My Job Market
I am excited to share my job market has come to a close. I want to discuss how my job market went to provide some insight and help. Here are some numbers I kept during my process.
I applied to 74 total jobs.
I averaged 1 job application a day between January 11, 2021 and March 3, 2021. That always included a tailored cover letter and resume.
I didn’t hear back anything from 29 of the 74 jobs I applied for.
I received an email saying I was denied from 29 of the 74 jobs I applied for.
I received 15 first interviews.
Of those, 6 turned into second interviews or more.
Of my second interviews or more, I got four job offers.
I was fortunate enough to get the offers I did. It was not easy to get there though. What I found during this process is that you must persist through the denial and continue to hustle. Here is what worked for me in this process.
I did a great deal of networking with people in D.C., the Cincinnati Area, Kentucky, Denver, Seattle, and New York because that is where I was interested in working. A few of the networking meetings I put together actually turned into interviews. Two of them turned into final interviews. And one of those turned into a final offer. Networking is a seed you can plant and benefit you at some point in the future.
Similar to the networking, for each job I applied to I tried to reach out or connect with someone that worked at the company. These connections, done over messaging or video call, gave me better insight on how to prepare application materials or interview.
It is a given you submit a resume for most jobs. Whether or not you apply with a cover letter is debated. My opinion is that you should always prepare a one page cover letter for every job you apply for. As an applicant you want to do anything you can to make yourself stand out. This is just one of those opportunities.
Another comment on job materials. The job application is an overwhelming process. To manage the emotions that go into it, as well as the workload, you need to have a process. What I did to manage that was determine what work I was interested in. For me, that was data science, economic research, business analyst/data analyst roles, and management consulting. For each of those industries I developed a cover letter and resume that worked for them. To develop those cover letters, I reached out to people I know that work in those roles to improve my material. Once I developed this approach I was able to apply to more jobs and I heard back more often too.
To anyone that is still on the job market, keep on applying. To point out the obvious, there is a pandemic going on. However, many news outlets have reported a drastic increase in job postings. Things are getting better.
But, when you encounter a spell of denials, do not feel bad taking time off. Seriously, take a few days off. You deserve it. Once you feel rested and ready to get back to it, find a way to put the hard work in. Taking care of yourself will produce results.
If anyone wants to discuss my job market in greater detail or is looking for feedback on their application materials, please reach out.
Also, I would like to thank a few people. It takes a village. Thank you to Dr. Abdullah Al Bahrani, Robert Berger, Mario Escarcega, Garrett Frey, Julianna Hutchins, and Denver Stokes for helping me during this process. I could not have done it without you all. To anyone else that helped me, thank you as well!
Thanks for reading.
~~~
For those interested, the spreadsheet I kept include information on Organization (company I was applying to), Job (exact job title and hyperlink to posting. The postings are difficult to keep track of), status (have I applied or not), outcome (did I get an interview or denied?), Date of Application (when did I submit the final application?), and I had a column for any other information I wanted to keep (what application materials did I submit? What are the details of the outcome?).
I also kept a list of organizations I was interested in applying to when I first began my process. This helped me narrow my search. On top of that, I maintained a bar graph that showed the number of applications I sent out by date. On top of that, I calculated the 7 day rolling average of applications I had sent out. This was motivating to me because it would tell me if I was being lazy or not.
