The Great Job Hunt of 2022: Ticking Boxes
Originally published on 26 April 2022
Job-hunting is a tedious, sometimes soul-destroying process at the best of times but when you’re trying to change your career path as a generalist, it is even worse. Every job description has certain boxes that you should tick and, in general, you do tick them but at the same time you don’t. There will always come those specific requirements that you just don’t tick and aren’t necessarily necessary for the role but are nice-to-haves. Do you have X? Two to three years of experience in Y? No. Sorry, you don’t meet the requirements.
It is difficult to stay motivated during this process and, to be honest, I have really been struggling even to look for jobs of late. But up popped a very inspiring recommended LinkedIn Learning course yesterday for me to watch called “Getting into the Mind of the Hiring Manager”. In it was the line “Hiring Managers dislike hiring as much as you hate the job search process” and basically you must make their job as easy as possible for them by effectively ticking all their boxes so they can get on with their day jobs. This is a very cynical summary of the video but not far off from what was said.
I have been selectively applying for jobs over the past few months, reading all the CV and resume advice blogs, watching the how-to videos for cover letters, etc. Yet I feel like I am not getting any closer to mastering the art of the job application process. It is in part to do with feeling like I am not ticking all the boxes.
There is the oft-cited statistic that women candidates only apply to jobs if they meet 100% of the qualifications as opposed to men who apply if they think they meet 60% of the qualifications. As Tara Sophia Mohr points out in her article for Harvard Business Review back in 2014, this is not necessarily a confidence issue for women but how we perceive the hiring process to work and our inherent socialisation to follow the rules. The rules, in this case, are that we should meet all the requirements that are listed.
The hiring process has clearly not become more inviting to women since that 2014 article. We still feel the need to tick all the boxes. A recent LinkedIn Gender Insights Report shows that women are 16% less likely to apply to a job after viewing it and apply for 20% fewer jobs stating that “women tend to screen themselves out of the conversation and end up applying to fewer jobs than men”. The report gives a useful hint to employers, “be thoughtful about the number of requirements you list and ask yourselves what’s truly a must-have and what’s merely a nice-to-have” as well as adjust “the language in your job descriptions”. Although I would disagree with LinkedIn’s view on what words are masculine and should be avoided. “Dominate” in a job description would appeal to me, “rock star” not so much just because it isn’t the kind of company culture I would want.
Confidence is certainly not a problem for me but when I do read some of the requirements, I do screen myself out of the conversation. Even though I know that I would be perfectly capable of doing the job, I feel the person (or machine) reading my CV on the other end would screen me out because I do not tick the required boxes.
Moreover, the modern hiring process has become so complicated and complex. I was recently explaining the job application process to my father who is now in his 70s and still working. He said he thinks he’s only ever had to apply for two jobs in his life. Oh, how times have changed. I took him through all the things that are now required. Different CVs for each application, a new cover letter each time, the possibility that on top of submitting your CV you will have to enter all that information again in another form depending on the application plus an additional motivation to the cover letter, and if your CV isn’t applicant tracking system (ATS)-friendly enough then you will have to input everything manually. I still haven’t mastered the art of an ATS-friendly CV. No matter how many articles I have read, it still does not parse correctly because, well, my professional experience and life do not tick the boxes. On one occasion when I was trying to apply for a particular job after my PhD, I couldn’t even put in the application because the online form didn’t have PhD as a qualification on the system.
And that’s the problem, hiring managers often and the ATS always have boxes to tick. If you don’t tick that box then sorry, your CV is thrown out of the pile or system. To be fair, when you have 200-odd applications, I can understand the need for these systems but sometimes systems need to be rethought. Thankfully technology (not the ATS-kind!) might actually be the answer through services like Eightfold’s Enterprise Talent Intelligence Platform and Knack that will allow for screening/matching candidates based on capabilities/potential rather than ticking perceived boxes.
I have taken an unconventional path that does not always tick the boxes of hiring managers and I don’t regret it one bit. I chose the pursuit of knowledge, not a career when I was studying. Perhaps a mistake in some people’s eyes but I think I am personally better for it. My career path so far has taken me to Parliament, the underground of CERN, and dinners with some of the foremost thinkers in the Global South – if not the world. It has taught me about my strength, intellect, and resilience, the power of teamwork, and that, despite my introverted nature I am good with people and at building partnerships professionally.
I am now going to try to stop screening myself out of the conversation and create my own boxes to tick. I thought I had been following Minami Rojas’s advice when she says:
When applying for jobs, focus on three things; the responsibilities of the role, the company or product you’ll be working for, and the team you’ll be working with. If those three things match what you are looking for, apply for the job.
But I have been too bogged down in trying to tick all the other boxes. I am going to start ticking my own boxes in this job hunt now. As well as the above, my specific boxes will include what broader impact I could make, and how the role could add to my professional and personal growth.
Back to the hunt…
Alex the Generalist
