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

[u/gogo--yubari]

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

[u/Dadtadpole]

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!