The truth about finding a job

It is acceptable to tell success stories, but very few people dare to tell painful stories of rejection, despair, and failure. I saw only 3 posts on LinkedIn from Ukrainian women who shared openly the uncomfortable truth - they cannot find a job. Living in Germany for me the fact of unfair and challenging experiences to find a job as an immigrant or a refugee is vivid; especially for women. I know a lot of Ukrainian women who were in top positions in Ukrainian and international companies in Ukraine and they cannot find a job abroad, they do not even have interviews. 

The job market in Germany is harsh and competitive; but, for example, in the USA or Canada, it’s even worse.

Several times during my interviews I asked recruiters how many applicants they have for a position to understand my chances, and the answers shocked me: one Berlin startup had 500 applicants; a famous German pharma company had more than 1000 applicants. 

While my social media and Ukrainian friends thought how lucky I was to find a job so quickly - “today I quit, tomorrow I had a new job”- the story is very different. 

Here is a statistic:

• Spent 1 year on a job search minus 4 months which I spent with my mom during her last months.

• Made more than 1000 applications!!! (not 100).

• Spent thousands of hours rewriting my CV and cover letter, and more importantly uploading all my documents and answering all the questions for almost every application.

• A lot of companies never answered me.

• The majority of companies that answered wrote my “favorite” letter: “After careful consideration, we regret to inform you….”

• Had first-round interviews with 25 companies. 

• Had final interviews (fourth-round) with 3 companies.

• Received 1 job offer. 

During the year of searching was a lot of despair, fear, dissatisfaction, and despondency; but on the other side, a lot of optimism to attain my goal, study more, work on my behaviour and mindset, learn to accept failure like a new opportunity for growth. It was a difficult and dual period of diving deeply into my authenticity. 

Some observations:

• The majority of big corporations have AI for the first screening. Remember one thing on the job market a candidate will never be able to overcome AI if this candidate does not have a typical background. 

• Some companies are already using AI for phone call interviews. I did not have such an experience, but I know the person who did.

• Some very young recruiters were fully detached from what I answered and bombarded me with questions restricting me from answering in a very short time. 

• Some companies did not even reply after the first meeting. 

• When a lot of companies declare that they want authentic and talented employees, they lie to themselves. They are frightened of different authentic people because they can crash their system and mindset. Telling about creativity and authenticity, they still are searching for comfort, the same way, the same people, and stick to the status quo. 

During all of those processes of searching a job, there were also a lot of amazing recruiters and other representatives from HR who behaved like human beings with empathy, compassion, and were able to deeply listen to my answers being fully present and engaged. I am very thankful for those people and that experience. 

But I would like to tell some words to others….I am sure I am alone in this desire, I just dare to share….

• A candidate spends a lot of time applying for the job; find your time to answer the application. That's about being polite. 

• If you are using AI for screening try at least program it not to send this weird letter “After careful consideration we regret to inform you…” 5 minutes after a candidate applied at 1 am from Saturday to Sunday. That's about showing that you care and really read the application.

• Rewrite the letter “After careful consideration….”, be more human and creative. Put your time and effort as well as the candidate did.

• Do not play unfair games. I had interviews with two companies that had already closed the position internally but they needed to make everything official to show that the inner candidate was better than the outer. Of course, they did not tell me this fact, but I am not naive.

• Using AI for screening helps a lot at your job, and that’s great, but you're in a big trap of employing the same people with similar backgrounds and ideas. 

Let's use AI smartly, do not give all the power to it, otherwise there will not be any creativity anymore and we will be caught in a dystopian-utopian world with the same people thinking the same thoughts, doing the same deeds…. We are the creators, AI is only a tool….

With this post I would like to support and encourage Ukrainian women trying to find a job abroad, as well as all women immigrants and refugees who are struggling to find a job; and all local women who are still struggling to find a job. Believe me, all of you are smart, intelligent, and creative who deserve the best work in the world; and most importantly, everything is OK with you, the problem is with this crazy world….not with you….

All the interviews I had, were only because my CV was screened by a human being, and not AI. Remember one thing on the job market a candidate will never be able to overcome AI if this candidate does not have a typical background. 

Last but not least, during my final interview when I received a job offer I was authentically myself, not pretending to be someone else, not trying to impress, not using buzz words.

Just I am who I am!