One of the questions I’m asked most frequently, from current teachers and folks who have been working in industry for awhile, is ‘should I apply?’ Often folks read a job description and wonder if the role is a good fit for them – if their skills match closely enough or even if they match 80% of the job requirements. 

On the company side, recruiters may be using a job description that they’ve recycled from previous hiring rounds – sometimes because the organization is large enough (or is unionized) and requires such standardization. Other times it’s because the job description still works so there’s no need to update it. That means they may be looking for candidates who are more skilled in one area of the job description than another, which is obviously impossible for candidates to suss out. 

Over the last six months or so, I’ve been hearing another question: ‘is it my resume or the job market?’ The answer I usually share is that it’s important to have a tailored resume but right now, it’s the job market. 

Remote roles are deluged with applicants. Career pivoters are having a more difficult time getting noticed but even folks who are moving within the same field with industry experience are taking longer to get a job – 4-6 months is not uncommon or unexpected. 

For companies, this is great – they are getting stronger applicant pools and often hiring people who have more experience than their job description (or salary expectations) have outlined. 

For you, it creates a lot of stress and uncertainty. 

In strong candidate pools, who gets interviewed and who gets hired isn’t just related to what the company lists in their job description or even needs – it’s also impacted by who applied in the first place.

Most applicants aren’t qualified (or didn’t effectively demonstrate their qualifications). But there’s usually a decent sized group that’s promising. And then there might be a few folks who blow you away, potentially with qualifications you included in the job description or sometimes with skills you didn’t even know you’d get in your salary range.

And applicant pools often respond to seasonality – for example, at certain times of the year (August, for example), far fewer educators will apply for a role. So that means the applicant pool will either be smaller or it may be filled with more former educators whose current job is not on an academic hiring schedule. (And, since I’m editing this after the Thanksgiving holiday, I can share that my traffic was 50% lower the last few days — that means the jobs I posted Wednesday evening likely have very few applicants right now.)

Even if a company expects to hire a candidate with a certain type of experience, the candidate they hire is going to be driven more by who applies than that job description. (Unless they don’t hire anyone and re-advertise the job.) And it makes it more challenging to decide which roles to apply to — or even how much energy to put into your job search.

I’ve been working on this problem from a few different angles. One reason I’m adding hybrid and in-person roles in the next month is that remote roles are so competitive. (Another is that many of you are open to locally-based roles too – and some even prefer it!)

Another way I tackle this challenge is with information. 

In today’s newsletter, I’m going to dip into the roles I’ve featured and share who got the job and compare that to the original job description. I hope this helps you evaluate when to apply to a role as well as gives you some insight into how the current hiring market is going. And I hope it helps you see there are roles out there looking for your experience, even if it takes a bit longer right now to land them. 

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