it's about 5 months until i move and i've been putting off the job search for this exact reason - i have no confidence in online job postings and my boyfriend's mom is a hiring manager that has said NEVER COLDCALL PEOPLE to us so the messaging is mixed i don't have the sauce to lie to people is part of the issue and the job dance is all lies - i am extremely confident in my ability to learn any job that i might get my hands on but i can't tell somebody oh yah eh i have 15 years experience in the Skeet workspace
Take a balanced approach: cold call places that seem like a good fit, especially if you think they're out of your league. Worst case, they don't respond and nothing has changed; best case, you land an opportunity. Tailor your resume, add a cover letter, and either email the right department or show up in person. This is perhaps too forward of me, but based on your latest post, you're a good communicator who can get your point across clearly. That's quite a skill=-especially if you didn't run it through ChatGPT or other 'polisher.' I don't think you did. Topic aside, it flows too naturally. If you come off like that in person-crisp, purposeful but personable-you definitely should try showing up at a couple of places.so the messaging is mixed
So... ...I'm sure she's a lovely woman. I'm sure she has the best of intentions. I'm sure she has been instrumental in many a storied career. BUT Hiring managers only ever get in the way. Their whole vibe is 'I know better what this company needs than the people who will actually work with this new employee." They serve the letter of the law without having the vaguest clue about the spirit - I have never not seen the selections of a hiring manager as the least interesting or applicable candidates because they're focusing on "job" as "assemblage of forms and onboarding tasks" rather than "person who is going to be spending eight hours a day in a close-knit group of people I rarely interact with performing tasks I know very little about." I'll go one better - If you can avoid working somewhere with a "hiring manager" you will be happier. Frankly find somewhere so small they don't have an HR department at all. The bigger the company the more opportunity to be inhuman to each other in the advancement of pointless metrics.
Wait, in your comment, the “Hiring Manager” is HR?? That’s wild, granted, I’ve only been in two companies but in both places the “Hiring Manager” has been whoever the person being interviewed would be working for??
Not necessarily! they could also be a useless piece-of-shit head hunter! - The first big-boy company I ever worked for (publicly traded) required any department to put together a set of recommendations and a job description. The HR department would then write the job description. Resumes were directed to the HR department, which would meet about who best fit the description. They would then interview suitable candidates. Once you passed HR you were in a pool that the engineering department was allowed to pick from. Note that they did not have ultimate hiring authority. Fortunately for me? I was just a co-op. HR resented me. - The second big-boy company I ever worked for (startup) had one HR person who did all hiring and firing. I'm not entirely sure what their process was but I know I got in big fucking trouble for building a cubicle out of spare parts that was 6sqft bigger than a manager's cubicle (they measured). They then found the money to buy enough cubicle parts to separate my "cubicle" into three 2ft x 6ft carrels. I instead ran a 150' run of CAT5 back to the machine shop and never interacted with anyone ever again. Fortunately for me? They were all impossibly stupid and the only reason I worked there is people from the first company hired me sight unseen, much to the irritation of HR. - I next bypassed HR to interview with a company that was a Boeing contractor. When I made it to the interview I was met by a very angry woman who was clearly testy that she had not had any input into my interviewing. It didn't really matter as when I asked what the attire was I was told "what you are wearing now will do" at which point, NOPE - I then went through proper channels for a job building forklift parts or some shit and was invited to an interview. It was at a headhunter's. They told me nothing about the job, but I did have to take a filing and typing test (the job I was promised required a mechanical engineering degree and five years' experience with mechanical design). I did eventually get to go interview at the actual job - it was shit and they probably knew I thought so and the only reason I would have taken it was for the money, which I desperately needed as all Boeing engineers were on strike. The headhunter proceeded to email me job offers for receptionists for the next four years because - surprise! I type quickly. - I then bypassed HR for a job as an acoustical and audiovisual consultant. The receptionist - who had been dragooned into being "HR" for purposes of this job, was extremely salty but I got the job. I ended up lending the receptionist an aquarium which she covered in tea lights and set fire to, burning her whole damn apartment complex down, while we were at her house party. - I then bypassed HR for a job as an acoustical and audiovisual consultant. I got it through a rep, which means no hiring process was involved, which made HR salty. When I got laid off she immediately tried to friend me on Facebook and LinkedIn to make sure I wasn't talking smack about her company. I haven't had to work for a real company except through proxy since 2007. I never will again. I'm sure things have changed. But the paradigm? the archetype? The model all The Olds are clinging to? Is "hiring manager" is this appendage of HR who probably has a social work degree, a long string of useless acronyms that mean nothing to anyone and a distinct lack of understanding of the nuts and bolts of how the actual work is done. The last two jobs? I got to see the resumes they put together. And oh holy fuck.