I've had a couple of conversations with job seekers recently where their common sense has contradicted their professional knowledge. It's so easy to do when there's such a huge volume of information out there that seems to paint a picture. Such as the recently redistributed ragebait about a hiring manager rejected by his own ATS for having the wrong keyword - from a burner account on reddit which has since been banned. It matters not that this story is patently anti-fact, because now its out in the wild. It's the kind of 'insight' job seekers start to believe, such as these two. One a senior HR practitioner who was instantly rejected alongside a shortlist, all presented by an agency. The assumption being it must be AI - though I believe it's more likely someone clicked a mass-reject button at the other end, based on my research of ATS use. I'd love to look inside that black box to see what actually happened, to hear what ATS they used, to look at the track record of hiring decisions from the employer, because anything else is assumption. The second was more pernicious. A Talent Acquisition Manager, those who legend say deploy AI to mass reject candidates. He and his team had their roles made redundant. They all had significant experience implementing, configuring and managing ATSs. All were starting to believe the auto-rejection narrative, despite actually knowing how they work. These are both examples of mental heuristics - rules of thumb - where we try to fathom complex problems with the minimum of energy. Understandable given how draining a job search is. Yet, here's the rub, the longer a job search, the more likely you are to believe apocryphal nonsense - because of the continuous ragebait exposure favoured by social media, and an unfathomable job search. It's where what feels like common sense, yet you must push against it, because counterintuition, and the courage of your first convictions, might be your best tool in your job search tool kit. The truth remains more grim than automation designed to reduce adminsitrative burden - human decision making vs too high a volume of candidates, many of whom use AI to optimise their search. The same humans corrupted by overwork, cynicism, corporate solipsism, naivety, laziness, poor capability or simply a system stacked against them. 24 - Counterintuitive Here's a common journey many people take when a job search that proves tougher than expected: steps that might actually move you further away from your goal and make you part of the problem. Career grief Pick yourself up and decide this could actually be an opportunity for a new start Update CV with most recent job Hit the job boards and contact agencies Pleasant surprise that there’s more out there than you thought Apply, apply, apply Many of these jobs prove: closed, fake, ghosts, scams Not getting much traction, agencies aren’t replying Maybe you’re being too picky Widen the net: more senior, less senior, different industries, roles that use transferable skills Realise you need to customise, but that’s becoming really hard with the volume you’re applying to. ChatGPT? How else can you automate? With all these applications, there must be a reason I’m not getting through. What’s this about the ATS? Is AI really blocking me? The worst-case scenario here are those upsetting posts we read about people applying to 2,000 jobs and not even getting an interview. I expect many people will read these posts and worry they are on the same path. Some may even defer to that possibly Einstein quote, “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome is the definition of madness.” And as a result they stop applying to jobs and try other measures instead. A TV analogy to illustrate your job search If you were selling a £300 TV who would you sell it to? Possibly too ambiguous a question. First-hand, second-hand? What features does it have? Who should be the buyers for this type of £300 product? Is there any point targeting people who want £1,000 TVs? What about £10,000? What about people who want £300 monitors, not TVs? It’s impossible to know without starting out on the right strategy: Define the product Research the market of ideal customers Set the right price point Sell where the customers will buy from But if things aren’t going well, you shouldn’t simply broaden your horizons and increase your sales approach across demographics that will never buy from you. Instead, you re-evaluate these first principles to make sure you have the right product, for the right people, at the right price point, sold in the right places, with the right message. So, yes there is iteration to do, but it’s your input that needs changing first to generate the output. You shouldn’t only change the steps you take. You might know your TV works perfectly well as a monitor, indeed better, because of its specs. However, if you're marketing a monitor to TV buyers, how well will that go? The problem here is one of definition. Who is your product actually for, and do they understand why yours is a contender? You shouldn't assume they can see your monitor qualities - show them. You might argue that the £1,000 budget holder could benefit from your transferable skills - same size TV, same resolution, pumps out sound, in colour. But if they want OLED when you offer LCD, or if they want a 100w speaker, while yours offers 30w, it’s likely to be a non-starter. Can you show how your 'features' apply for their demands? Do your features actually apply? What if instead you sold at a discount, with your additional features at the same cost as the competition? The difference between people and products is that products won’t change their mind. If an employer doesn’t need the features you offer that are enhanced, these can be seen as a risk, not a benefit. Does this mean you should stay in your lane? Yes and no. It means first you need to understand how your lane reflects the race you are in - your specific jobs marketplace. You should clearly understand what you need and what you offer, while balancing what the market offers and the other good people interested in those offers. But if you apply for vacancies in a domain where you can’t show the applicability of your offering. Or if you apply for vacancies that are too junior or senior, without a clear argument for the specific benefit that employer will have in hiring you. Then you will compete against candidates who have direct skills and experience. These are typically more aligned to the needs of that vacancy. Worse, you become part of the problem, taking oxygen away from more suited candidates who deserve fair consideration - without improving your own odds. It’s unfortunately a simple truth that if everyone didn’t apply for vacancies they weren’t suitably qualified for - everyone’s experience would be better. This may seem to blame you, but consider the opportunity cost, with time and energy better spent on other activities - which might even just be taking a break. I say this from a place of compassion, not criticism. Think about that TV analogy above - when you search for TVs on Amazon, how quickly do you filter out products you will never buy? Do those products make it harder to identify what you do need? I'd wager the answer is always Yes. Why not try that as an exercise now? Write down what you need from a TV, then try and find it without any bias towards brands. Rather than compromise to spread your bets, keep going back to first principles and make sure these are both fit for purpose and clearly communicated. Rather than hope others will see your transferable skills will apply, or your higher level of experience will help - show them how and why it matters. If you can’t, spend your energy on better activity. As for that Einsteinish quote further up. This is only true when the matters outside of your control don’t change. Those steps at the top are a common sense approach to a job search that involves systemic dysfunction, terrible job adverts, overburdened hiring processes, discrimination of all sorts and the simple disaster of too many qualified candidates for too few jobs. Matters which we have no control over. In the changing and mercurial nature of your jobs market, its potential to improve suddenly may be the only change you need to get the job you want. Such as the job seeker I spoke to, who went from 0 interviews from few applications, to having to turn down interviews and choose between multiple offers. Debbie said that she refocused on her expertise, and why it mattered, using that to inform what she applied for and how she communicated. Points in her control, with a changing market that helped.