Lessons for those on the job hunt

Looking at the situation around us right now in tech, a lot of us are job hunting. And in that hunt, we are discovering an uncomfortable reality: the process is more difficult than ever. ATS systems lead to auto-rejections, ghost listings are rampant, and if you are looking for remote work, you are facing fierce competition. Honestly, you are facing fierce competition even when the role is hybrid or in-office.

Here are some of the lessons I have taken away from it.

Talk in outcomes

You know how experienced you are and how much you delivered to your previous employers. A potential employer does not. They need to want to buy what you are selling. Frame your experience around outcomes, and do it relentlessly. If you created user-facing documentation, do not just mention that it helped deflect support tickets. Be specific. Tell them how many tickets you were deflecting per month and what impact that had on the company’s bottom line. Go through your resume line by line and make sure each project is tied to a measurable result.

Get really good at telling your story

I will be the first to admit it. This one is daunting. As Technical Writers, we have a deep aversion to redundancy. Preventing it is a huge part of the work, after all. And yet here we are, in a process where constant repetition is the norm. “Tell me about your experience.” “Why did you leave your last employer?” “What do you enjoy about Technical Writing?” You will answer variations of these questions over and over again. So get good at two things: telling the story well, and calibrating the length. They need enough context to want to invest in you, but not so much that you are filling the entire time slot. Practice with a friend or a career coach.

Be authentic

You have probably heard this one before, and you might want to roll your eyes at it. But if you are not bringing your authentic self to each interview, your potential employer will sense it. Eight hours a day, five days a week. That is the commitment on the table, and they want a sense of who you are before making it. It goes both ways, too.

I have been in interviews where I could have given a sterile, direct response. But that is not really me. I am a little witty, I have a dry sense of humor, and I have enough experience in this field that I can humorously empathize with the problems employers bring up. So I would answer with some personality, and often we would laugh or commiserate together. Knowing you can genuinely get along with the person on the other end of that call matters more than people let on.

Most importantly, remember you are valuable

The job market is rough right now. Do not let that make you forget your worth. The number of rejections you are collecting says nothing about the value you bring. If the process is starting to chip away at you, it is okay to step back for a few days and recenter. What is happening in tech right now has nothing to do with you personally. Do not let this process erode your sense of self-worth.