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I'm thrilled to share I'm starting a new job after a few months of searching. It's been wild! My industry (healthcare IT) has shifted to mostly remote or hybrid/in-office over the last few years. While that's been great for increasing the size of the candidate pool for employers and available positions for a job seeker, there's a lot of disparity in pay depending on where the employer is based, which also means a lot of competition. There are more LCOL areas than HCOL areas, and I'm not getting any younger. There are lots of young/eager candidates willing to work for less.
This was incredibly eye-opening as never before have I had such a selection of open positions to chase from so many different employers nationwide.
Looking back, I put in more than 25 targeted applications (direct experience in the role/industry). Of those 25 applications, I'd say about 20 elicited some kind of positive response - a discussion about salary expectations, or a phone screen, interview. A good handful wanted to talk salary as the first thing, which I think serves everyone well. Not surprisingly, employers in LCOL's had a low top-end and that resulted in a few short conversations; thank you, we are way too far apart. The others had already hired their candidate or there was simply no response, i.e. it was a required posting of the position for someone internal they had already planned to hire.
Other positions outside of industry I applied for - I was 100% iced. Ouch. The only response I got from those, if anything, was the auto-generated rejection email.
Most interviews were done via Zoom or Microsoft Teams, with video. I became an expert at producing candidate-Barbie for those talks, complete with staged office background, interview outfit, pre-planned elevator speeches. It was exhausting!
A few weeks ago I became very frustrated. I had received a few low offers at that point, and was considering taking one of them as I had felt the market had spoken. I had clearly set my sights too high and/or being unemployed causes employers to punch low on salary. It was almost demoralizing. My fans kept telling me to keep my chin up, hold out, and they were right. Something good came along, and it worked out.
I've so enjoyed my time off and wish it could go on forever. But, it's time to get back to work...!
This was incredibly eye-opening as never before have I had such a selection of open positions to chase from so many different employers nationwide.
Looking back, I put in more than 25 targeted applications (direct experience in the role/industry). Of those 25 applications, I'd say about 20 elicited some kind of positive response - a discussion about salary expectations, or a phone screen, interview. A good handful wanted to talk salary as the first thing, which I think serves everyone well. Not surprisingly, employers in LCOL's had a low top-end and that resulted in a few short conversations; thank you, we are way too far apart. The others had already hired their candidate or there was simply no response, i.e. it was a required posting of the position for someone internal they had already planned to hire.
Other positions outside of industry I applied for - I was 100% iced. Ouch. The only response I got from those, if anything, was the auto-generated rejection email.
Most interviews were done via Zoom or Microsoft Teams, with video. I became an expert at producing candidate-Barbie for those talks, complete with staged office background, interview outfit, pre-planned elevator speeches. It was exhausting!
A few weeks ago I became very frustrated. I had received a few low offers at that point, and was considering taking one of them as I had felt the market had spoken. I had clearly set my sights too high and/or being unemployed causes employers to punch low on salary. It was almost demoralizing. My fans kept telling me to keep my chin up, hold out, and they were right. Something good came along, and it worked out.
I've so enjoyed my time off and wish it could go on forever. But, it's time to get back to work...!
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