Case study: my job search

They aren’t kidding when they say looking for a job is a full-time job. It’s a business. There’s marketing (applications, a LinkedIn profile, social media posts, referrals), sales (phone screens and interviews), product and engineering (your experience), and finance (your bank account, which gets less patient every month without results).

Framing it that way showed me what my weakness really is: marketing. I’m terrible at it, and I’d never thought about how much it matters.

Where I stood

Here is my marketing health in TRM scores. Each one shows how well the time I spend on a marketing effort turns into a sales lead, meaning an interview.

• Cold applications: -66%
• Cold applications with a custom resume: -86%
• Cold applications with a custom resume and a cover letter: -90%
• Recruiters: +4%
• Referrals: +11%

There are clear winners and clear losers. The time I spent on cover letters and custom resumes is disheartening, even with help from AI.

What to try next

Then I scored some ideas for getting more leads. Here the price is my time (no pun intended).

• Create a new referral by doing something with other people. I just joined the athletic boosters at our daughter’s school, for example: -45%
• Network with people I already know: +18%
• Keep sending cold applications: -22%. It changed because the first idea changes how much time I would be investing.
• Bulk-apply: -37%. Great on time, but it raises risk.
• Write a LinkedIn post: +209%

Are you here because of one of my LinkedIn posts?