The Human Job Candidate

Learning Lessons Whether you're starting out in your career, or you're further along on your path, the best takeaway from any role is what you learn from it and how you become a better human as a result.  That doesn't mean that you need added on-the-job training. It's more to say that you can strengthen your résumé—or CV—as well as adding to your experience as you move from one role to another.  Your life shouldn't have to revolve around work, and work-life balance must be the norm. The More You Grow, The More You Know Reflection on your experiences is how you grow and evolve as a human, a friend, as a professional, and in society. In the start of my career, and it has changed over time, I felt willing to do anything to show my value and my worth. I would take on more hours, find ways to be more efficient, be willing to help others in any aspect at work even if it was out of my wheelhouse. As a first-generation child of immigrants who didn't say "no" t

The Case for Remote Work Throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic that the entire world faced as a whole, including the non-believers, the need for companies to continue operations strengthened. Restaurants, coffee shops, salad shops, etc. opted for app delivery services or takeout/takeaway as an option. The healthcare industry had all hands on deck to the detriment of healthcare workers mental and emotional well-being. Office roles gave their teams the option to work from home. In each scenario, members from these aforementioned work environments really took the time to reevaluate and reconsider what it means to have a role that pays well while also catering to their skills set.

The Game Rejection is part of the game, unfortunately. Or, you could be applying to a ghost job , where a company isn't really hiring, but using the job listing as a front to show that "they're doing well".  There could be a computer reading your résumé/CV, that's full of qualifications that made you apply to the role, which doesn't see the right key words to push your résumé forward to the HR department's recruiter.  It could be a spam job listing on LinkedIn from H&R Block, for example, as one specific key word in your search brings up 28 pages of roles that don't even contain your key words from your search.  I promise you, that's a thing! What in my qualifications did not exactly align? Is there a perfect candidate? The elusive "we regret to inform you that we pursued another candidate for the role" is super vague, at best.  Yes, you read the bullet points.  Yes, they matched your qualifications.  Yes, you included a cover letter

Um, a what? Below is an email I received from a hiring lead because they were interested in my résumé. They then wanted a PDF version of my responses uploaded somewhere : Hi candidate, Thank you for your interest in the ___ role at  ___ .  I am the hiring lead for this role.  I have progressed your application based on your CV and yours answers to the application questions.  The hiring process for this role starts with a formal assessment stage consisting of a written interview and tests that you can take at your own pace, followed by a series of interviews, as outlined below: Application - initial resume screening (complete) Assessment - written interview and tests (current stage) Interviews - cross-team, talent and leadership interviews (final stage) This written interview is a prepared statement for interviewers to read in advance of your meeting to cover your interests, priorities, experience and ambition. There is no rush, I will leave your application open a couple weeks to let y