Job Search Loneliness
Last year, many people have experienced an unexpected job layoff. We see the layoffs in the news, and on LinkedIn. When I speak with unemployed professionals, many avoid talking about their experience to others. It is painful. The person may feel embarrassment and shame. However, having a support system is one of the most important things any laid off professional can do to get back on their feet.
A layoff can be a traumatic event for many professionals. However, they say that the trauma of any event can be minimized by doing one simple thing. Talking to other people can help to turn trauma into a stressful event, rather than a life-changing trauma. Feeling as if you are not alone in your experience makes all the difference.
If you know someone who is currently unemployed, reach out to them. Check in to see how they are. But, do not begin by asking how their job search is going. Ask how their week is going. Ask how their family is doing. Ask about the person, rather than the job search.
Then, do not offer advice unless the person very specifically asks for advice. If the person shares that their job search is hard, it does not mean they are asking you for advice. They may simply want to share their experience. They may want to be heard.
Very often, friends with good intensions offer unneeded and unwanted advice to job seekers. The advice giver may provide advice on careers they have never had, or industries they know nothing about. This unwanted advice may upset the job seeker, and it may discourage them from opening up again. This will create more distance, and increased loneliness.
Job searching can be tough, and it does take a lot of work. To find a job, a job seeker must treat their search as if it is a full-time job. But, even when they do, the job seeker may not immediately find a job. And, this may have nothing to do with how hard they are applying themselves.
The current job market is very unstable. Many companies are only hiring for critical roles. They are dragging out the interview process for many months. They are downgrading titles and pay. There are jobs posted where thousands of candidates are applying. That’s right. One job seeker may need to beat out 3,000 candidates or more to land a single job offer.
We very often assume that our job search experience is the same one experienced by others. However, a job search is highly influenced by the job market at the moment in time when the search is happening. A hard job market means a hard job search.
Criticizing only hurts the job seeker. If you want to help, be a cheerleader. Check in and withhold judgement. This support is the cure to job search loneliness, and will help the professional to find a job faster.
I hope these tips have helped you. Visit CopelandCoaching.com to find more tips to improve your job search. If I can be of assistance to you, don’t hesitate to reach out to me here.
Happy hunting!
Angela Copeland
@CopelandCoach
AI and Your Job Search
One of the hottest topics this year is artificial intelligence. Companies are desperate to find ways to use AI in all aspects of their business. They hope that AI will produce better, faster results that will ultimately increase quality and decrease costs. Many companies look at AI as the key to their future success.
Personally, I like to stick to the old-fashioned way of writing emails, for example. However, I’ve seen employers who require employees to install AI on their email platform, to be sure they sound just as smart as possible.
Employers also use AI in their hiring practices. Technologies exist to find candidates online who fit a certain profile. In other words, the employer can give the AI tool the profile of a person they like. The employer can ask the AI tool to find other candidates who look similar. When AI identifies those candidates, AI can then began an automated email conversation with the candidates to find out if they might be interested in the available job.
AI tools like the one described above allow companies to evaluate large numbers of candidates quickly, and at a lower cost. Companies find these tools helpful, as they receive large volumes of applicants today. The large volume of applications makes it hard for a company to review applications by hand.
In the same way that companies receive large volumes of applicants, job seekers must submit many applications to receive a job offer. Job seekers must also make it through complex AI systems that are weeding them out. It’s a numbers game.
To cope with the complex world of job searching, job seekers are also turning to AI. They use it to help write cover letters. They also use it to help optimize their resumes. It’s not uncommon for a job seeker to feed a job description and their resume into an AI tool, and to ask for feedback. Companies, after all, are using AI to screen the resumes and to look for specific keywords to be mentioned in each resume.
As I shared, I don’t prefer to use AI for my work. But, I don’t take issue with those who do. Frankly, it can be smart. It can help to save time, and to increase the odds of being seen by a company.
What’s ironic is the double standard that companies want to hold job seekers to. Many companies include information in applications about how the use of AI is not allowed. I have seen a company go so far as to say that they will scan application documents for the use of AI and will eliminate candidates who use it.
AI should be a two-way street. If companies are going to use it to process many applications at one time, job seekers need to submit many applications at one time. We should all be allowed to play by the same rules in order to get the best results.
I hope these tips have helped you. Visit CopelandCoaching.com to find more tips to improve your job search. If I can be of assistance to you, don’t hesitate to reach out to me here.
Happy hunting!
Angela Copeland
@CopelandCoach
The Most Outdating Hiring Practice
Hiring in 2025 has become disconnected from corporate realities. You’ve seen the news. Companies are laying people off. Things are hard. And, frankly, they have been since 2020.
Most job seekers look for and apply to jobs online. Applications and resumes are fed into what’s called an applicant tracking system or ATS. Companies use an ATS to track applications and to put candidates through interview steps.
I recently had the opportunity to take a behind the scenes peek inside of an ATS. And, what I saw is disappointing. When a candidate is rejected, the company selects a reason from a list. Included are things you would expect, such as lives too far away, not qualified, or high salary expectations.
However, there’s another item on the rejection list: “job hopper.” That’s right. “Job hopper” is ranked along with not being qualified or being too expensive.
Companies are still making decisions this way. I have recently heard of multiple CEOs who rejected qualified candidates for this reason. The other managers at the companies felt the candidates were valuable and qualified, but the CEOs overrode their recommendations. In one case, an HR recruiter asked the candidate for help explaining to the CEO why job hopping occurs – because all of the good candidates they received were job hoppers.
Rarely does anyone want to change jobs. It’s painful. It’s risky. Employees do not begin to actively look for a new job unless they believe there is nothing else they can do to salvage their relationship with their current company.
Why do employees leave jobs? One issue is that an employee may be significantly underpaid. Salaries are more commonly posted online today. When an employee finds out they are paid 30 or 40 percent less than their peers, they may ask for a raise. But, they would be lucky to get six percent. The only option may be to change jobs, if they want to be compensated fairly.
This is not the most common reason people leave jobs today. Companies make decisions differently now than they did twenty years ago. It is not unusual for a company to lay off hundreds or thousands of employees to help their bottom line, or to bump up their stock price. It’s common for companies to be bought and sold as part of private equity deals that may leave an entire workforce out of jobs.
There are also cases where an employee specializes in a very specific role. These employees may have to consider changing companies if they want to continue to gain new skills and experience.
Very rarely is any employee jumping from job to job carelessly. Employers need to rethink their perspective on this issue. Employees have been put through the ringer, by no fault of their own. But, what these job hoppers are is resilient. They value a good company and a stable job. It’s time to adjust hiring practices to match today’s business environment.
I hope these tips have helped you. Visit CopelandCoaching.com to find more tips to improve your job search. If I can be of assistance to you, don’t hesitate to reach out to me here.
Happy hunting!
Angela Copeland
@CopelandCoach
Keep Corporate Politics Out of Your Search
What’s one of the worst candidate experiences a job seeker can have? The worst experience is when a candidate gets caught up in pre-existing internal corporate politics that have nothing to do with them. If you are a hiring manager and you are having an internal disagreement over hiring, it’s time to take a beat.
Sometimes, a job is created that not everyone in the company agrees on. Can you imagine? A company goes through the time and the energy to write a job description, and to begin interviewing candidates, long before the company is really ready. The candidates interview in good faith, assuming the company is excited to fill the new role.
Eventually, the candidate may begin to notice inconsistencies in and around the hiring process. In fact, the candidate may begin to notice that the company doesn’t seem to want to hire this role at all. And, the company may resent the candidates for being there. The company may discuss how amazing the predecessor was, at times even posting publicly on LinkedIn that they are sad to lose the person. This puts the candidate in a confusing position.
This sounds strange, doesn’t it? Well, this situation can begin when a board of directors requests that the company create a new role, or requests that the existing person be replaced – if the executive team does not agree with the board’s recommendation. There may be someone in the role today who the company leadership likes, but the board does not believe they are the right person.
When this happens, it can negatively impact the candidates who are interviewing for the open role. On top of the obvious, job seekers must prioritize interviews. If they find a dream job, they may walk away from other interviews or job offers in order to focus on the role they are the most excited about.
When there is an internal disagreement, it’s important that the company leadership resolves any conflict – before interviewing candidates. Executives need to be honest and transparent with one another about their concerns.
Interviewing candidates in this way is like beginning to date while you are still emotionally wrapped up in a divorce. It doesn’t matter whose fault the divorce is, but no unsuspecting suitor wants to walk into this situation. Any new date is assuming the other person is open to dating, and is excited about the possibility of a future together.
Hiring managers, treat candidates the way you would want to be treated. Have the courage to have the hard conversations internally when you aren’t convinced you need to create a new role. Be honest and transparent. The last thing you want to do is to drag an unsuspecting candidate through internal politics that will ultimately not result in a good experience for anyone.
It’s not helpful to the leadership team. It’s not helpful to the candidates. And, it doesn’t help the company’s reputation.
I hope these tips have helped you. Visit CopelandCoaching.com to find more tips to improve your job search. If I can be of assistance to you, don’t hesitate to reach out to me here.
Happy hunting!
Angela Copeland
@CopelandCoach
Transparency Matters
Have you ever been through a job interview that takes months? It feels like you’re going through a full inspection process from head to toe. Then, you may learn that the employer was hiding something from you all along. This is not an uncommon experience, and it’s one that employers should consider carefully.
It’s not uncommon for job seekers to go through ten rounds of interviews for one job. Along the way, the job seeker may be asked to take a personality test. They may be asked to take an IQ test or do a homework assignment. They are asked to submit references who can speak about their character. They are expected to go through a thorough background check. And often, they are expected to volunteer personal details about their family situation, such as whether or not they have a spouse and children.
There is an expectation that a candidate should be comfortable disclosing every detail of their personal and professional life. But, strangely, the employer does not feel the same sense of responsibility to share the same level of transparency with the candidate.
For example, on multiple occasions, the hiring manager who hired me is not the hiring manager I’ve ended up working for. In one instance, my hiring manager quit on my second day. He knew in advance of hiring me that this would be the case, but never disclosed it to me. In another situation, the person who hired me switched me to another manager just days before starting.
Why does this matter? When you interview, you agree to a certain situation. Everyone has had a bad boss. Your boss can make or break your work experience.
Similarly, some companies hire remote employees. Then, after the fact, they ask those same employees to move in order to be close to the office so they can begin coming in every day.
There are also companies with open floor plans. Because most employees do not like an open floor plan, the companies who have them often do not disclose the setup in advance of the employee’s first day. For many people, an open office just doesn’t work for them. They need either an office or a cubicle to focus and to produce their best work. In these cases, it seems the employer knows that an interview candidate may walk away from the job if they learn it is an open office. So, the company waits until the first day to disclose this critical information.
Companies want a candidate to show up as the person they represented themselves as during the interview process. Similarly, candidates expect the company to show up in the same way on their first day. When you surprise a candidate with unforeseen circumstances, you may be setting that new employee up for failure. And, at a bare minimum, you are breaking their trust. Transparency is a two-way street, even in a tight job market.
I hope these tips have helped you. Visit CopelandCoaching.com to find more tips to improve your job search. If I can be of assistance to you, don’t hesitate to reach out to me here.
Happy hunting!
Angela Copeland
@CopelandCoach
Copeland Coaching Podcast
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