AI decided my fate in a microsecond
“New… powerful… hooked into everything, trusted to run it all. They say it got smart, a new order of intelligence. Then it saw all people as a threat, not just the ones on the other side. Decided our fate in a microsecond: extermination.”
-Kyle Reece “The Terminator”
Yup — one more of those “the process is broken, job hunting sucks” posts…
To get this out of the way first: I’m still the luckiest guy I know. Been with my wife for over 30 years (in a good way!) and have 2 of the greatest kids on the planet. I will also point out that you’ll have to read all the way to end if you want to see what the actual point of this post is — my therapist says writing is good for me)
That having been said, I don’t think there’s a person on the planet who wakes up and says “yay! I get to look for work today! I love how the process is transparent and gives me feedback so I can make improvements! It’s so cool that all the jobs posted are real jobs too!”
My (recent) unfortunately not uncommon story: I’ve been working in tech since 2000, and 3 times since 2018 I’ve been with companies I planned to retire from “in a few years”. I left the first b/c (fun fact!) I don’t love working 100% remote as much as others seem to — the second turned into a sweat shop where my first meeting of the day was at 5AM and I wouldn’t finish up until 10:30 or 11:00 at night. Oh, and my boss was an incompetent asshole who was let go just a few months after I left. (or more accurately, my boss’s boss. My old boss is still there, much to the delight of the 2 people out of 20 that have managed to keep going in the wake of mass firings and generally fleeing the dysfunctionally (yeah, I know I just made up that word) sinking ship sold off to private equity and being packaged for another sale)
I really thought #3 would be the one. Great work culture in a fabulous (remote) city that I’ve worked in several times in the past, and a single interview before receiving good offer. It was a big step down from my previous jobs in terms of responsibility, and they were a bit behind the (web) technology curve. I had just come off 2 major digital transformation jobs though, so was ready to tackle the problem head on.
Lots of inertia holding things back, couple with a mandate to keep our feet on the gas meant we were stacking up tech debt faster than we could run. A bit frustrating as the work I’d written requirements for would have removed most of it and cut publishing times by over 90%, but no matter. I was working with some great people and telling myself most mornings not to be defined by my job. I had talked with my senior director a few months earlier who told me she was working to fast-track a promotion because they needed my help at the next level. (“Fast track” at this company is 6 months — lol)
All well and good until I received a meeting invite on a Sunday evening with the subject line “marketing reorg”. (I’m on the tech side of things, but still part of marketing — I still think it makes sense) “Cool” I thought to myself. Our new CMO (some tech-bro vibes — but he really knew his stuff) was a few months into his term and had made a couple of changes earlier one. Maybe this was that promotion they’d talked about? Maybe just have me report to someone else for the 4th time in 12 months?
Obviously not — I joined the call to find an intimate gathering of my boss, someone from HR and me. It started with “I’m so sorry” and ended 6 minutes later with “if you have any questions, please reach out” (from HR lady) Within 30 seconds of hanging up the phone, all access was immediately severed. The axe had fallen and poof! It was if I’d never been employed there. No chance to transfer any of my work to others on my team, no opportunity to say goodbye to folks, nothing. (For the record, while I may understand why a company might do this — it was a shitty thing for this group to do it. The culture is changing over there, and not for the better)
Skipping ahead a few weeks (thank you!), I’ve been doing that thing almost everyone goes through; checking out job postings, being irrationally optimistic when pay ranges are shared that fit your skillset, then the grind of applying to everything under the sun you are qualified for. I follow all the guidelines and have a customized 2-page resume for every application designed to clear the automated screeners, and a slightly customized cover-letter that shows a little personality.
So far, I’ve received rejections from about 20% of the companies I’ve applied to, with responses ranging from “we really liked your profile, but have found other candidates that more closely align with our precise requirements” to “We’re not moving forward with you as a candidate”. They all say, “please check our job boards frequently for a position that more closely aligns with your skillset and we encourage you to apply with us again”.
Generally, my (internal) response is more along the lines of: “Next time I think of applying to your company, I will just go outside and light my resume on fire. It will be quicker and more satisfying”, but I digress.
Absolutely none of this is new for anyone looking for work in 2024.
Yesterday was like any other day of the last couple months. Find a few roles to target, pull up a resume that’s a close fit, then spend a few minutes making tweaks to ensure the language on the particular one matches the description. I’ve recently added a new wrinkle with one of those services that (theoretically) gets you past those electronic gatekeepers. There is a score in the upper left that represents how closely your resume matches the job description, and every change you make causes the number to recalculate. Eventually you’re told everything is buttoned up and you are ready to fly through the AI part of the process.
We all know the drill. After you hit “submit”, you get a canned email in 10 seconds that’s either artificially hopeful or brutally realistic. “Thanks for your submission. If we find a match with the job you’ve applied for, one of our team members will reach out”. If anyone is new to the game and looking for a translation — “we got your application” is what every single one of those is saying.
Yesterday was a bit different, and the impetus for this brief post. I’d actually spent a bit longer on this particular application as it was one I was truly interested in and I felt it was worth an hour or more of my time to get it as “right” as I could. I hit submit with a bit of extra irrational optimism, then heard the alert on my phone that I’d received the “got your application” email a few seconds later. Except that wasn’t it-
“Thank you for being a valued member of our Talent Community! We appreciate your interest in xxx and thank you for applying to our Senior Product Manager, Platform role.
We’ve reviewed your application and after careful consideration are moving forward with other candidates at this time.
We will keep your resume on file as new opportunities arise, and encourage you to reapply in the future! Also, please keep an eye out for our Hiring Newsletter we occasionally send that highlights new open jobs.
Again, we really appreciate your interest and passion. Wishing you all the best!”
Sure, I get that they are all canned responses, and some are better than others-but seriously. “After careful consideration”?? If you can call 2 seconds “careful consideration”, what does regular consideration look like? Or even, “consideration with extreme prejudice”?
I’m not losing any sleep over this — but to me it was just a different reminder that we need to do better. AI can be helpful, but it’s not actually, you know, intelligent. All those machines we’ve put in the way to make our lives easier are often exacerbating the problem. I won’t list out all the things that could be done to improve the process — there are hundreds of posts here that go into greater detail — but just gotta say that you might want to have Skynet remove the words “after careful consideration” from your blanket email rejection that comes 3 seconds after the application is submitted.
