very long litany.

I'm not trying to diss you. I'm trying to help. I understand you are terribly frustrated, but I don't think you realize how deeply negative you come across.

I think it's possible your negativism is coming across to people and they just aren't interested in working with someone with such a negative attitude.

I know I'm being blunt, and I know it's unpleasant to hear. Please accept my apology for offending.  But I think it may be important info for you to come to terms with.

I know your IRL persona may be very different than what I see in your posts, and I accept that I may be wrong. I hope so.  Maybe the world is just a E36 M3ty place, and you are just a victim. That's not my experience.

What are some of the things you can say and do that are really positive and encouraging?  What would make you the kind of person that people would love to work with and be around every day?

It was pointed out to me in a junior high school progress report that I I had a "I don't give E36 M3" attitude and here I am almost 63 years old with the same attitude about my job.  

Huh.

Get off my lawn.

I met my best friend in 2008.  I placed a FB ad for a basic minimum wage carpenter's helper, and he responded.  He had no qualifications whatsoever.  He told me over the phone that his construction experience was limited to having watched his father when he was young.

Years later he asked me how many people had responded to that ad.  I told him he was the only one.  That was his only qualification.

He had previously been a successful salesman making a strong 6 figure salary for several decades. But times were tough.

I later learned that he was truly at the end of his rope when we met.  He was suicidal. He had made the decision that calling me was his last call.  If I hadn't hired him, he planned to leave his family with nothing but a life insurance claim.

It's been 17 years.  He has moved through many jobs. He got more and more responsibility in my companies until he outgrew them. Then he earned a leadership role at a large construction company, then a better one.  Now he's a City Manager for a medium sized city making a very respectable income.

And we are best friends.

Don't underestimate the value of a E36 M3ty job as a starting point.