#JobSearch #CareerAdvice #EmploymentStruggles
Hey everyone, need some input here! 🤔 My partner has been tirelessly applying for jobs in the Advertising/Media/Sales field for the past 6 months, but hasn’t had any luck landing even an interview. It’s really taking a toll on him, especially with the pressure of supporting our family.
We’re considering a few options, but would love to hear your thoughts:
– Should he consider getting a casual job for now to ease the financial strain?
– Or should he keep pushing for a job in his field, like account manager or BDM roles?
One possible solution we’re thinking about is reaching out to recruitment agencies for assistance. Maybe they can provide some valuable insights or opportunities that he hasn’t considered before.
Any other suggestions or experiences you can share? We’re all ears! 🙏🏼
If he’s applying in a specific sector, maybe pivot to something else?
After 6 months, time to take whatever he can get – just to get back into the jobs market. You can always apply for jobs in the evening and use email for correspondence.
15 jobs a day – is that an over exaggeration or is it really that he’s applied to every single new job that has been created?
If that’s the case, I’d have a serious look at his CV and perhaps look at whether his credentials and experience are relevant to the roles he’s applying for. Such a low call-to-application ration suggests that something is wrong with the CV or there’s a mismatch of expectations.
IT ?
I think he should look for another type of role in current job atmosphere now.
First thing to do is look at your finances to understand how long it’s feasible to continue to be unemployed…
That’s the only way if you can answer whether he needs to pickup a casual job or any job for that matter
If he’s only looking at BDM/Account Manager roles in a specific industry, perhaps consider branching into other industries. Or potentially sales rep roles or other customer facing roles
If it’s been 6 months, 15 applications a day and no bites – something is probably off with his resume/applications/references. The job market is definitely slower right now but that’s a lot of applications… I’d suggest going back to the drawing board at a minimum and looking to change things up. Don’t just continue doing the same thing…
Improve your resume or lower standards
Send the resume to recruiters and let them do the work for you
Push his networks and also network and see if he can get a referral. Sounds like he’s in an industry where this would be the more common approach?
I guess one reason not to take a career break without a backup… sorry to hear OP
Career break? What does that mean?
Reach out to recruiters – getting a job through listings are ridiculously competitive right now.
I really hate recruiters who just call you out of no where, you miss their call, you call back, then they just never answer, you leave a message or email and just don’t hear back from them. Or they call you back again tomorrow at another inconvenient time and you play the same call tag. I really don’t understand this process, why wouldn’t they schedule a call or respond to your messages to schedule one?
personally i would have kept working while applying for a jobs or at least have a casual job to create some form of income , attend interviews . I’m sure he is not spending all his time Infront of a computer.
Maybe work with a recruiter. Without specific info on what the resume and skills looks like we can’t really help. A recruiter will be able to give more insight.
What industry is he in? Has he spoken to recruiters? He should also start asking his network/friends. If he hasn’t already, he should apply for contract work/temporary cover as well.
15 job apps a day but no interviews could mean he’s applying for jobs he isn’t qualified for or his resume is not highlighting his skills. Or the industry is in a downturn. Ask a good recruiter how to improve the resume.
6 months gap isn’t long enough to be an issue, just tell ppl he had to do so for family reasons.
I work client facing and there are plenty of bdm/am roles out there. I would look closely at his cv. It is a tough market though, that’s also the reality.
If they need someone to cast an eye over the resume I’m happy to do so
The truth is it’s just not very desirable to be hiring someone coming off a career break.
As a hiring manager I’ve always given preference to people who are currently employed in a similar role to the job advertised.
what industry?
What industry does is he applying to work in ? (So people can give industry specific advice)
15 a day tells me he is putting very little effort into the applications.
It’s easier to get a job when you have a job. Do anything then apply for the job you want.
The question is being asked in HR why are you doing nothing….
I experienced similar – never had an issue getting work before.
Got 1 interview in 6 months of tailored applications (cover letter and adjusted resume to suit).
Ended up taking whatever job I could get.
Ahhh it’s a hard thing to swallow your pride and take what you can get… that’s why I love life. u can cry, be a keyboard warrior blah blah, etc, but at the end of the day, the market will HUMBLE you.
This is just another reminder folks u don’t just infinitely go up or stay in the same job forever thinking u will have ever increasing wages. Have an exit strategy always plan for the worst and try your best to have a nice buffer. Avoid lifestyle creep. Ah the reality is always a bitter sweet pill
I love the psychology of it. I’m worth more than those lowly positions I was past tense x y z. I deserve a job befitting my role. I have so much past experience and heaps of value to offer a company. I wouldn’t be caught dead working there. Obviously u haven’t went through the stages yet lol well atleast some people have go grow up some day either that or life shoves poo down your throat and you see forced to eat it. Go to any employer and say yes please can I have some more so you can pay me my family is starving.
It’s that realisation and grit I love it 😀 😍 ❤️. But 6 months and u can’t swallow your pride while your family sinks is not befitting of being a man of the house in your position. Im not even sorry about this comment 3 months is max for me. Where’s the fight where’s they ill do anything for your family. Obviously your pride is in the way. No worries just let the market HUMBLE u some more.
My advice don’t get humbled much longer or u will have some irreparable damage to your mortgage finances family and pray 2 God not your marriage. But hey that’s life u pick your poison and dig your holes now lie in it.
Has he been volunteering somewhere to add to his resume also?
I would be speaking with Temp agencies and getting professional help with the resume but the best idea is reach out to a recruiter – they literally get paid to place candidates.
There’s a very active group for the advertising and media industry called Find-A-Finders-Fee on Facebook that has plenty of roles being advertised. Bit slower than usual but they’re out there, lots of projects and accounts getting scaled up now that budgets have reset for the FY.
Resume must be an issue
A lot of larger companies use ATS software to screen resumes so make sure he has a nice looking one and a plain text one that can be picked up easily. Cover letter should be filled with keywords from the job ad.
Also might be worth getting a professional to look at it. They know all the tricks.
I will admit, I applied for jobs every day for months and got through to interview on maybe 3 occasions. I finally got one when a recruiter who didn’t use ATS called me and I was able to advocate for myself. Cracking the software is half the battle.
For business and marketing jobs I would also make sure he’s on LinkedIn and puts effort into his profile.
Also he may be exaggerating how many he has applied for, but on some days I was definitely spending hours and applying for more than 6.
Time to get help with the resume. If he’s being realistic and applying for jobs that match his experience, 15 jobs a day without an interview just screams terrible resume.
Idk how he is tailoring his resume and cover letters to 15 jobs a day.
I found jobs that aligned well with my skillset and for those ones I would spend hours/ way more time updating my CV and cover letter for jobs I knew where I had a higher chance of being considered. (Ones that aligned more with my tech stack in software engineering).
When writing cover letters I found it’s great to research the companies values and tie them into things you have done that reflect them. Or understand what the company wants from it’s employees and add that to the cover letter. Example: I added specific things/social programs I attended / organised on my cover letter that wasn’t even relating to software engineering as I know the company values more than just the technical aspects of it’s employee. (I ended up getting the job at the company I did this for)
I feel understanding the above is also very important for when you pass the resume screening, as if you don’t actually understand the company you will not proceed.
Also if he is using chat gpt or ai for this refactoring / tailoring, do not use it. The boiler plate wording is extremely obvious to hiring managers. You will just get thrown in the bin. I have talked with hiring managers / HR at work about this. Or if you do use ai, reword and refactor again heavily.
If his career values from LinkedIn it might be worth reaching out to hiring managers directly for specific roles he is applying for. Or possibly recruiters. Or even messaging people he has worked with previously.
LinkedIn as much as some people dislike it, is extremely valuable if people in your career use it. Even if I lost my job now, I feel I could set up multiple interviews quick quickly through connections I now know. I see building relationships and connections through my work as just as important as improving my technical knowledge.
It may be worth it to have multiple people have a look at his resume if there is any glaring issues.
Record all job applications within a spreadsheet, so you can actually understand and remember what you have been applying for.
Take what you want from this, as this was my experience after being made redundant as a junior software engineer just over a year ago, and had multiple interviews lined up very quickly and found a job within 2 months as a mid level.
Does his resume look like a sales BDM who’s current with the times? The first thing he’s selling is himself, is he making the right first impression visually?
Heaps of BDM roles in Real Estate! He has sales so it may be a good fit if he has any knowledge of property as well. Get dressed up and speak to the director of each agency that’s advertised so they can meet him face to face. Make sure he looks through each company he’s applying for to immediately have some well thought suggestions how he could add value, particularly in the advertising media space for the agency. He should spend time coming up with tangible figures, campaign, how/where to introduce new business. Direct action he would take to yield specific results. Going that extra mile is something few candidates do. Spending 1/2 days building an outstanding tailored application is better spent than doing 15 different ones a day. He can (must) alter that to each agency to stand out. Not a blanket campaign.
RE especially is driven on people skills, initiative and that immediate connection. If he has that, he may get a foot in the door!
Lastly, keep his spirits up with routine. He needs a good head space to excel in interviews. Exercise an hour a day, and set an allocated time for applications. At 3/4pm knock off and spend time with the kids.Try to ensure he knows this is only temporary and to enjoy this extra time with the kids he won’t have again! Spend night time reading property books/podcasts etc so he has general property and economy knowledge (if not already), or apply this to whatever industry he wants to pivot too!
My hubby worked a few months at a supermarket whilst he was between jobs. The wage wasn’t too bad but mostly he wasn’t at home feeling defeated with no purpose. In that time he got his dream job where he is now and will be for life.
Professional resume writer here….time for him to start registering with Talent Agents/ Recruitment companies. It won’t cost him anything and he will have a higher chance of being considered for roles that are not as widely advertised.
Many advertising and media companies actually go through agencies, with candidate already waiting for these roles.
They will also review his resume. In the meantime, just get a job. It’s easier to get another job when you have one.
Your husband thought he was important, he is not.
Wash some dishes if you are lucky enough to get that shit job.
There are plenty of horrible jobs your husband can do that he will hate.
Keep applying for good jobs so he can dump the shit job for what he wants to do that brings in the big bucks.
Sounds like he has a terrible CV. A good tailored cover letter doesn’t make up for a bad CV. He should tailor that for each role. If he’s doing 15 a day it doesn’t sound like he’s spending a good time tailoring. I would rather do 5 quality ones a day than 15 poor ones a day.
He should really see a recruiter who would help give feedback on him and his CV for the market
Doing the same thing, and expecting different results is kinda dumb.
If it was a couple days, sure… Give it time.
6 months? You need to change something if what you post is true.
What salary range is he looking for?
Salaries in BDM have taken a hit recently, and also in the advertising/marketing space in general. He may need to reset his expectations a bit?
It’s horrific, been there myself for 8 months. It’s really bad out there at the moment, and nobody is really talking about it or admitting we are in a massive recession, hitting tech workers the most. It’s almost impossible to get a call back or an interview. And if you get one, the hiring process has become ridiculously convoluted. It’s truly depressing. Stay close to your partner.
I don’t know, for me it takes me a couple of days to do 1 serious application that is written well and perfectly tailored. I get callbacks and interviews usually at a 1/10 ratio. So out of every 10 applications i get at least 1 callback. this is probably in the spam of a couple of months. But 15 per day?, there is no way these applications are tailored. I know that if I rush an application there is no chance I get a callback as there are a lot of people seriously tailoring those cover letters. Definitely take a part time temporary job and actually focus and tailor those applications would be my advise (I am in the same field)
Go to ChatGTP. Copy paste the JD into ChatGTP. Asking GPT to give me top 10 ATS keywords.
Use those 10 ATS keywords in your Resume. Im sure you’ll get a call soon.
I was in a similar situation about 7 years ago. Just got made redundant, recently married with a child on the way, and had to move back to my parents’ house.
I was also struggling for 6 months. I did get several interviews, but they didn’t pan out.
I was forced to get casual factory hand work, even though I had an engineering background. But on month 7, I did get an offer working in a relevant field for a better paying role. Coincidentally, this was just as I was taking my wife to the hospital as she was starting to go into labour!
So my advice to your partner is to keep persisting and do take on any other role to keep your heads above water. He doesn’t need to put that role into his CV after all. Fingers crossed that it’ll work out for him like it did for me.
Is this employment gap in his resume currently?
When I took gaps out of mine I got call backs after a similar dark period
Lie on the resume and don’t say it was a career break, say he was looking after a family member or something.
Nothing against a career break myself but hirering managers might look down on it.
It’s a very tough market out there, this is not a time to be selective about jobs I would say. I would strongly recommend applying for any possible job that is close enough to his area of expertise. But a couple of things to do (at the same time)
– keep upskilling, its tough to say but remember that there are a lot of people like you so you need to find a competitive edge, upskilling is the best way
– use social media to your advantage, LinkedIn nowadays became OF for professionals, they are literally advertising themselves for more attention.
Good luck
Get any job for now. The job market fluctuates. There just may be a big job seeker market for his line of work rn.
If he’s applying forc15 jobs a day, it’s possible he might not be a good fit or might be over qualified.
I have found in my job searches it can take up to 100 applications to get 3-4 interviews.
It might be worth reviewing the cover letters and CV
Askamanager.com has a lot of archived information and free ebooks on job hunting. Improved my job searches immensely
15 a day? Just changing the role title and manager’s name at the top of your cover letter isn’t “tailoring”.
Best to get out and network go to the places that the people go to that he wants to work for. Meet them, introduce himself, what he has done etc. and ask what they are working on. If he can help in that area boom he has an in. People buy off people they know and trust and if he meets them in person and makes a good first impression it’s much easier to sell yourself than one of a hundred times new Roman word documents.