Job Interview Series: Data from a 2022 Job Hunt
I guess this isn’t technically part of the job interview horror story series, but it’s close enough.
Hurrah! My job hunt is over. Everyone knows job hunting is stressful and emotional and requires a lot of perseverance. It often is a solo journey. Job hunting and interviewing is a high-stakes process. It’s becoming more of a negotiation as the tides change and workers are demanding more of their worth. Still, for most people, the employers hold more of the power. (For example, I saw one marketing role for a chemical company where the candidate needed a chemistry degree but marketing work experience. Anyone with both of those qualifications clearly has the power).
Plus, in the fourth quarter of 2022 when this job hunt took place, the United States has experienced both massive inflation and in the corporate world, Crunchbase reports 91,000 tech industry layoffs in 2022. I had plenty of talented competition that was also actively looking while companies conducted hiring freezes as a way to make it through the economic uncertainty. Really excellent timing there.
So, for anyone who is on their own job hunt or just curious, I wanted to share my data. Maybe it’ll make someone feel better about the progress of their own job hunt by knowing they are not alone. I’m not an expert and I don’t know if there are even benchmarks on this sort of thing, so I’m putting my numbers out there just as a minuscule data point of reference.
I tracked all of the information just because it tickles my brain and encouraged me to keep going. A friend of mine found it amusing how much I track, so I thought I’d share it beyond my Google Sheet.
The Job Hunt Background
Here are some quick background pieces of info to set the stage for this job hunt:
This job hunt took almost exactly 2 months – I applied between October 9, 2022 and December 8, 2022. (I accepted a position in mid December but start in the new year).
I applied to mostly content marketing roles with a few in internal communications and marketing operations.
I mostly applied to roles requiring 4-7 years of experience, usually with manager or senior manager titles. Some involved people management, but most did not.
I almost always applied to jobs the first or second day of the job listing being available.
If LinkedIn showed more than 100 applicants I didn’t bother applying.
Application Status Data
Here is the breakdown of application status, as of December 27, 2022. Some of these numbers might change as companies might send official “no thanks” emails later. (I’ve already updated this blog post twice with a few straggler emails that came in in the past week so I will probably not update this if it happens again. Forgive me.)
Jobs applied to: 180
Automatically declined/rejected with no interview: 55
Already filled: 6
Invited to interview: 16
No response: 103
Here are the percentages:
Automatically declined/rejected with no interview: 30.56%
Already filled: 3.33%
Invited to interview: 8.89%
No response: 57.22%
I even have a visualization for you!
The thing I found most interesting is that nearly six out of every 10 job applications had absolutely no followup. Most that I applied to used either Greenhouse, Lever, or LinkedIn Easy Apply as application tracking systems. So, these messages can be automated if a candidate doesn’t get selected for an interview. Clearly 55 of the companies figured out how to set that up.
Bonus data point: for some of the jobs, I got a notification that the company looked at my application. For 10 of the jobs in the “no response” category I got some kind of notification that they viewed the application but they did not take any action to contact me. I’m sure there were more than just those 10 that reviewed my application but it really gets me thinking – how many jobs, or what percentage, does a job seeker apply to and no one reviews the application at all?
I totally get recruiters are inundated with tons of applications (often over 200!) for each role, and of those applicants there are probably dozens of equally talented people who could successfully perform the job – more than they could even invite for a phone screening round. I don’t mean this as a slight to recruiters at all. It’s just something to think about and consider especially in extended job hunts. If I went too long without being invited for an interview and making progress toward an offer, I started to feel the futility from thoughts like, “no one is going to look at this application anyway” creep in.
Job Boards Used
I didn’t do this for the first few jobs I applied to, but I mostly tracked the job boards in which I found the job listing.
Linkedin: 105
Indeed: 29
Hiredlol: 17
Glassdoor: 5
Craigslist: 3
Listings Project: 1
Here are the percentages:
Linkedin: 63.25%
Indeed: 17.47%
Hiredlol: 10.24%
Glassdoor: 3.01%
Craigslist: 1.81%
Listings Project: 0.60%
Oh look, another pie chart:
LinkedIn was the clear winner here. I spent most of my time on this platform because I have built out my LinkedIn profile with information, publications, assessments, and of course my network. I also redeemed my free trial of LinkedIn Premium so I could see how I stacked up to the competition. I don’t think that did much because I didn’t notice an uptick in interview requests. I mostly saw that I was in the “top 25% of applicants” because I had a senior title and bachelor’s degree. Sometimes it was a little ego boost, I guess.
Response Times for Rejection / Interview Decline
Let’s dig in to how long it took companies to send the automatic email saying they would not be inviting me to interview. This is a sample size of 55 jobs.
For all the jobs in my sample it took an average of 9.9 business days to get a “no thanks” email. The fastest was one company who rejected me the day after applying and the longest was a whopping 40 business days.
I also broke it down further – the average time to “no thanks” email for jobs I applied to in October was 11.9 days and 5.56 days for jobs I applied to in November. If I remove the top outlier for each month (40 days in October and 29 days in November), the average time goes down to 8.08 business days for all jobs.
For some of the longer response times I’m not sure if the company is just slow, or if they keep some applicants on the back burner if the current candidates in the process don’t work out. Maybe they implemented hiring freezes and not backfilling open roles. At least they are clearing out their backlog of candidates before the end of the year for their own housekeeping sake.
Response Times for an Interview Invitation
Next, I looked at how long it took me to hear back from the companies that did want to extend an interview. It took an average of 7.94 business days from the time I submitted my application to when I first heard from the recruiter. The shortest was one same-day message and the longest time frame was 22 business days. That means with weekends it would often be like two or three weeks from when I submitted the application!
Interestingly, there was one Friday where three of those 16 companies all reached out to me for a first round interview. That was a fantastic day texting my dad “another one!!!” not once, but twice, and really kept me going.
To Follow Up or Not Follow Up
In my entry level job hunts for part time and my first full time job, I remember working really hard to follow up on my application. Even though it was less than 10 years ago, so few companies to which I applied used comprehensive recruiting systems. Often the application would just be to email your resume to the human resources team member, and you knew there was a good chance he or she would just never see the email because it was buried in their inbox. My mom and other online sources said it showed eagerness for the role.
But this time around, I was applying to a lot of smaller companies that often did not even have a general email to use to contact them – just a contact form.
In my job hunting research, some career coaches recommended connecting with people on LinkedIn to try to increase the chances your application gets seen and considered. So, for nine jobs on this hunt I took that route, connecting with whom I estimated were relevant folks, sending messages stating something along the lines of “I applied for the _____ job in the marketing department and I’m really excited about the opportunity; wanted to connect to chat about the role.”
One of these nine was a former colleague but the other eight were strangers; one I had a mutual connection with a former colleague.
None of the nine responded to my messages, and I wasn’t invited to interview at any of the companies. Three of the nine sent an email declining to interview. So, this following up did not end up resulting in any progress toward a role.
Of course, none of these people owe me their time - I don’t mean to sound bitter or entitled. I’m merely commenting on my experience and reflecting that the advice to follow up may no longer be useful. Going forward (not that I want to job hunt again literally ever), if I know someone personally at the company to which I am applying, I would definitely send a message. But, that time I spent trying to forge new connections did not pan out.
Ghosting After Interviewing
Something I think we can all agree on: it sucks to get ghosted after interviewing with a company. With all the discourse on LinkedIn about job hunting professionalism, I thought we had moved past this. Not so.
For two companies, I had an initial call or Zoom with them and never heard back. Ironically, one of them is a company that is supposed to make job hunting an easier process, so the fact that as an employer they failed to stay in touch with their candidates was embarrassing. (I mean, I am still getting their marketing emails because I tested out the software. I will be unsubscribing).
Another company I made it to the final round interview and they simply never got back in touch with me with an offer or rejection. They had told me by which date they were going to let me know, and it was a reasonable amount of time. It’s now been two and a half weeks since that date.
I might be asking for too much for every company to use an ATS that can automatically send out a “no thanks” email for applications they do not want to proceed with. You can call me old fashioned, but I still have the expectation that if a candidate takes half and hour or more to speak with an employer (and for me, a decent of prep work beforehand on understanding the industry, role, and company) and the employer decides not to move forward with the candidate, they need to send a polite notice of that. Especially for a final round interview because we spoke multiple times and, by request, I put together a comprehensive deep dive into two pieces from my portfolio.
I’m not entitled to anyone’s job or time, but professionalism leaves a great impression. Your rejected candidates have options for the companies in which they patronize or recommend their other job seeking friends consider.
That’s a Wrap
So what’s next for me? You’ll have to stay tuned, but I’m very excited about my new role and organization. It’s a place that aligns with my personal interests and I can envision myself there for a long time. Let’s hope I don’t have another one of these job hunt data breakdowns on the blog for a long time to come (unless if someone else wants me to share theirs!)