Looking for a job has changed quite a bit over the years. I am old enough to remember the old days of going through the help wanted ads in the newspaper. Then as the Internet became more central to American life, various job boards replaced it and one another. Some of the old job boards such as CareerBuilder and Monster are still active, but Indeed seems to have become the dominant one these days. Pardon the pun, but indeed, Indeed is the one I mainly use in my current job search. There are some other sites I eventually will branch out to when I expand my search if the current parameters don't pan out (if they do pan out, then expect this blog to be abandoned, forever I hope, no offense . . . there appears to be no danger of that at the moment though so I may be with you dear readers for a long time), but Indeed has proved to be all I need at the moment. I was using LinkedIn, but I analyzed my job applications and realized that all the responses have come from Indeed applications. I didn't receive a single response from a LinkedIn ad that I responded to, which is odd. I probably applied to 50 or so LinkedIn jobs and didn't receive any response to them. Though it's possible that I'm forgetting one, the general trend is unmistakable. The resumes have been the same, so I am not sure why I get interviews from the one site but nothing from the other. The jobs are in the same parameters, so it's not that I am applying for higher-level jobs on LinkedIn when compared with what I am applying to on Indeed. My guess is that LinkedIn is either monkeying around, wanting candidates to pay or something, or their system is messed up. I know searching for jobs on LinkedIn is a mess. They keep sponsored ads up at the job no matter one seems to sort the search, so it's difficult to tell if a job is newly posted or not, and they just seem to have a messy system in general. I finally had to resort to just looking at jobs posted in the last 24 hours because it was impossible otherwise to filter out enough results to make a search fruitful. The last time I did a job search, LinkedIn was useful. I might have even gotten my last gig through LinkedIn. So maybe something has happened to LinkedIn since then. I know it's not me or my resume. If that were the case, I would be getting similar results from my Indeed applications. So I'm not intending this to be an endorsement of Indeed or to bash LinkedIn per se (though I do dislike LinkedIn enough that if it is "indeed" no longer useful for a job search, then there is no need to be on the platform at all), but it looks like Indeed is the best bet for getting a new gig at the moment. I apparently just need to get better at interviewing, though I suspect ageism is probably the main issue (not much I can do about that though). Historically, if one got an interview, then even an average candidate would get a job out of three interviews. I've interviewed with ten different companies so far and though after learning more about them by going through the process, there were a couple I wouldn't take the job even if offered, no one's offered (though there is always the possibility given how goofy employers are that someone from those interviews will reach out with an offer since I have only received the classic thank you for entering form letter from some of them). Assuming I haven't gotten terrible at interviewing since the last time I did it successfully, something's off and it's not me. It can't be the resume because that's how I get the interviews. Companies have always been crazy, so I expect not to get hired every time, but to never get hired is weird. I was told in one case that I was well-qualified, even overqualified (which is, of course, a polite way of saying you're too old, since if I had a job to fill I'd be stoked to get a candidate with great experience), so I suspect age is the issue, but, you know, it's not like I'm Jerry Nadler and shitting my pants during press conferences. It does make me miss the days from a few years ago when employers all thought the millennials were fuckups and didn't want to hire them, so they were more open to middle-aged people such as myself. Anyway, I have another interview tomorrow. We'll see what company #11 is like. Otherwise, I'll be back combing through Indeed again on Monday. I'll be skipping LinkedIn from here on out.
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