The Reality of Job Hunting Today: Insights and Tips for Administrative Professionals
This wasn’t the post I intended on writing this week, but given all that I am currently seeing on LinkedIn, the fact that I know quite a few people who were recently laid off, as well as the fact that I recently secured a new role, it seemed fitting.
First of all, if you have recently gone through a layoff, I am sorry. It is one of the worst feelings in the world. I was laid off twice in the span of 5 months back in 2018, and it hurt. Please know that your value is not defined by your employment status, and it is not your fault that your role has been eliminated due to restructures or budget cuts. In many of the cases of layoffs, those in leadership are simply needing to meet a bottom line, and, for whatever reason, the elimination of your role is what they believe will help get them there.
I don’t think anyone could argue that the job market isn’t horrible right now, because it is. Layoffs are seemingly being announced daily from sectors and industries across the board, and while it may seem like there is a plethora of job postings on LinkedIn, Indeed, or other similar websites, there is actually an alarming rise in fake job postings. According to Forbes Magazine, “There are questionable practices that employers, human resources and talent acquisition, hiring managers and recruiters deploy that may not be in the best interests of job seekers, including posting fake jobs, ghosting candidates, pulling a bait-and-switch, lowballing offers and other questionable tactics.” (Footnote 1) A recent survey done by resumebuilder.com revealed that 3 out of 10 companies currently have a fake job posting listed, and the main reasons they did so were to boost revenue, morale, and productivity in order to alleviate employee workload concerns and suggest company growth. (Footnote 2) How disheartening for job seekers!
To make matters even more difficult, administrative professional roles have been consistently consolidated or even eliminated over the past few years. During my time at Biola University, the number of administrative professional roles in my division were consolidated from five down to one, and now there are none due to my departure. In her new book “The Modern-Day Assistant: Build Your Influence and Boost Your Potential”, Lucy Brazier discusses how there was a seismic shift in the profession in 2008 due to the recession, and that many administrative professionals were asked to temporarily take on additional responsibilities, specifically the ones that middle management did. She states “There is nothing more permanent than temporary, so 87 percent of assistants are still organizing events, 53 percent are handling HR, and many of you are doing finance, social media, and marketing”. (Footnote 3) So the jobs are disappearing and/or being consolidated, and then fake job postings, both from real companies and from scammers, are becoming more prevalent. With all of these factors coming into play, I am consistently seeing posts/stories of administrative professionals who are unemployed for 6 months or more. The longest I had seen was a gal post that she had been unemployed for 15 months and had applied for almost 1,300 roles. This is all so sad to see.
Because I recently walked through a successful job search, I want to share about my experience, both my successes and failures, in hopes that it can be encouraging to some of you who are in the midst of searching. I was actively in a job search from November 2023-March 2024, and my qualifications included:
An Associates Degree and two Bachelors Degrees, currently in progress on a Masters Degree.
Professional Administrative Certification of Excellence
8 years of experience as an administrative professional, 6 of which were considered senior level (supporting Business Owner, Associate Vice Presidents, and a Vice President)
Advisory Board Member for the American Society of Administrative Professionals
Multiple years of experience in customer service working at Disneyland
History of long tenure at jobs: the two jobs that were shorter than 5.5 years were due to company bankruptcy and a layoff.
With all of those things, you would think that my candidacy would be pretty marketable. However, that wasn’t necessarily the case.
Over those five months, I applied to well over 300 jobs. The majority of them either ghosted me, or I was auto-rejected within a few hours.
I got first round interviews from 18 companies. Of those 18, four communicated that they were not moving forward with me, nine ghosted me, and I got five second round interviews.
Of those five, two rejected me, one took me through five rounds of interviews before rejecting me, and I received two offers.
You may look at those numbers and think, wow, why was she ghosted or auto-rejected from so many jobs? Well, for the first few weeks of my job search, I was making some mistakes which, although it is embarrassing, I am sharing what I did wrong in hopes that you won’t do the same.
I submitted about 30 applications with incorrect employment dates for one of my past roles listed on my resume.
I used an eye-catching template on Canva for my resume, which, unbeknownst to me, was not allowing the application programs to properly read my resume.
I wasn’t updating my resume to properly match the information for each job I was applying to.
I was not looking into the companies that I was applying for, and was simply mass applying using the “Apply Now” button on LinkedIn.
I wasn’t drafting cover letters unless they were required.
Based on the journey I went on and the mistakes I made and learned from, as well as my experience in being on the hiring side of the table, here is my advice to you:
Build a Baseline Resume and Cover Letter Template
First and foremost, don’t use a program like Canva for your resume, because it becomes difficult for various computer systems to read it. The way it was explained to me is that it is likely being looked at by computer programs as an image in the PDF rather than an actual document. Instead, use something like Google Docs or Microsoft Word. Using a program such as this also gives you the ability to utilize the Header or Footer formatting to ensure that your name and contact information are included on every single page! You never know when someone is going to print out your resume/cover letter and not staple the pages together.
Don’t rush the application process by submitting the same resume to every job posting. Instead, you will want to create your baseline resume template that will be tailored for each role. List everything you can think of to highlight your areas of responsibility and “wins” for each role you’ve held, including as many metrics as possible. It doesn’t matter if you have 10-20 bullet points under each role, or if this baseline resume is 5 pages long: this is simply the foundation for the work that you will do during each individual application process. Then, when you prepare to apply for a job, you will make a copy of your resume template, and begin paring it down from there. More on that later!
Unless the job posting states that you must include one, or it is a known standard for the industry you are applying into, do not voluntarily add a photo of yourself to your resume! All you are doing is taking away the hiring manager’s opportunity to not introduce their implicit bias into the equation. There was a time at a previous organization where we were receiving dozens of applications for a single open role. I screened them all before presenting them to my supervisor, removing those that I knew were going to be rejected due to them not meeting multiple minimum requirements. My executive picked up a resume that included a photo and said, “Awww, they look like a really nice person, they have a kind smile…but wait, that isn’t what I should be focusing on, is it?”. Suddenly an bias has been introduced before even looking at the individual’s merits and accomplishments. While in this situation is was positive (they look like a nice person), think of all the situations in which it could be a negative, such as age, gender, or race/ethnicity. Will hiring managers look you up on LinkedIn after checking your resume? Yes, more than likely. However, let you resume speak for itself before those implicit biases get added into the equation!
Next, create a basic baseline cover letter template. Include a couple of thoughts, such as what is it that you want a potential employer to know about you, and what makes you passionate about being an administrative professional? Make sure that you have it formatted properly to match your resume. This template is likely going to be quite short, as a cover letter really covers three main areas:
Highlighting your relevant experience and skills to explain why you are a strong candidate for the position.
Providing specific examples of your achievements and how they relate to the job, using quantifiable results when possible.
Demonstrating your knowledge of the company and how your goals align with its mission and values.
This is information that you can’t necessarily put in until you see the individual job posting, but that is okay! This template will be used as a starting point to add in the information about why you are interested in each organization and role, but having your baseline template to start that process off with will make it easier.
Know Your Criteria, Find a Job Opening, and Check for Legitimacy
So now that we have our baseline resume and cover letter templates, it’s time to start looking for jobs! It is important that you know what your personal job search criteria are in three buckets: “non-negotiables”, “negotiables”, and “don’t matters” . For example, as I embarked on my search, a non-negotiable was a salary above a certain level, a negotiable was my commute distance being longer than 30 minutes, and a don’t matter was in-office vs. hybrid vs. remote. These criterias are going to be very different for everyone, so take some time to make yourself a list in those three categories, and then start looking for jobs that align with your criteria.
Start your job search with some reputable job boards, such as LinkedIn, Indeed, and Robert Half. Narrow your search parameters to the exact title, location, and salary you are looking for. Begin perusing through, and see if the criterias you have in your non-negotiables align with any job openings in your area. Keep in mind that some geographical locations and industries have much lower salaries than others…the base salary in Los Angeles or New York City is going to be much different than in Helena, Montana. Based on the results you are getting, you may need to determine if there are any criterias that were originally in the non-negotiable category that you need to move to negotiable.
Please remember: if it looks/sounds too good to be true, it more than likely is. Some pretty common scams are telling an applicant that they have gotten the job without any interviews or conversations, being asked to send money to purchase equipment, interviewers who won’t speak to you either on the phone or over a video call, or being told that it is a base rate + commission role and they will withhold the commission for various reasons. If something seems sketchy and you simply aren’t sure if it’s legitimate or a scam, then please post the situation in a safe public forum, such as the State of the Executive Assistant group on Facebook, and get some perspective from other administrative professionals.
When you find a job opening that looks promising, take a few minutes to verify the validity of both the posting and the company. Look up their company website, check to see if they have a “Careers” section. Do they have the same job openings listed there as on LinkedIn/Indeed? If so, always err towards applying on the main website! Look them up via Google. Can Google Maps confirm the validity of their office location(s)? What do their reviews/ratings look like? When you search their company on LinkedIn, do any current employees show up? Do those employees match what is on their website? Does the company have a social media presence? How long have their accounts been around? What do the comments look like? Finally, look at their company values. Ask yourself if they align with yours.
If everything seems legit, and the role seems to align with your criterias, then it’s time to apply!
Carefully apply for the Job Opening
It is important for your resume to match what the hiring manager is looking for. You may want to highlight a process that you innovated on your resume, but the job posting says that they are looking for someone who has planned departmental events, which you also did. You need to make sure that you are highlighting the experiences you have had that align with what the hiring manager is looking for. Make a copy of your baseline resume/cover letter templates, and rename the copy to include the company name. I personally like something such as this, which includes the applicant’s name, the word resume, the company name, position title, and application date:
Katie_Hendrickson_Resume_ABC_Company_Executive_Assistant_07_23_24.
Another option is that you can simply save it as “Katie Hendrickson Resume”, but create a folder in your Google Drive or Microsoft Now that you have a copy of your template, it’s time to edit the resume down to no more than 1 page per 5 years of experience, ensuring that it showcases exactly how you and your experience aligns with the job posting! And of course, DO NOT LIE ON YOUR RESUME!
Then, create a copy of your baseline template and begin to edit it based on the job opening and organization. In the salutation, don’t put “To Whom it May Concern”, as that comes off as too vague and a bit unprofessional. If you are able to find out who the hiring manager is, address the cover letter to them by name. If you aren’t able to, then address is to “Dear (Department) Hiring Manager)” or even just “Dear Hiring Manager”. As you update your letter, integrate in specific information about the role, the company, the industry, and why you will be a good fit for it. Highlight a specific sentence from the job posting that stood out to you and explain why it stood out to you.
When in doubt, ask ChatGPT! What I got into the habit of doing was copying the entire job posting into ChatGPT, and then my baseline resume, and asking it what it thinks I should highlight. However, when using AI, do NOT simply copy and paste the entire message back into your resume or cover letter. Work through the output, determine what advice makes sense and what doesn’t, and then ensure that you word it to sound like yourself. There are also some paid tools, such as jobscan.co, that can help you with this process. Just remember that AI should be a tool, not a replacement.
Once everything seems good on the personalized resume and cover letter…don’t just submit it! Read through your resume and cover letter one final time out loud. This forces you to slow down and ensure that your brain isn’t filling in missing words, and that your grammar naturally flows. Double check your dates (learn from my mistake), ensure that the formatting looks good, and then you are ready to apply! As aforementioned, if at all possible, apply on the company’s website, not through a job board. After you submit the application, be sure to save the resume and cover letter you submitted in a dedicated folder either on your computer or in a cloud storage drive (such as Google Drive). That way, when you hear back from the hiring manager, you will be able to reference exactly what was submitted.
Conclusion
While this isn’t a surefire way to get hired on your first application (which I genuinely hope and pray happens for each of you), it is a process to set yourself up to have the best chance possible by ensuring that your application aligns with the job posting. Unfortunately, given the climate of the job market at this time, there will still be lots of rejection. However, with a more focused job search, knowing what your non-negotiables are, and being vigilant about avoiding scams, your chances will be much better!
What has your job search experience been? What advice do you have for job seekers? What ideas do you have about the changes needed in the hiring market? Join the conversation by dropping a comment below!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2024/02/13/if-you-thought-the-job-search-was-rigged-against-you-heres-why-youre-not-wrong/
https://www.resumebuilder.com/3-in-10-companies-currently-have-fake-job-posting-listed/
Brazier, Lucy. The Modern-Day Assistant: Build Your Influence and Boost Your Potential. Kogan Page Limited, 2023. Pg 7.
