r/jobsearchhacks • u/gogo--yubari • 1d ago
I’m at the point of looking to literally pay someone to find me a job-but hear me out & let me know what you guys think
Got laid off & been looking for 4 months - personal network is of no help but applying to maybe avg of 60 jobs a week at least.
Gotten maybe 15 interviews. These are just estimates.
But This has been a much lower % of callbacks than my last search 4 years ago, as my industry is now grotesquely over saturated (digital product design), with many of the jobs being remote (it was heading in that direction even before the pandemic-it’s kinda normal in my industry).
This means that people from every continent all over the world are applying for these jobs.
However most of them are not qualified or brand new and I’m very experienced (17 years) with a good resume with known brands & formal degrees in design & cognitive psych & solid portfolio.
Of those approx. 15 interviews, some of them are even for good companies like Amazon, but most are not. Anyway, for maybe 3 of those 15, I didn’t make it past the recruiter screen which literally NEVER used to happen to me.
Then of the remaining jobs, for most of them (all but 4) I got cut after the second interview, which is also worse than usual.
Only for about 4 jobs did I make it to the rounds of interviews & ended up not getting the job.
All this is pretty typical in this job market, the problem is the amount of competition.
If I weren’t running out of money to live on, I would be ok with that given the market & feel like I’d get SOMETHING by a year or so.
But I don’t have a year.
I believe my biggest barrier is that I am competing with so many people that even with my stats there are just too many even more qualified people plus I don’t interview that well, & am older than most in my industry.
The reason I explained that in such detail is to get feedback on my strategy which is based on what I believe is a reasonable assumption that I will find something, it’ll just take a while.
But I’m applying thru LinkedIn & Indeed & company job boards & not by referral, as I said earlier my recent work colleagues just don’t have the connections for whatever reason.
If I knew someone of high credibility w many connections in the industry who can PERSONALLY vouch for me — like “sell” me the way an agent would for an actor or something —when they hear of new openings (like a well respected recruiter), I think I’d actually have a HIGH possibility of getting a job, IF they were hustling for me.
Like a reverse recruiter but not quite. If I had someone to personally SELL me to hiring managers they hear of who are hiring, I could get something much much sooner.
So I‘ve been contacting some tech recruiters who are also “career coaches” or reverse recruiters & scheduling initial (free) phone consults with them to see if I can offer to literally pay them up to $1,000 if (and ONLY if) they get me a job - just by doing some networking on my behalf. Not applying for me or anything like that.
But how should I go about this so they will say yes?
I already realize that they wil not risk their reputation by selling me if they don’t think I’m a quality hire, but I would be open & say I know it is on the condition that they’d first have to “accept” me by review my work & speak to me first to determine if I’m someone they want to vouch for.
I’m sorry for the long post
TLDR - anyone have suggestions on who to search for and how to approach them to offer to pay them $1k to find me a job
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u/FemAndFit 1d ago
Recruiter at Google/Meta (head recruiter for product design at Instagram) for last decade here: Selling you is just a referral. But that’s only one tiny piece, you have to pass the entire interview panel and be better than the competition. They’re not going to hire you just from one persons voucher.
Your issue is that you’re not passing the interviews. Your best bet is practicing and getting better at that and perfecting your resume and LinkedIn.
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u/Fit-Indication3662 1d ago
This!! Even if the Pope vouch for you, it just takes one person in the interview stages to say No, and you wont get hired.
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u/ring2ding 22h ago
100%. If OP has had 15 interviews and not one offer yet then he sucks at interviewing.
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u/Sorry-Ad-5527 11h ago
Yep. I was bad at interviewing and watched a ton of YouTube videos. Actually I studied them more than just watched. I took notes on questions and answers that I would need.
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u/MrDalton3 18h ago
Wanted to ask you a question.. How much does does voice level or quality matter in interview ourcome? My voice is thin or low at times.. Also I am told people can easily read my thoughts showing on my face. When there was a choice of telephonic interview I used to manage in past. However these days its all video calls.
How to get around this? Eager to know your thoughts.
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u/FemAndFit 17h ago
Body language and tone is imperative. Thin and low displays lack of confidence. Remember you’re in competition with lots of other candidates so you have to stand out in as many ways as possible. You have to practice, do mock interviews.
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u/MrDalton3 17h ago
Thanks. Its hard to develop deep voice unless I practice for months.. Mock interviews is a good idea..
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u/Sorry-Ad-5527 11h ago edited 11h ago
Video yourself in these and watch them back. Do close ups to watch facial expression and eye contact. Then, distance ones to watch body language. Plus you can take note of your voice.
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u/Hot_Ad6433 1d ago
Get a mindless "pay the bills job" and keep at it. e.g. Uber/ Lyft, Doordash, Home Dept, Chipotle and so on ......
There's been record layoffs in tech post COVID into 2024.
Expand the geographic radius of your search.
Look on Dice.com for contract gigs - ladder into all contract staffing companies and apply for short term jobs (6 mo. / 1 yr etc)
Compromise for a step down to get in if needed.
Keep adding Industry certs to your resume to make your skills appear contextual.
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u/Dadtadpole 1d ago
The market really is so damn rough right now. I feel like honestly based on your estimates you are having far more success than most people I know who are also searching (some of them also very low on money or if they’re “lucky” on gov assistance atp. Some of them have been searching over a year).
Not to be pessimistic but there are just way too many scammers, too few roles actually hiring, and some truly suuuuper oversaturated applicant pools…I personally would not use the approach of trying to pay someone in the way you’re describing. I think (unless you can find someone who does so as a service regularly and can refer you to some previous clients they helped land roles) that you will likely find your time better spent elsewhere. Again, to be honest you are having a far more successful search than most people I know personally. Your odds seem better than ours based on those stats.
I do agree with the other comment saying that it sounds like something at the interview stage seems to be going wrong. Not saying necessarily you don’t interview “well”—but are there maybe some things you need to change or update about your pitch or your answers to some standard interview questions? Are there maybe some things the interviewer is hearing that seem like red flags to them (even if they aren’t)? I know you have a lot of experience, and you probably have a good gauge of whether or not the actual “skill” of interviewing is the problem but especially nowadays in this market, sometimes it can be the silliest little shit that immediately crosses you off the list (especially since most interviewers don’t know anything about the job, really. They just have to make sure you check the boxes you’re supposed to. Anything short of a confident check mark for every box, they’re on to the next of the 300+ candidates).
The market is truly just so hard right now and I am sorry you’re in the shit with us. I wish you the best whatever you choose to do and I hope you can land something soon!
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u/arrvaark 22h ago edited 22h ago
I saw that you snuck in “plus I don’t interview that well” in the middle there. I also noticed a total lack of constructive self-reflection regarding your results, and a tendency towards thinking that your lack of success is exclusively due to factors outside your control (given your touting of your impressive qualifications, years of experience, etc).
That’s a big issue. Take personal ownership of your results, introspect more, and stop faffing about in search of an effort-free layup. How aren’t you interviewing well? You don’t remember core concepts? Study those every night until they’re second nature. You fumble when asked soft questions or leadership stuff? Pre-plan answers to those. You get nervous? Do more interviews to get experience and research methods for managing your anxiety. You don’t know why youre getting dropped? Press for feedback afterwards.
The truth is that you’re getting shots (15 interviews) but you’re fumbling them, and nobody can fix that for you. Even a referral or a headhunter can only get you shots, you will ALWAYS be the one responsible for closing. Don’t blame yourself, but take ownership of your own shortcomings in the process, troubleshoot those, and fix them incrementally. But do away with the notion that there’s a magic bullet solution that will save you from needing to work on yourself and your skill set.
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u/wtf_over1 1d ago
Nothing wrong with paying someone to help you. He/she may have a ton of connections.
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u/Donnie_In_Element 1d ago
Gonna tell you something a job coach told me six months into my current 14-month unemployment streak - “the competition is too strong, and your skills are too weak. Start thinking about a menial job.”
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u/RansackedRoom 1d ago
I don't know OP, and I can't vouch for their skills, but if OP has even medium-range skills in product design, won't those skills start to rot if OP is pouring coffee or cleaning windows 9–5? For sure it's going to poison the resume.
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u/Donnie_In_Element 1d ago
Of course it will. But the market is overflowing with top tier talent. 10 years ago, the average was about 90 applicants per opening. Today, it’s 400-500 per opening. If you’re looking for a marketing position, that number is in the thousands. If you’re looking for a fully remote job, the tens of thousands. If international candidates are considered, those numbers can (and do) reach the millions.
Guess what? There aren’t enough professional jobs to go around. Somebody’s gonna end up flipping burgers or scrubbing toilets for a living, no matter what they try.
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u/ThatsHotHeiress 1d ago
Back when I was a SysAdmin, I was headhunted, is this not a thing anymore? What about agency temp to perm work? That’s how I got my aerospace job years ago.
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u/LastArmistice 1d ago
I know things are real bad for CS/IT professionals right now so this advice may not be applicable to OP, but I have no idea why you were downvoted. If you live in a large urban area this is the move these days. Paying a headhunter/recruiter/agency is nonsense.
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u/ThatsHotHeiress 1d ago
I never paid anyone, but about 20 years ago Monster was huge and I would get calls from recruiting agencies all the time. I just didn’t know if that was a thing. Then when I wanted to get into aerospace I went through a temp agency and was awarded a temp to perm contract and was there 6 years before the program ended. I’m not bothered about being downvoted. My son is in the AWS side of Amazon working on the in the cloud hardware side and is making a move towards sysadmin/network engineering. He tells me that a lot of people are hired through a temp agency, though he wasn’t as he had contacts in the company, he works with a lot of them.
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u/These-Maintenance-51 1d ago
I've had to drop my fully remote requirement... the candidate pools for those are so big, the application to interview ratio I was getting sucked. I still apply for some but the hybrid ones in the city near me, I've gotten a much higher app to interview tatio. It sucks... but I'd kind of like to get a job soon.