I’m sure this must sound stupid for many, but I never get any responses, until like 3 days later when I check my spam folder and realize my scheduled interview appointment came from some random server that got deleted as spam mail.
How the hell do people get jobs online? I’ve only ever landed a job in person.
I never get any responses, until like 3 days later when I check my spam folder and realize my scheduled interview appointment came from some random server that got deleted as spam mail.
It sucks, but this is kinda on you. Spam filters are pretty terrible at what they do. And with everyone and their dog adding “AI” to their security tools, it’s only getting worse. There is a fuckton of spam being sent to email addresses all the time. And the spammers are doing their level best to make that spam look more and more like legitimate emails. So, the terrible spam filters and crappy AI are hard pressed to filter out all the crap and not catch legitimate emails. And this problem with false positives is one of the reasons a lot of spam still sneaks through, most of the filters tend to err towards false negatives over false positives. Still, false positives will happen. If you are expecting an important email, you’re going to need to dive into the cesspit which is your spam folder regularly and make sure that email didn’t end up there.
As for the issues around job hunting, ya that whole process can suck. Depending on your skillset, experience and job criteria, the pool can get pretty small pretty fast. And online job hunting means that companies are getting hundreds of resumes for postings. On top of that, companies have stopped training and don’t do anything to build internal talent pipelines. So, if you are earlier in your career, you get stuck in a loop of not having experience, so no one will hire you to get experience. It just sucks and I don’t have an answer for you, only to keep plugging away and understand it’s a numbers game. Eventually the dice will come up for you, but that “eventually” can really, really suck.
People seem to not understand that it takes persistence. We’re no longer in the days where you apply and people call back. Every and any job in the past 16 years since I’ve been working jobs, has been because I was persistent. You have to nag back. Call them throughout the week. E-mail when you can. Just keep up the momentum.
You can’t just sit there and pretend you’re the only one applying for the job. Thousands and thousands of people are all after jobs just as you are and it is a competition.
On that note, you’ve got to make sure you resume looks good and comprehensible. You gotta list off things as whatever skills you have. As a last resort, lie what you can lie about and make it believable. Just don’t lie about education, though, anybody can see through that.
I wasted 4 months of my life trying exactly that to apply for Lowe’s. I not only called twice a week, I also drove there and back, twice a week, 12 miles there and 12 back.
So, looking past my wasted time on the phone, 24 miles twice a week is 48 miles a week. For about 4 months.
48 miles * 16 weeks ≈ 768 miles of wasted travel, just to nag them and try as so many others have suggested to just be persistent.
It didn’t get me any fucking where. Fuck, it cost me more to try nagging them than if I would have just sat on my ass.
Do you like, not know that there’s other places to apply to? Maybe your resume wasn’t attractive. Again, you are competing against people whose resumes and experience could outweigh yours. It isn’t just you that could be applying.
The last time I sent a resumé in, it was on indeed.
My resumé reflected my history of electronics repair.
AT&T contacted me. I don’t know fuckall about cellular services, and my previous employers made fucking sure I never learned, by compartmentalizing.
I was the soldering technician that can solder wires about the thickness of a human hair and reball nVidia GPU chips. WTF does that have anything to do with cellular services?
Alot of them use software to automatically screen people out, specific keywords.
I do believe you misread my post in some way.
It’s not that the company I applied to rejected me, quite the opposite actually. They sent me an email for a scheduled interview, but Google decided to automatically toss that email right in the spam folder.
I didn’t figure that out until like 3 days after the appointment when I got a bug up my ass to actually check my spam email folder.
How the fuck did I have an opportunity to at least get an interview, yet Google basically decided to throw it in the
trashspam folder?
In-person interviews are not a thing anymore since the pandemic, from what I’ve seen. LinkedIn is the place to go. Recruiters will schedule a call and they’ll usually remind you an email is on the way.
I don’t want to work. I want to take a year off. Yet, I got a job interview and I’m not even looking.
Do you have any tips? All I ever get are Indian IT companies that want to offer training attached to a 19% payback.
Yeah it’s mostly Indian recruiters. Just hear them out when they contact you. They actually need people. When I apply for vacancies, I got nothing. Never heard about paypacks schemes or anything.
I’m normally not very lucky. Maybe it helps to look like you’re not that interested?
I don’t know. I’ve been applying for jobs for seven years online, and I haven’t gotten a fucking thing.
I have 30, 20, 15, and 10 years of experience in the four major career fields I pursue, and I can never, not once not ever, get even a reply back, let alone an explanation as to why I wouldn’t fit the role.
Might be your resume, or even that you have too much experience. Some employers are looking for desperate low level experience in some cases
I mean how many jobs have you applied to online? I think about 1 in 100 applications leading to an interview is around standard, although some people will get lucky.
Also the reason we don’t explain why you didn’t get the job is because given hundreds of applications, that would take hours to do (I personally only look at a resume for 10+ seconds anyways) and we don’t want to open ourselves to legal retaliation
lol, wow
I know right?
Some say “If you don’t have a job, your only job is to get a job”
Others say “Time is money”
Well, if I waste my time filing 100 applications, why ain’t I getting paid for my time filing applications?
Filing applications isn’t a job, it’s a chore, and one that doesn’t even pay, unless it’s that 1 out of 100 or whatever when you actually do land a job.
Have you had anyone take a look at your resume? When was the last time you reviewed it? Is it at least somewhat visually appealing? How long is it?
Unfortunately, it may be a good idea to “customize” each submission by incorporating keywords from the actual listing into your resume.
I’m not the one to give advice on this, really, but I’ve heard of people having a lot of success with networking and reaching out directly to recruiters/managers/ect.
I used reddit for resume advice, and they critique it, r resume I believe. But make sure to be specific in your request otherwise you might get all over the place answers. But it will be hard if your resume is lacking experience.
I feel like networking is done mostly in person and tech mostly used LinkedIn
Honestly, my resumé does need a bit of a refresher, but I also think it would start looking more like a scattered mess after 2017.
I used to work in computer, tablet and cell phone repair, for a lousy fucking $10 an hour though. So I got sick of that and basically quit when I started getting side opportunities to occasionally fix hotel door locks for $20 an hour, but that was randomly sporadic.
These days, I get by with whatever odd jobs come up, which range from occasional vehicle repairs to helping elderly disabled people get on and off the toilet.
But I’ll be damned if I’m about to go back into fixing $500 devices for a lousy $10 an hour, when one single accidental slip of a soldering iron might cost me an entire week’s pay.
I’d rather sharpen lawnmower blades or some shit than gamble with fixing expensive ass devices that I’d never even use myself.
Just start fixing devices yourself. Make a professional looking ad and do it at home. Advertise on your local facebook groups. Just be upfront about not having a shop yet. Buy broken devices and fix/resell them. Offer electronics recycling and get stuff for free that you can resell/scrap for money. If you need help with ebay I can write up a guide. I’ve been selling for 20 years.
Been there, tried that.
I tend to get about three different categories of devices that I refuse to work on.
-
Please help me unlock this
stolendevice… -
Please fix my 72 inch TV, my kids broke it. Never worth it to even attempt to replace large screens like that, it costs more than the device is even worth.
-
Please fix my (insert product name here). Oh fuck, parts cost money, well nevermind…
Offer to buy or recycle #3.
#2 parts like control boards and power supplies are worth money on ebay.
#1 maybe crimestoppers money. See if you can get the serial number and check with the device manufacturer or the cops.
Wait, you mean when I actually did track down exactly where a stolen computer came from, and spent an hour or so with the cops, you mean I could have actually gotten paid?
Fuck, I had to wait on my boss to go on vacation before I even reported that shit (wasn’t the boss that stole it, but he requested me to unlock it for the thief customer).
You can always use it as goodwill for your business. Take a selfie with the cops and make a facebook post like “Another stolen phone recovered thanks to the local pd!” People eat that shit up and it gives you some legitimacy and clout, maybe even a piece in the newspaper about how you just like helping the community.
I’d be shot in the head in less than 4 hours here.
-
Wait wait, offer electronics recycling?
Fuck, I’ve been pushing for that for like 20 years around my area, that’s like impossible. Nobody takes that shit, I can’t even get anyone onboard with salvaging the gold from boards, and I gotta keep the scrap mercury safe from other idiots that would just as soon toss it in the landfill.
There’s places you can mail just the valuable boards and take scrap steel and copper to the metal recycler. Don’t take tv’s or smoke detectors. Sell good parts on ebay.
Define what is considered a valuable board.
Around my area, if I happened to show someone any device, even if it was originally worth $5000 in working condition, they wouldn’t even give me $5 for it if I even fixed it.
They’ll just turn around and brag about the latest shit they bought off of Amazon or something. Nobody gives a fuck around here anymore, electronics are like candy to these dumbfucks anymore.
Where the occasional money is at around here is if someone’s vehicle breaks down and they need someone to replace their starter or alternator or brakes or something.
It’s not a lot, but it’s another revenue stream to consider.
https://www.scrapmonster.com/scrap-yard/price/electronics-scrap/4
You can also tell people you’ll recycle it for them and actually just fix it yourself if they’re not going fix it anyway.
I sell a lot of vintage electronics like vcr’s, tape decks even a laser disc player for $300 one time. I have a whole package of random belts for the tape decks, which are easy to replace. I also do a lot of car parts as well as other random items. If you have a source for those hotel lock parts that are getting thrown away anyway then look uo how much they sell for. (Search ebay and filter by sold)
I’d love to get back into fixing vintage electronics, but I don’t really know anyone that’s interested in buying anything more than 3 days old.
The only people I do know into vintage electronics are more or less anonymous friends that have a garage or storage shed full of the shit and not interested in any more.
Fuck, I found a totally working buisness class video projector that had an original MSRP of almost $16,000, yet I couldn’t sell it to anyone for even a mere $50, they apparently have a policy around here to refuse video projectors, working or not.
I agree with this advice of having someone take a look at your resume. Way back, I had an older friend of mine with experience managing CV’s help me work on mine and even the base template of my cover letters. I’ve done a number of interviews, mostly unsuccessful though I’m happy with where I’m at now, and one consistent thing I’ve heard is that I have an impressive resume, and I’m forever thankful to my friend for helping me put it together.
I don’t quite agree on customizing your CV for every submission, but I do do this for my cover letter/correspondence.
Also, yes, reaching out directly to places you want to work with has worked for me a couple of times. If there are hiring/networking events for your field, even online ones, I’d recommend that too. Best success I’ve had landing interviews is through these kind of events and I’ve only done online ones.
Unfortunately, it may be a good idea to “customize” each submission by incorporating keywords from the actual listing into your resume.
This is usually a bad idea, since quantity > quality for most people trying to get a professional job. But I do agree with the rest of your comment
Idk how you even get a job these days without connections or an online app
Have someone that’s working in the field you’re applying for take a look at your resume and cover letters.
My wife works for the govt so their resumes have a distinctly long look and formatting to them. I’ve bothered my wife plenty of times with a friend’s resume and she has sent people my way.
It’s a terrible system but since it’s a shitty numbers game you might as well stack whatever you can in your favor
- I report any email that is spam as spam, so my inbox is quite clean and I don’t miss anything
- I applied to ~600 positions, averaging about 100 positions an hour. You just have to be faster with the application process; don’t customize your resume, don’t read the job description, just apply
LinkedIn has Easy Apply or Quick Apply, I forget the name. The shotgun approach is best and I relied heavily on quantity over quality. Why write a cover letter for a job when I can apply to 10 others without that requirement?
This is the correct way to do it. Even when I was hiring, I much preferred opening Quick Apply positions. I don’t want to waste your time either (and I sure as hell am not reading cover letters)
This is oddly comforting. So many websites and opinion articles push the idea of painstakingly tailoring a resume, then hunting down the listing on the website and re-filling in that same resume twice.
On top of that they make you feel like you’re the problem when that doesn’t work and you’ve wasted three hours of your time to maybe get rejected six weeks later.
Thank you for being honest. This will save a lot of time and stress going forward. /gen
Depends on the type of job. In my industry you’d be lucky to find more than 10 job openings in the whole country per month. You bet you want to tailor the everything out of the resume and cover letters.
For basic jobs like retail, you can apply with AI written slop and nobody will notice. All they need to know is your availability.
My problem with that is that Google has a fucking mind all its own and will automatically file whatever the hell it feels like as spam, and I have no clue how to change those options, especially when I have no idea what server to expect an interview schedule email to even come from.
