Struggling to find a job? Understand the 4 stages of job-searching and what you should adjust to succeed

Being (unintentionally) unemployed is one of the most frustrating feelings we can experience.

We have one primary objective, but we can’t achieve it. We have a lot of time, but we don’t enjoy it. Our self-esteem hurts, and we keep repeating the same mistakes and blaming our misfortunes for our failures.

At least, that happened to me 10 years ago. If you are experiencing something similar, this article may help you.

My sabbatical year

My first freelance project is successfully ending.

The previous year, I left behind 10 years of working as an employee at big consultancy firms to start my freelancing career. I had said “NO” to the big companies’ low salaries and bureaucracy but also to the comfort of always having a project waiting for me.

I should find my way now. And it’s more challenging than I thought.

It took me 9 months to get a good project. During that time, I could only participate in specific contributions for a few days or weeks. I used to blame the cold market and my bad luck, but I learned I was responsible.

Let me share my insights from that experience.

The 4 stages of getting a job

I ideated different theories while dealing with the frustration of not getting a job. Once I stopped blaming external factors, I broke down the job-searching process into these 4 stages:

1. Applying for the job
2. Being contacted for an interview after the application
3. Going through the interview process
4. Getting and accepting the proposal

These stages demand different skills and deliverables to succeed. As I knew I was doing something wrong, I wanted to identify what and how to improve it. So, I started paying attention to my performance on each one.

Where do you fall short?

The general result was clear: I was not getting a job.

But that didn’t give me any real input on how to improve my job-seeking skills. Analyzing each stage helped me make minor tweaks in the areas I needed the most.

Ask yourself the following questions to understand how you are doing at each stage:

1. If you fail in “Applying for the job,” which means that you don’t find enough jobs to apply for or don’t send enough applications:
   - Are you searching in the right places? Can you be more proactive?
   - Do you have the required skills? Are there particular ones you don’t have and see it is repeatedly requested?
2. You have a low reply ratio when you send your CV. This means that you find and apply for several opportunities, but they don’t call you:
   - Could you adjust your CV to fit each opportunity better?
   - Is your experience adequate for the position you are looking for?
3. You get to the interviews, but they never call you back:
   - What’s your feeling about the meetings? Are you comfortable with how the conversations go?
   - Do you request feedback and follow up with them?
4. The proposal they sent doesn’t match your expectations:
   - Are you asking for compensation according to your expertise?
   - Do you try to negotiate a package?

When I did this assessment, I found ways to improve in the 4 stages.

Changing my mindset was enough to find improvements for all of them. I was extremely passive and realized I needed to be more aggressive to show the companies I could be valuable.

Some examples:

1. I stopped limiting myself only to the positions where I covered 100% of the requirements.
2. I researched the company more and adapted my resume for each application.
3. I identified they usually asked me the same questions. So, I came up with good answers for those, prepared some questions to ask them back, and tried to shift the meeting from an interview into a conversation.
4. I prepared alternatives to negotiate other than the hourly rate. Although I never used them, I had created mixed packages in case they didn’t have enough budget to cover what I wanted.

Your case may be different, and no one is perfect. But we can always improve.

Small changes can make a huge difference. The proof is that I’m not a better consultant now than then, but from that moment on, I’ve never been unemployed for 1 single day in the last 10 years.

Conclusion

The whole process of getting a job is long, and it’s hard to understand what you should improve.

If you are not as successful as you would like, try to divide it into smaller pieces.

This will help you make the correct adjustments and increase your chances of success.

Good look.