Job hunting is like a second job

[Rolson77]

I'm unhappy in my job. Third sector. Redundancies being made. Feel very unstable. Pay increments have just been frozen. I've only been job hunting for 3/4 months and am finding it exhausting. LinkedIn search shows completely irrelevant results when searching and it's disheartening that most jobs have over 100 applicants. I live rurally and there aren't many remote jobs. Half the jobs don't have the pay listed anywhere. Some jobs I start applying then realise the listing is over a year old and they just haven't bothered taking it down.

Anyone else job hunting atm?
Any tips?

Whenever I've needed a new job I've reached out to ex-colleagues to see if they have anything where they are. My industry is quite incestuous though, most of us have worked at the few biggest firms.
Do you know anyone who has the job you want?

I also had one employer feedback that they rejected my application due to them detecting the use of AI in my cover letter despite having never used AI for this purpose. I wrote the whole thing from scratch. Maddening.

I feel for you. Assuming you are in the UK then the job market in third or public sector very sluggish at the moment and pay for third sector seems to be through the floor.

I have no words of wisdom, except you are not alone. I haven't had the AI thing (yet) but have had some odd feedback in the past six months which was less than useful.

If I am really honest I think third and public sector are really struggling to find their feet post-pandemic and within the current economic situation. Sadly I think it will be grim for a while.

You are not alone. There are a bunch of us on the work board who are looking in vain.

It is awful, I agree. I have been hunting for four months, and I have had three offers, none of which would be ideal. The ones I really want, I have usually not even got an interview for. Every application takes hours. Every interview takes hours. On top of domestic labour, normal work, childcare...

@Rolson77 Don't worry about the number of applicants you see on LinkedIn, it includes people who have clicked apply but then didn't. Application numbers are never anywhere close to the numbers that LinkedIn says. You also get loads of terrible people applying for jobs who are completely irrelevant. I think people have to demonstrate they've applied to ensure they keep benefits. In most cases as many as 95% of applicants are irrelevant. I'm not talking about slightly too junior, I mean literally irrelevant with zero skills requested. Legitimate competition for jobs is usually quite low.

Why are you applying for jobs that are not ideal? If you've had 3 offers and they're not right for you and therefore going to turn them down then you've wasted 3 companies' time and money. It's infuriating!

Why not consider a different industry? Private sector is more buoyant, and it is likely that some of your skills are transferable.

The one good thing to come out of the Covid pandemic was a global revolution in flexible and home working. Its such a shame the government and media have spent the last few years trying to put a stop to it. Especially in light of Sunaks big hot air speech about getting the "sick" back to work (for which home working options would be key).
Good luck op.

I would actually focus your search more rather than applying for a lot of vacancies: only apply for the jobs you really want and spend more time on these applications.

As a rule I ignore anything that does not state the salary clearly. It just means the company is either trying to pay as little as possible or there is a culture of secrecy and not wanting existing staff to see how much people are hired on...

I have also crossed off my list any charity that expects you to do in depth organisational strategy presentations at interview stage. That's what I expect to pay me for...not do for free.

Like you I am currently working for a dysfunctional charity that can even gets its act together to get their budget sorted for the year so I am job hunting as well and ideally I want to move to another sector or work as a contractor/freelance so I don't have to deal with one useless charity after another as a permanent employee...

There's a trick to LinkedIn... It USED to have an excellent search function with jobs, but they pissed about the the algorithm, so now as you say, you end up with completely irrelevant search results... I type in biology and I get tech jobs for example.

Put things in quotations "human resources" for example.

It also accepts Boolean searches (NOT, AND, OR)

e.g. "programmer NOT manager"

I tend to prefer to go into google and type in search terms 'biology jobs' for example... or use Google jobs

Don't apply through LinkedIn. By all means use it to search for openings, but always apply direct on the company's website.

I hate them not listing the pay. Dh got offered a job and they went away to speak to head office re pay. Then came back a week later with a standard “You’ve not been successful on this occasion” letter. When he called up they said they couldn’t get near his current salary. Why waste his time interviewing him?

Another vote for working your network. Thus is exactly the time to make use of the people in your network. Not to directly ask for a job but to ask everyone if they can spare you 30mins for an informal chat about how they see their industry now and where you see it going in the future.

Everyone likes to talk about their views. Aim to find away with their opinions plus more contacts.

Diligently talk to all those contacts. Patterns will emerge about the challenges ehich you can use to hone what you would offer the organisation if they offered you a role.

Eventually a good job will emerge. Do this in parallel with a focusEd search for actual toldd.

And just stop applying for roles you would not accept. Thats just wasting everyone's time. All the best.

Get off LinkedIn and get on Indeed.

Yes! And adding to all this is the govt (and many threads on MN) just get a wfh job or something more flexible etc etc.
It is never that easy!

Always check the listing date, sometimes they can be quite old

Yes same experience here - perseverance paid and I took on come professional advice and coaching- luckily I was given some money by the employer to over this. But I found it very useful indeed and helped prep me for getting my CV in order and getting my interview skills freshened up.