Job hunter mental health
Enough time has passed since my last job hunt that I can publish my thoughts to maybe help others, and definitely to talk to hiring managers and job platforms. And with LLM creeping into both sides, I’m hearing that it’s only getting tougher.
I don’t know if LinkedIn thinks it’s being helpful with the weekly update emails, listing 5 of the jobs I applied for a week ago and showing me only 1 was reviewed by the recruiter. And I know that the recruiter didn’t get back to me. I know there’s barrel–loads of spam on both sides of the job hunt, but I’m not sure a reminder of what a haystack we’re in is all that helpful.
With my manager hat on, whilst I always value openness and transparency, there are ways of presenting information which support and respect their mental health, and ways that don’t. And plenty of job seekers will be feeling vulnerable, rightly so, and reinforcing the learned helplessness that no one is even paying attention is really not going to help anyone.
There’s a few other posts going around about male suicide, especially concerning financial pressures. I don’t believe this is a mindful addition to LinkedIn.
I had a Trello board when I was job hunting, and the long list of “applied for” and the longer list of “waited more than 2 weeks/ghosted” were on the hidden end of the board. I should have set up an automatic move from the former to the latter so the only time I looked at them was when I got a response.
I can attest that a “thanks but no thanks” response is better than no response, even if the response was:
We have decided not to go forward for one of the following reasons:
- This position is now closed to new applicants
- Your CV didn’t contain the words “10 years experience shouting Abracadabra at hippos”
- This job description only exists to give our current employees false hope that their workload will be reduced
- Our AI has determined that you are a cat
With the “AI will take your job”, “inflation is still rising faster than wages”, “you’ll never afford to retire” stories, it’s a very tough market for job hunters. So recruiters, especially those feeling the pinch themselves, need to demonstrate more human compassion to job hunters. Not “hey, remember these people who aren’t thinking about you”, not a helpful “the green banner is Kryptonite to us recruiter superheroes”, just “this is tough, and the best we can give you is the truth, and a clean break”.
Let’s not make it tougher than it already is.
