4 Tips from My Job Search Marathon
To navigate challenges, with tools
I was back in the job search market in August 2023. Despite the challenging status quo and massive layoffs from big tech companies, I took a leap of faith and left my company to dedicate full-time to finding my next role in the Machine Learning/Data Science area.
Naïvely, I estimated that I would be landing a dream role in a few months. The reality turned out to be longer than this. So, this process has been a marathon rather than a sprint for me. Luckily, I finished the marathon this month 🎉
Now, I want to share the precious rewards — my learnings — to motivate job seekers and let them know they are not alone in this marathon full of ups and downs.
Here are the tips I followed and learned while running this marathon:
- Define your criteria for your next role
- Rejections will be more than successful responses
- Don’t spray and pray
- Use AI-based recruiting tools
P.S. There is a bonus tip at the end 😉
Disclaimer: Dedicating full-time to a job search requires careful budget planning and having sufficient financial resources. It is perhaps the most significant consideration I experienced during my marathon. However, I designed this blog post to focus on the navigating the challenges and providing the tools to support you in your interview, CV and Cover Letter preparation.
Define your criteria for your next role
As you gather more work experience, you become more conscious of which work environments you thrive in. In addition to the role description, the company’s culture and values, the work setup (remote/on-site/hybrid), and the impact/results you create are important factors that add to your success.
So ask yourself those key questions:
- Are you more productive in a remote/hybrid/in-office setup?
- What kind of leadership and management style is for you?
- What are the cultural elements that you look for? What values resonate with you the most?
- What motivates you day-to-day? Do you want your work to make a positive impact every day?
These questions will help you solidify your ideal role and company. You can get a gist of these topics by asking the right questions in the interviews, especially for the cultural values.
I was preparing my interview questions with the help of keyvalues.com. It is a great website for designing the right questions for the interviews to get a gist of the company's cultural values, leadership style, and team’s daily routines.
Rejections will be more than successful responses
Prepare yourself to receive more rejections than successful responses. This diagram that went viral on LinkedIn is proof of this statement. It shows the application statistics of a job seeker in marketing tech. From my experience, I can tell it is a valid statistic for the data science/machine learning domain.
I got 23 successful responses and 5 offers out of 100 applications. The rest was either ghosting or rejections. At first, I was demotivated and felt down with every rejection I received. I even cried after some rejections where I felt a high culture fit with the company and a strong match with my skills 🥲. After several downs, I learned to go through the disappointment of the rejection and not to couple it with my self-worth.
Also, a rejection applies to a particular role and time. The same position might open again in the future and requirements might change. You likely improved yourself in the meantime.
For example, I was interviewing with two companies in November 2023 for the MLOps Engineer and Data Scientist roles. I was eliminated from the process after the first interview. Fast forward to February 2024, I got offers from both companies for a Machine Learning Engineer role. So never give up and keep trying ✌🏼
Don’t spray and pray
“I was applying for as much as 50 jobs a day in two different career tracks”.
…said the creator of the above image.
It is almost impossible to tailor a résumé and make 50 applications in a day. This is an example of the spray-and-pray approach. It is the traditional way of submitting a generic résumé for every job posting through the company’s careers page.
In today’s competitive job search market, only quality applications pass the first screening. To make a high-quality application, you have to tailor your résumé and cover letter for each application.
In your CV, order your skills so that the matching skills with the job description appears first, mention your qualities that the job description lists, and make sure you use active verbs.
A customized cover letter is also necessary to stand out in the application process. Most companies document their recruitment process, values, and qualities they look for in candidates. Also, learn about the products & problems they are working on before crafting your cover letter. Then embed those learnings and values in your cover letter and ensure to highlight the technical skills listed in the role requirements.
Most importantly, use your network to pass the initial screening, and don’t hesitate to reach out to your network (ex-colleagues, college friends, etc.). Ask if they want to be a reference for you. You will be surprised to see that people are there to support you. I believe this support is coming from an empathy space where every one of us has been a job seeker in life once 😌
Moreover, most companies have an employee referral system so it is a win-win situation for both of you if the process ends successfully.
Use AI-based recruiting tools
Around September, I realized spraying and praying was not working for me. That is where I learned about AI-based tools to boost my CV and cover letter preparation process.
I chose Teal from various tools listed in this post on LinkedIn. I used the Resume Builder feature to build a tailored resume for each application.
Also, the Matching section helped me to quantify the match between the job posting and my CV. It calculates a percentage based on the keywords in your CV and job posting. While tailoring your CV, you can aim for a good match score to help you pass the initial screening. Moreover, Teal suggests improvements for your CV in terms of wording and framing your achievements.
AI-based tools are still our assistants, they are still not there to replace humans in creative writing. I see cover letters and CVs as a form of creative writing in a professional manner. So don’t solely rely on a cover letter or CV prepared by an AI-based tool. Always evaluate their output, and use their suggestions as feedback.
Bonus Tip: The job market is more vibrant in the first quarter of the year because of new budgets and people’s tendency to change jobs due to salary adjustments made at the beginning of the year. This is a personal observation and a hint from many years of HR-experienced friend working at Amazon 😉
Thank you for reading!
After six months, I completed this marathon with a role that satisfies most of my criteria. It was quite a challenging journey for me with ups and downs.
I benefitted so much from the tips above so I cannot keep them to myself. I hope my learnings will light your path and support your job search 🤗
For comments or constructive feedback, you can reach out to me on responses, X (Twitter), or LinkedIn!
4 Tips From My Job Search Marathon was originally published in Towards Data Science on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
4 Tips from My Job Search Marathon
To navigate challenges, with tools
I was back in the job search market in August 2023. Despite the challenging status quo and massive layoffs from big tech companies, I took a leap of faith and left my company to dedicate full-time to finding my next role in the Machine Learning/Data Science area.
Naïvely, I estimated that I would be landing a dream role in a few months. The reality turned out to be longer than this. So, this process has been a marathon rather than a sprint for me. Luckily, I finished the marathon this month 🎉
Now, I want to share the precious rewards — my learnings — to motivate job seekers and let them know they are not alone in this marathon full of ups and downs.
Here are the tips I followed and learned while running this marathon:
- Define your criteria for your next role
- Rejections will be more than successful responses
- Don’t spray and pray
- Use AI-based recruiting tools
P.S. There is a bonus tip at the end 😉
Disclaimer: Dedicating full-time to a job search requires careful budget planning and having sufficient financial resources. It is perhaps the most significant consideration I experienced during my marathon. However, I designed this blog post to focus on the navigating the challenges and providing the tools to support you in your interview, CV and Cover Letter preparation.
Define your criteria for your next role
As you gather more work experience, you become more conscious of which work environments you thrive in. In addition to the role description, the company’s culture and values, the work setup (remote/on-site/hybrid), and the impact/results you create are important factors that add to your success.
So ask yourself those key questions:
- Are you more productive in a remote/hybrid/in-office setup?
- What kind of leadership and management style is for you?
- What are the cultural elements that you look for? What values resonate with you the most?
- What motivates you day-to-day? Do you want your work to make a positive impact every day?
These questions will help you solidify your ideal role and company. You can get a gist of these topics by asking the right questions in the interviews, especially for the cultural values.
I was preparing my interview questions with the help of keyvalues.com. It is a great website for designing the right questions for the interviews to get a gist of the company's cultural values, leadership style, and team’s daily routines.
Rejections will be more than successful responses
Prepare yourself to receive more rejections than successful responses. This diagram that went viral on LinkedIn is proof of this statement. It shows the application statistics of a job seeker in marketing tech. From my experience, I can tell it is a valid statistic for the data science/machine learning domain.
I got 23 successful responses and 5 offers out of 100 applications. The rest was either ghosting or rejections. At first, I was demotivated and felt down with every rejection I received. I even cried after some rejections where I felt a high culture fit with the company and a strong match with my skills 🥲. After several downs, I learned to go through the disappointment of the rejection and not to couple it with my self-worth.
Also, a rejection applies to a particular role and time. The same position might open again in the future and requirements might change. You likely improved yourself in the meantime.
For example, I was interviewing with two companies in November 2023 for the MLOps Engineer and Data Scientist roles. I was eliminated from the process after the first interview. Fast forward to February 2024, I got offers from both companies for a Machine Learning Engineer role. So never give up and keep trying ✌🏼
Don’t spray and pray
“I was applying for as much as 50 jobs a day in two different career tracks”.
…said the creator of the above image.
It is almost impossible to tailor a résumé and make 50 applications in a day. This is an example of the spray-and-pray approach. It is the traditional way of submitting a generic résumé for every job posting through the company’s careers page.
In today’s competitive job search market, only quality applications pass the first screening. To make a high-quality application, you have to tailor your résumé and cover letter for each application.
In your CV, order your skills so that the matching skills with the job description appears first, mention your qualities that the job description lists, and make sure you use active verbs.
A customized cover letter is also necessary to stand out in the application process. Most companies document their recruitment process, values, and qualities they look for in candidates. Also, learn about the products & problems they are working on before crafting your cover letter. Then embed those learnings and values in your cover letter and ensure to highlight the technical skills listed in the role requirements.
Most importantly, use your network to pass the initial screening, and don’t hesitate to reach out to your network (ex-colleagues, college friends, etc.). Ask if they want to be a reference for you. You will be surprised to see that people are there to support you. I believe this support is coming from an empathy space where every one of us has been a job seeker in life once 😌
Moreover, most companies have an employee referral system so it is a win-win situation for both of you if the process ends successfully.
Use AI-based recruiting tools
Around September, I realized spraying and praying was not working for me. That is where I learned about AI-based tools to boost my CV and cover letter preparation process.
I chose Teal from various tools listed in this post on LinkedIn. I used the Resume Builder feature to build a tailored resume for each application.
Also, the Matching section helped me to quantify the match between the job posting and my CV. It calculates a percentage based on the keywords in your CV and job posting. While tailoring your CV, you can aim for a good match score to help you pass the initial screening. Moreover, Teal suggests improvements for your CV in terms of wording and framing your achievements.
AI-based tools are still our assistants, they are still not there to replace humans in creative writing. I see cover letters and CVs as a form of creative writing in a professional manner. So don’t solely rely on a cover letter or CV prepared by an AI-based tool. Always evaluate their output, and use their suggestions as feedback.
Bonus Tip: The job market is more vibrant in the first quarter of the year because of new budgets and people’s tendency to change jobs due to salary adjustments made at the beginning of the year. This is a personal observation and a hint from many years of HR-experienced friend working at Amazon 😉
Thank you for reading!
After six months, I completed this marathon with a role that satisfies most of my criteria. It was quite a challenging journey for me with ups and downs.
I benefitted so much from the tips above so I cannot keep them to myself. I hope my learnings will light your path and support your job search 🤗
For comments or constructive feedback, you can reach out to me on responses, X (Twitter), or LinkedIn!
4 Tips From My Job Search Marathon was originally published in Towards Data Science on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.