the truth about applying to jobs
Without fail, everyone I work with secretly hopes a perfect job will fall out of the sky right when they need it—all without having to submit a single application. I get it. We all want to be scouted. Applying to jobs is annoying and let’s not forget about that one time a cousin’s friend’s uncle got a job because a hiring manager found his twitter feed to be hilarious. This… I try to dispel. Even if you have the kind of background that headhunters love, this is not a reliable way to job search. You have to network. You have to apply.
Of course, all this resistance to applying isn’t just because the process is tedious. There’s also that fear about not being qualified. This… is bullshit. I’ve mentioned before that my “career counseling” is largely just me giving pep talks. But in this particular situation, I skip the pep talk and say something else that people almost always immediately recognize as true, but never think about until it’s pointed out to them.
It’s more about the applicant pool than about your qualifications.
The fretting about qualifications, it happens a lot, even with the insanely talented students I get to work with. It happens so much that I don’t even remember the first time I said this. I do remember the reaction though—how disarming the statement was—and that’s why I keep saying it now.
I actually got this one liner, not from career counseling, but from serving on hiring committees. (So. Many. Hiring committees.) Of course, there are always some basic requirements applicants need to meet, but once that minimum bar is met, the question of whether or not someone is qualified for a job based on their resume doesn’t come up again. It’s about where they “rank” compared to other applicants and how many interviews the hiring committee wants to do. Then it all comes down to the interview.
Far more important then is whether they make the cut for interviewing and to achieve that has more to do with everyone else who applied. And, obviously, the bar for this moves depending on who the competition is. Even an applicant who meets every single qualification can’t count on an interview if there are a bunch of internal applicants. Again, it’s all about the pool.
Some people are immediately encouraged upon hearing this. “Oh, maybe only crappy people will apply and I’ll have a shot!” Others less so. “So, it doesn’t matter if I’m literally the most qualified person?” Whatever the reaction, the point is that arguably one of the biggest variables is one the applicant has no control of.
You can’t get too caught up in the required and preferred qualifications or if it’s worthwhile to apply. It’s ultimately not for you to say whether or not you’re a suitable applicant, because it’s not based on the job description—it’s based on everyone else. Anyway, there’s a whole hiring committee that will figure that out for you. So, just apply. Don’t try to do the committee’s job for them.
Most people find this freeing. They can focus on their interest in a role instead of freaking out about all the parts of the job they can’t do. We just get their materials together and they hit submit. It’s nice. Sometimes everything is easier when we admit we have no control over something, do what we can, and move on.
interesting reads
cool jobs
Interaction Designer in Tokyo (one of my favorite cities) at iA (one of my favorite writing apps). Apply here.
Designer Who Can Code at Notion (the does everything app I use for… everything). Apply here.