From emergency to normalcy again
Good news! Last week, I signed an offer for a Staff Quantitative UX Researcher role! I want to voice my heartfelt thanks to the very many readers who reached out with kind words, leads, contacts, and job postings that they came across. With this being the 4th layoff of my career, this was probably the fastest that a bunch of things lined up and I found a good opportunity that worked out. I doubt next time will go nearly as smoothly and I hope it will be a long while before the topic comes up again.
THAT SAID! I still have a bunch of UX teammates that had been let go in the same round of layoffs. So if you know someone who is hiring for UX researchers (quant and qual), data scientists, and designers, continue to let me know and I'll make introductions to a bunch of really amazing folks at the top of their game.
Along with the good news, for the first time in a what must be a decade, I'm completely taking the time between now and my start date early next year off as a sort of long delayed vacation. Thanks to the chaos last year of finding our current home, extensive renovations and construction, and plain lack of bandwidth to plan, I haven't had an honest "all work stops for more than 2 weeks" vacation in a very long time. While I'm definitely going to be engaging in projects and silliness the next 6 weeks, it's going to be 100% my own deranged idea to engage in said silliness.
And so, this is a mini post-mortem of the whole job hunting process and what it's been like in an increasingly tough market.
The resume game is a nightmare right now
I already complained at the start of this journey that my generalist resume doesn't work in the current landscape. Between the modern filtering tech being used, and the fact that there are so many damn applicants to any position that HR staff and hiring managers are mentally exhausted and unable to look at someone and imagine how a set of experiences line up with a potential job description without being shown clear links, it was ridiculously difficult to get anyone to look at my applications. I don't think ANY of the 25?50?100? (no, unlike many data scientists, I did not keep track of every last application) cold applications I sent out got any significant response. If anything I was luckily when I at least got a clear rejection instead of dead silence.
My teammates have had better luck getting at least some responses to their applications, at least, non-zero. Even then they report that the response rate was demoralizingly low.
I had been given some advice by a recruiter that it was much better to put energy into finely tareting and customizing a resume and cover letter to single high-priority job postings than to adopt a spray-and-pray strategy. I think if I took a couple of days to really fine tune a resume to a posting I might've gotten better results.
The times when people referred me into a system, things were a bit better in that I would be more likely to get at least a clear rejection. So even from this alone, having a wide professional network was extremely helpful. Honestly if my resume continues to work this badly for job hunting, I'm gonna need to make a lot lot lot more friends in the coming decade.
Oh, a couple of years ago I wrote a bit about how I approach networking as someone who is neurospicy enough that social interactions are a puzzle that took decades of trial and error. Maybe someone else will find it helpful.
Randy Au
Interviews are about listening
Despite my difficulty getting a resume accepted, I've always known that I had a pretty good success rate if I can get to the full round of interviews. Whether it's hiring manager fit calls, a full round with a whole team, technical screens, I always go in putting the majority of my attention at trying to get an understanding of what the job is, what kinds of challenges are to be expected, and other bits about what kinds of experiences they're looking for in a candidate. As the conversation goes on, I can then pull from my memory various stories and episodes that I hope will show some aspect of myself that can show them who I am.
I'm definitely not saying that I spend my energy trying to figure out what they want to hear and then telling stories to fit that narrative. None of that "my biggest failure is I work too hard" bullshit. It's more like, "oh, you're looking for someone who's worked w/ Eng teams to convince them to do something they didn't want to do? Here's a story about when I did that." If they're looking for technical expertise I've got stories about doing silly things up and down the tech stack. If they're looking for collaboration stories I've worked with so many departments before I can usually think of an example centered on whatever department the interviewer's career is from.
It helps that at my age, I'm extremely comfortable in my own skin and am more than willing to tell things as they are.
Despite all this, I've actually had interviews where I go in excited and maybe ten minutes in, I just know that things weren't going to work out. I have an personal goal where for every interview I'm in, whether I'm giving or taking the interview, I would like for both parties to have an honest laugh about something during the 30-60 minutes we have together. At least if everything goes wrong with the job application, at least I can have a fun time at it. And I clearly remember one interview that essentially bombed on that metric! It was like I was doing a cold open at a comedy show. By the time it was over, it was pretty clear to me that I wasn't going to be on the finalist list for that position, and to be honest it was a relief. I don't think I'd have an easy time with a manager that doesn't at least crack a smile at the occasional snarky joke.
Talking to folks in the same situation helps
Almost all the other times I was forced to job hunt, I did it alone. I had friends and contacts and such, but despite usually being let go with a bunch of other people, we never really got together after it. This time around, the blast affected so many people on my team and adjacent teams at once, it was easily for us to get together online and form a chat group. It sounds like a small thing, but it was extremely helpful to just be safe with a group to do everything from venting to sharing job leads, information, doing resume reviews, and just seeing how other people were doing.
To the extent that you may find yourself in a similar situation in the future, I do highly recommend finding folks to get together with. Loneliness can be a huge problem to deal with, especially when you have to face a seemingly endless stream of rejection. Don't do it alone if you can help it.
I will also say that this was the first layoff I've experienced where I own an adorable cat, and having a cat doze on me on the bad days has made the experience significantly better than previous ones.
Q4 is still a shitty time to find work
End of year holiday season means are significantly fewer people available to give interviews, to do various HR paperwork, to sift through. Companies are planning their hiring budgets for next year and I've had multiple conversations where "headcount will open up in January" had come up. That's just how the cycles of work play out, so I'm very happy I snuck in under the wire on this one. And at the same time, anyone who is looking at work will have to take a breath and try not to get too panicked about delays at the end of the year.
Even if you do find a position, I don't super recommend starting a new job in December if you have a choice. I once joined a company mid/late December after yet another layoff and got invited to the holiday party within my 2nd week or so. The team was welcoming and everything, but I already have trouble remembering people and holding conversations in normal office situations, let alone in a dimly lit event space. So I awkwardly hung around, eating, drinking, and taking photos as I usually do because it gives me an excuse to stay in the background.
I will admit though, the day after the party, I got into a meeting with someone new and they said "Hi! You probably remember me from the sock table." That was because I was taking pictures of the gift table of novelty socks at the event, which said person had drunkenly climbed on top of to pose for a picture. It definitely was memorable, and most of the staff were in their mid/late twenties, myself included.
But if that's not quite your vibe, and you can afford it, take a couple of weeks break.
And so, what's coming up the next few weeks?
I was in the process of working on cutting a gem and needing to level a set of facets by eye, by fractions of a millimeter. It's slow and frustrating because I'm trying very hard not to overshoot and make things worse. It gives me some new appreciation for the accuracy of human vision. At a glance it's possible to notice that the cut is very slightly off even though it really is differences of maybe a tenth of a millimeter or so.
I'm also going to finally install some insulation in the rim joist of the house. That will be a very dusty, messy ordeal.
And finally at the very end of the year, I think the family will go on a much-needed vacation trip. Hopefully I still at least have internet. I wouldn't know what to do with myself without internet...
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About this newsletter
I’m Randy Au, Quantitative UX researcher, former data analyst, and general-purpose data and tech nerd. Counting Stuff is a weekly newsletter about the less-than-sexy aspects of data science, UX research and tech. With some excursions into other fun topics.
All photos/drawings used are taken/created by Randy unless otherwise credited.
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