Everyone know what this word means and everyone has felt it in some capacity during their lifetimes. The word spans many different avenues of life in general and applies to almost every topic related to human existence. The results of this word define us as individual human beings as well. How we handle it very much determines what kind of person you are and/or will be. It shapes us and how we approach and react to future situations we may encounter with more trepidation or more empowerment, depending on how it affects you.

Specifically, I want to talk about the current state of the job market. It’s been in the news a lot lately regarding mass layoffs at some of the biggest companies on our planet. Tens of thousands of people have recently lost their jobs and the job market is being flooded. I have fortunately not been one of these casualties but I have been dabbling in the job market looking for my next challenge.

What I have found over the past few months, about 5 now to be exact, is massive amounts of rejection. If you cannot handle rejection, the job market is not for you. If you need a job, you will have to steel yourself internally to navigate the state of the job market today.

With the introduction of remote work about 5 years ago when that little virus was scorching the Earth, the job market also drastically shifted. If you are looking for a job these days, especially in IT, you no longer just have to deal with local competition, but global competition. I have seen job postings get flooded with hundreds of resumes in just a few hours. Does this mean there are people hanging on every new posting? No, it is AI. You can hire an AI service to apply to jobs for you automatically. So your resume must be optimized for AI interpretation because on the other side of the hiring world, HR departments are using AI to filter these swarms of applicants.

What this translates to, from my perspective, is unless you get your application in quickly, it is very likely you will never get noticed. Even for jobs when the job description sounds exactly like your resume and you are 100% qualified for the role. Chances are you will get that generic email message they they are not moving forward with your application. The good part about using AI is it will apply to jobs that are not just in your country but on job boards throughout the world. The bad part is AI doesn’t fully understand some of the logistical keywords like time zone and geographical requirements so it applies to some jobs anyway. I tried a free trial of one of these services for a week and found it applied to several jobs I wasn’t even close to being in the right time zone for. This creates a mess on the HR side of things because they are being flooded with unqualified resumes that bury the actually qualified applicants.

I have used AI to “optimize” my resume and that has had some success as the emails of interest increased since I did so. Alas, I have only found more rejection. I have also found all of these tools being used on both sides of the coin cause more delays and slowdowns in the process itself as the HR departments and hiring managers weed through all of the applications and resumes they get. Not to mention scheduling the interviews themselves for those that do get picked from the pile. I am in a position where I am seeking a better opportunity for my career but I am currently employed. This position makes the process easier to handle, but it is still very frustrating. I have even had a couple of interviews that were performed by an AI system. Fully conversational recorded video conversations with computers to assess my skills.

If you do manage to get through that first phase and actually get a request to speak to someone, this is where the rejection gets harder to deal with. I have gotten to some latter stages of the process, complete with some take home assignments to show what you can do, along with panel interviews where you feel bombarded with questions from multiple people, and rejected afterwards. These are the hardest to take. Was I not likable? Do I look too old? Did I not answer your questions “correctly” during our chat? I thought our conversation went smooth and well and felt comfortable, but still, the generic rejection message comes with no explanation. Maybe I need to make an AI representation of myself and train it to do these interviews for me!

It’s no fun when you get called into the process and learn the job posting’s “nice to haves” are actually make or break requirements. I thought I matched up with 98% of the other requirements and this was an opportunity to learn something new. I just wish job postings were more honest. It’s like the lack of salary ranges in the postings as well as the ranges themselves. Whenever I see a salary range in a posting I have learned the true salary being targeted is right smack dab in the middle of the range. Why not just put that in your posting? Here is what we are targeting, there is some flexibility to go higher for the right people, but not by much. Just be honest.

So how do you deal with this? All you can do is press on and keep trying, make sure your resume is optimized for AI bots, although some companies will reject you immediately if certain keywords are in place designed to make you look better to an AI bot on the HR side. So there’s that to deal with too. I am in a position of strength right now because I am presently employed, however if I was desperately looking for a paycheck of any kind, I would have to do so much more work. If you can find the job posting owner, I would try to send them a personal message perhaps. Maybe that cuts through some of the weeds to get noticed, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who thought of this.

All we can really do is keep on trying. Try an AI service, maybe it will work for you. I would contact all the local recruitment companies I could find and send them my info as they know of jobs that are not posted to the world. They also have direct lines to the HR people doing the hiring. Just don’t ever pay for the service, they should get paid by the companies that use them to find the right talent. Finding a new job these days is just like having a full time job with all of the hoops you have to jump through and the true competition out there if the job is classified as remote. You have to steel yourself and accept that even if you are 100% qualified for that role you hit apply on, it may just come down to luck of the draw to get a callback. This is the world we live in now.

You will get rejected. A lot.