To think there are no jobs in the UK?

[Winniejari]

I have applied for hundreds of jobs over the course of three months. I have a masters of business and bachelor degree in computer science. Ive had over ten years experience in asia and europe and feel so down about getting nothing. What am I doing wrong?
Ive extended my job search to literally anywhere in the UK.
Ive heard nothing! Ive had one interview where i got to the final round and nope!
Does anyone else have this problem? Is it just the IT sector? How to get around it?

It makes you feel so unconfident when your inbox is just filled with rejection after rejection.

I have 30 yrs in IT. Apparently I'm not longer qualified for anything anymore. This includes stacking shelves, home deliveries and thr IT field.

I'm 55 although that shouldn't be an issue

OP - are you applying for too many and not tailoring your applications to show how you are the best candidate? Or do you suspect discrimination of some kind?

Actually a shit tonne of jobs right now thanks to Brexit, mass shortages across lots of fields. No idea about your particular field though but I’d try a recruitment agency.

Sounds like a problem with your CV or the type of jobs you are applying for not matching your CV. I applied to 10 different jobs with 4 different recruitment agencies. 8 offered me interviews, 3 offered me 2nd interviews and 1 offered me the job whilst forgoing a 2nd interview. I took that job and turned the other 2nd interviews down. There are definitely far more jobs than people to fill them at the moment.

Pay to get your CV tailored if necessary and find a decent recruiter in your field or more than one like me. Remember recruiters work for companies not for you so don't give too much information about yourself away. Remain positive and professional and just keep looking. But yes let the recruiters do the hard work looking for jobs for you.

If you are over qualified and over experienced take those bits off the cv. I had to take off some experience when I wanted to step back years ago, finally got a job when I edited it a bit.

A lot of companies are having recruitment freezes at the moment…

Rockstar games are recruiting, have a look at their website. It may not be quite what you're looking for but would maybe work for now.

It depends on your field. My field is super niche. In my last year of my second degree I had email alerts for all recruitment sites and there were 2 suitable jobs in 8 months across the whole country. I didn't qualify for the 1st as they needed someone who was able to go to the US for 3-4 months starting within the next couple of weeks and I wasn't in that position. I got the second job luckily.
A year later I received a call from a recruiter who had a copy of my CV from after my first degree. It was about 7 years out of date and he said he wouldn't usually call but he wanted to know what I was doing as they had a suitable job and it unusual to find someone with my skills.

Since starting my job I have moved to an even more niche area of an niche area and I think we are one of a few companies globally doing what we do. There's certainly none in the UK doing it. It makes future planning difficult for now. In the longer term once I move up the ladder I could become more of a generalist again with niche experience.

It can be really tough out there with job searches if you have specific experience not just because there's limited jobs but also because some recruiters might assume that actually you would prefer to stay in your little field when its not necessarily the case

IT is a massive field OP you must know that. What are your exact skills? What sort of roles are you looking for? I'm a software/infrastructure engineer.

YABU to put such a provocative title by the way I get you want clicks but whether there are care supermarket or driving instructor jobs has nothing to do with your question. You should make your industry clear in the title.

There is also a women in tech thread on here try asking on that

That's madness. Do you live quite rurally with few opportunities?

Supermarket jobs are always competitive even if minimum wage they have great benefits care not so much. Where I live businesses are reducing opening hours due to a lack of staff.

If you applied for hundreds of roles I'd say it is likely a combination of your CV not being up to scratch and also going for the wrong roles.

Get your CV professionally reviewed. Also, what type of roles are you going for?

@lavendermouse I'm completely amazed that any care home isn't calling you back. Maybe go and see a couple with your CV?

Actually, I have friends in all sectors of the UK who say finding a job is difficult at the mo.

Reading your initial message I get the impression you are applying for jobs as you have the qualifications but do you have enough work experience to go with it?

When I'm shortlisting applications I look less at qualifications (beyond what is needed) and more at job experience. Are you giving enough information about previous roles? Reasons for leaving? Any gaps? Have you job hopped a lot? Is your supporting information full of pratical information or is it filled with cliche buzzwords.

We can spot mass produced, applying for any job, we can tell when you've not read the job spec, or the person spec.

Hope that helps.

My role is actually a product owner, I actually work in this at the moment at a senior level in the supply chain of a large ecommerce store based in Asia.
I am Thai, so I am unsure if this is effecting things. Plus my qualifications are from Thailand (Bachelors) and France (Master) so not sure if this is an issue.
I have right to work in the UK and a long term solid visa and dont need sponsorship at all.
I have contacted some CV reviewing companies today based on this advice :-) thank you so much.

When you say product owner do you mean technology wise you run it? Design it? Can you be more specific?

But that's not what your post is about.
Look, I get it , Job hunting is demoralising and the market isn't great right now. But if you were in an an in-demand field there are still lots of openings. DevOps/Cloud people are still fighting off offers. So I would say that's an issue with your CV.

Unfortunately product and program/ project roles are one of the first to be impacted in recruitment freezes along with senior level roles. We've just had a round of redundancies and senior level is the first to go.

But In IT it has ever been thus. Furthermore your degrees are irrelevant in this field what matters is experience and delivery.

Can you pivot to business development/customer relations roles?

I wouldn't be too hard on yourself. The market IS bad, so if you want to take comfort go ahead but to say the UK has 'no jobs' is quite dramatic. Also why are you working for an Asian e-commerce firm. Are you in Asia right now?

How much of a UK network do you have?

Ive recently been applying for jobs in a similar field (though not exactly). I was finding that for every 10 roles applied for, I would get an interview. And this was after redoing my CV so it was no more than two pages and was looking really good. I think there are no shortage of jobs out there, in fact there are loads! But there must be loads of applicants as well as most applications just get ignored 🤷‍♀️

Are you a Product Manager? I work in IT as an engineer and things seem ok to me recruitment wise. Is your Linkedin profile good an duo to date an ddo you have the 'open to work' checkbox ticked?

Everyone I know in IT that has got jobs recently has done so via LinkedIn or IT recruitment companies who contact them after seeing them on LinkedIn. I think there's something not quite right about your LinkedIn profile or CV format maybe, remember to put lots of relevant keywords in as the initial sifting is all done via AI now. I'm sure you can fix this. Good luck!

The IT/tech sector is very very slow at the moment. It'll pick up though, so don't despair.

I would avoid becoming a teacher at all costs in the current climate.

You have to treat job hunting like a sales job unfortunately. I have only got a job in these 3 ways

1. Applying and following up. Even after rejection, following up and even reaching out to a real person in that company. I once didn’t get the job I applied for but had a great convo with HR and I then got a job with them 3 months later for something more related to my skill set
2. Knowing someone - yes we hate nepotism (I started my career with not even a reference from my family!). I’ve had a few jobs because I’ve known someone or because we’ve worked on something in the past. People that recommend internally often get priority sometimes. Sadly I’ve also recruited people (more so freelance) for the same reason
3. Being headhunted - being approached for a job. Usually it’s because I’ve put myself out there. Doing the odd panel discussion. LinkedIn etc

If you think about it, you are up against friends of, people that follow-up, people with such strong public reputations that they are being head hunted - think social media is a massive public CV. Plus hundreds of applications.

You can do it, just focus and be very intentional with each message that you send.

A lot of IT type jobs are contract/freelance these days. Sign up with an agency for contract work or take a Maternity cover job and start searching around for a permanent position whilst in work. Start going to IT MeetUp type events and networking, you may hear about potential work through word of mouth and they can help keep your skills up to date (e.g. talks about Fintech). Type all derivations of the sort of jobs you are looking for into Indeed or whatever internet job almagamater you use ( e.g. you might need to search data analyst or systems analyst to get IT results). Try niche sites like Wired Sussex jobs.

I used to be on recruitment panels a lot in the NHS for IT/Digital. We used to score the applications against the Person Specification. If you did not mention somewhere all of the essential criteria and you meet them ( or could easily meet them), you would not be shortlisted. If a lot of people had the essential criteria then we would take the top 6 applicants or so, based also on desirable criteria as well.

People marking the applications don't always understand the skills its takes to do a role in another organisation, so you need to be very clear what your skills and experience are, as relevant to the post you are applying for. No point being, for example an excellent programmer for a job in networking etc . Lots of It people don't understand this and have CVs/applications that are full or jargon but don't explain how you are the right person for this particular job. Be clear and succinct, be focussed on how you meet the job spec. Don't go into massive detail about the stuff that is not relevant.

Also remember that people are looking for a good fit for their teams. Show examples of how how you have communicated effectively at lot of levels, have worked well in a team and solved problems, ideally working in collaboration with others, as well as on your own. Don't ever be critical of other teams/ organisations/ or managers, or make it sound like everyone else was useless, as it makes you look like trouble ( it's amazing how often i have seen this hero complex). Organisations prefer people who prevent problems, and recognise others contributions.

Make it easy to read: remember people are ploughing through loads of these. Use plain English - your goal is to be understood and communicate clearly. Simple language is better than flowery text. .Use a clear font, in one size; use underline or bold, not both. Left justify. No pictures, or icons.

good luck!