Aftermath of the tech layoffs: How to land job interviews

The recent round of tech layoffs has affected a lot of people. There is the emotional stress of being abruptly laid off, coupled with an unfavorable job market. A lot of them have reached out to me recently for help and advice. While the macro economic head winds are real and painful, I see three common errors that one can replace with actions that are more helpful. 

Candidates believe that they are at the far end of a long series of hurdles that they need to overcome before they reach the job interview that they deserve. They commonly employ three strategies.

• Keyword stuffing: Candidates try to trick the scanner bots by jamming in as many keywords as possible. The potential employer is left wondering what – and how much – is actually true. Of course, every one of the ~884 candidates used the same trick. 
• Generic and long resume: This applies more to foreign candidates. They believe a 10 page resume in Ariel font size 10 is the best way for the potential employer to appreciate the value that the candidate brings.
• Spraying the resume: The candidates feel they need to apply for as many positions as quickly as possible. They apply to anything and everything remotely matching their skillsets; and why not – applying for a job on linkedin takes approximately 3 clicks. 

The combination of these tactics is a generic resume. It has something for everyone and gets sent to everyone. It does not work because we are expecting the potential employer to do the emotional labor of finding your suitability for the job. 

Before I suggest the alternatives, I would highly encourage the book “What color is your parachute”. I have gifted this book to several of my mentees and friends. I personally found it very useful back in my 20s as I was looking for a job.

The core idea of this book is that if you want to get hired, think like an employer. I would go a step further. Do the emotional labor on behalf of your employer. Here are three alternatives to the above mentioned behaviors.

• Network: I do not mean it as a social activity. Sending linkedin invites does not take any effort. Networking means developing peer relations. It takes time. Share something of value with your network. A network of trusted fellow colleagues will cut the SEO process far better than keyword stuffing.
• Demonstrate: The resume is an A4-sized visiting card. Adding a cover letter does the emotional labor of matching your resume to the role the candidate is applying for. If one has a tech resume, your github repository is worth more than a thousand words. Link the reddit or stackoverflow contributions that you have made.
• Homework: We all work at the intersection of tech and something else. For e.g. I am a cloud architect working with media companies. While the tech sector is laying off, the media sector continues to hire. If you are the candidate, identify the prospective industries, size and roles .

The internet has removed the friction in the application process. However, the employers have raised artificial barriers to cope with the resulting deluge of resumes. The way out is to treat the employers like humans, not an AI model.