Feel like you’re constantly being gaslighted while job hunting?
Here’s why + tips for boosting success, and staying sane!
Job searching in 2024 feels… weird, right? Organizations seem to have a complete lack of confidence in hiring, and they’re making jobseekers hold the tension, and stress that creates. To be honest, interviewing has always felt like a pain in the ass, but I repeatedly hear of the new weird experiences folks are having.
Ideas straight up being stolen
This always feels like a gut punch. After interview #14 in the process, they ask you to complete a beefy project. You eventually receive a rejection, then see weeks later that all your wonderful ideas were extracted and implemented by that organization. Seriously, they’d need to get me set up on Bill.com immediately, because my invoice would already be en route.
Offer stage bait and switch
After interview #27, you’re finally at offer stage (whoop whoop)! But the good vibes don’t last, because the offer is for a title and salary lower than advertised, and way closer to where you were in your career 5 years ago. What in the Catfish? I’m calling Nev.
Interview purgatory
After going 57 interviews deep into the process, you now look (and feel) like Saito towards the end of the movie Inception. You realize you’ve been interviewing for nearly 9 months, the job post has just been refreshed, and you wonder if this organization even really wants to fill this position! Is time just a construct? Do I really exist? All valid questions. Then you get an email from the company saying they’ve decided not to recruit the role at all. WTF?
I jest, but as a People Leader myself, hearing about these experiences hurts my spirit. It feels like we’re in an awkward middle phase for consumer startups.
With the onset of a stagnant economy, things have lurched towards risk mitigation. Investors are nervous, and more ventures employ conventional HR teams who typically amplify the mood of leaders, rather than challenge them - and the mood of the day is caution.
That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but these factors do discourage bold decision-making, and encourage The Goldilocks Effect - where everything has to be just right. The end result = an increase in inert hiring processes, where executing as human a candidate experience as possible falls way down the list of priorities.
My tips for job hunters
If you’re inclined towards firing off multiple cold applications, do your thing (I shared some tips here that might be helpful). But cut yourself some slack and, try not to neurotically obsess about each application. Things are moving slower than before for 1 million different reasons, none of which are about you. You can only influence so much.
Cultivate your village, or join communities that resonate. Most opportunities flow organically by communal osmosis. Pour the energy and effort into people enfranchised in supporting you, and who you would support too. This truly is needed now more than ever.
My tips for recruiters and hiring managers
Turn the dial down slightly on burdening talent with exhaustive (oppressive) interview processes. Turn up the bass a little on encouraging and enfranchising leaders to trust the result of good processes, and make a decision. The biggest opportunity cost for startups can sometimes be inaction.
Be a little less Goldilocks - it’s pretty tough to entice anyone with the offer of the same comp, seniority, remit, company stage, and challenge as where they currently work. Folks who can deliver the highest potential output usually need to engage with new challenges just beyond their comfort zone to deliver a new peak of performance. I think we’ve forgotten this a little. Revive your intuition and be prepared to speculate a little more.
BU Community Wins
Exciting times ahead for BU member, Ina Herlihy - she’s the founder of AddGlow, and recently announced their pre-seed round!
Alex Fine revealed that Dame Products have acquired Emojibator. An amazing move announced by another friend of BU.
BU founding member Maura McInerney-Rowley just launched her Hello, Mortal newsletter. Check it out here!
We hosted another IRL Black Unicorn Sessions event, this time in NYC. We had a fireside chat between BU members Jennifer Lewis and Lily Olsberg, before a delicious intimate dinner among peers!
Jobs
We have nearly 500 live job postings in the BU Job Board, all within consumer. Make sure to bookmark the link, and make it your first port of call to see which jobs are out there. Pay it forward and share the link with people you know who are looking for something new (especially people who are in between jobs), or folks who might just want to stay on top of what's being posted out there.
Check out our Featured Jobs, and reach out if you’d like an intro for any of them! New additions here include:
Director of Engineering at Lex. 🌈
Until next time!
Cheers,
JT