Looking for a job in 2022

I recently decided to end a five and a half year stint at my employer, and look for a fresh challenge.

It's been a long while since I've been actively looking for employment - in fact, I haven't been without guaranteed work in a few months for about ten years.

It's quite remarkable how dramatically things have changed looking for a job in 2022 versus 2012.

1. Number of opportunities

It's probably an obvious statement, but looking for work in 2012 in a world still recovering from the impact of the 2008 Financial Crash and subsequent recession was challenging. Couple a lack of experience with a dirth in employment opportunities, it felt as though there were hundreds of applicants for every job.

Today, there's a huge number of companies recruiting. There's still plenty of applicants, but the process does feel decidedly less brutal from a sheer numbers perspective than it did back then.

2. Interview styles

The impact of modern working culture has made a huge difference to the interview process. In 2012, most interviews I went to were formulaic: an inquisition into you as a candidate, with you jumping up and down to espouse the value you could add to the business. It very much felt like a one-way street; it was much more akin to a police interview than a job interview.

Today, there seems to be a curious mix. The nu-age and apparently radical concept of having a conversation with a candidate rather than giving them a grilling seems to have taken hold at far more companies. There are still the stiff-necked corporate approaches out there – generally from companies where the hiring manager has been in place for a good number of years – but it's interesting to see far more "traditional" industries adopt a fresher approach such as LinkedIn chats or discussions over coffee before progressing to a more formalised interview.

3. The give-us-all-your-ideas approach

One of the most harmful changes appears to be that businesses are less interested in you as a person and your personality, and more interested in having you do the first three months of your job without pay.

If you're asked to prepare "What you you do – in detail – to improve our marketing in your first three months?" then you should run a mile. The hiring manager wouldn't go to a car dealership, and ask them to lend him a brand new Range Rover for three months, and then decide at the end if he'll start paying for it. It's because it's a ridiculous concept. What you're paying for has value. Hiring managers can see that with a Range Rover, but apparently struggle with a human being.

I do now refuse to answer that question on two grounds:

Ground 1: Any marketer worth their salt knows that in order to improve the status quo, you need to know what the status quo is. In order to do that, you need access to data that is not publically accessible, so anything you do say is a blind guess.

Ground 2: If you want me to improve your marketing, pay for it. I've seen countless cases of candidates outlining 3, 6 and even 12 month plans for marketing improvement and submitting them in writing. The company implement the ideas, and either hire someone else or don't fill the position at all. As a candidate, know your value and your worth.

Now, I'm more than aware that I'm a very different candidate today than I would have been ten years ago. A fresh university graduate with baggy suit is a very different proposition to a more experienced marketing professional with a suit that struggles to keep pace with my apparently ever-expanding waist line. Employers may be more inclined to adopt more casual approaches with more experienced employees.

My question would simply be: why?

The value that could have been gleaned from having a casual conversation with me today is no different than it would have been ten years ago. The antiquated concept that an interview is a test (how much have you "revised" on our company history?) tells you next to nothing about the abilities that a candidate can bring to a role.

Nor should you expect a candidate, now jumping through hoops to pass AI screening assessments, to have an in-depth knowledge of the bowels of your business for a first-round interview. There are so many opportunities out there that candidates are likely scurrying between interviews. You – as a business – are selling yourself to the candidate as much as the candidate is selling themselves to you. That process should be respected, and not being a toxic tug-of-war.

I'm not advocating that candidates should breeze into an interview having barely looked at the name of the business and expect to be taken seriously. You should do your homework. Understand what the business goals are, how they do what they do, and have a top-level understanding of their history and recent developments. But if a candidate didn't know that you won a big contract in 1998 to build a HR system for a now defunct company, the only person the hiring manager is doing a disservice to is themselves by marking them down for this.

The word 'interview' is derived from the French word 'entrevue', meaning roughly "to see each other, visit each other briefly". In other words, it's two way. A discussion. That it became a Dragon's Den-style pitching exercise does no one any favours, other than the egotistical self-importance of the hiring business.

It's brilliant to see that so many businesses have woken up in 2022 to that fact.

Labour is a market, like anything else. You have a value, and as a candidate you should be looking to constantly improve that value by adding skills, qualifications and experience. You do not have a god-given right to any role, and you should work hard to demonstrate why you deserve an opportunity.

However, companies are a market too. For candidates with multiple offers, you are in competition for a candidate that you want. You should be demonstrating why they should want to work for you. Low-balling salary offers, taking their marketing strategies or making promises you have no intention of delivering during the recruitment process are all ploys that will catch up with you. You will not attract the best employees, and you most certainly will not keep them.