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Wanted to highlight Prudential Financial’s hiring practices. They rescinded my offer once I attempted to negotiate the salary. The official reason given was that I didn’t “sound excited enough”.
They then admittedly gave the offer to someone who was less qualified. There were other red flags throughout the job offer process that the HR team should overall be ashamed of.
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Two things - network and focus of your resume. Not sure if you are leaning on your network or not, but that is really the best way to get your resume and application considered. 900 applications via online submissions is a huge number but the reality is that most of these are weeded out by algorithms. So it’s likely that most of your efforts were for naught. So a better route is find a job via an online site, then do a search on LinkedIn for people in your network who work there - or are connected with people who work there. Then reach out to them and ask for 10-15 minutes of their time as you are interested in a role at their company and you would appreciate their perspective. Secondly, perhaps your resume is not focused enough for specific roles and doesn’t have the right keywords to get selected by the initial bots that weed out resumes. I suggest using a resume review service or website to help with that, or lean on someone you know that is good at it (a former colleague, mentor, supervisor, etc.).
It’s the ONLY thing that works in tight job markets. Network doesn’t mean meeting new people. It’s about touching base with your existing network of former colleagues and classmates.
How deep is your resume? Anything more than 5-10 years ago should be dropped - perhaps keep a "full" resume if you end up in discussions where the history is beneficial.
Think back 10 years - everything has changed. I no longer "run" projects, now I'm an honest broker between the teams and leadership.
Yeah I dropped a lot of stuff off my resume but I have been at the same company for 14 years and all my consulting work was before then. Good advice.
I’m in the same boat. It’s been 2 years for me, with 30 years PM experience. I did change things up a bit recently, I had my resume rewritten by kantanhq-dot-com and focused on one company I previously consulted with who has been hiring a lot. This has landed me 3 interviews in the past 2 weeks. No offer yet, but it feels like the search might be coming to an end. Also, look for program manager, portfolio lead, etc., roles as well to broaden your search, if you haven’t been already doing so. Good luck.
Ageism does. Young folks are cheap, and have no leverage to threaten existing leadership with new ideas.
But I think we need to start strategizing how we create new businesses when we get to that point. The boomer strategy of company-man-till-the-day-I-literally-die, doesn't cut it in the current world. At some point we need to start taking risks to create new companies with new jobs for the next generations to inherit.
Your value is in knowing what does and doesn't work. The younger crowd hasn't seen the mistakes before. You have. Maybe you can build something that works.
Food for thought.
Chief
You’re not selling your skill set, showing your value proposition to employers.
900 applications and taking less than you are worth, sounds desperate.
Be more strategic and targeted.
25 years in, you know what you want.
People who say optimize on every job post never care to provide a layout for optimization.
I think it's a VERY tough market out there, so I'm sorry that you're going through this. Would be good to get context into what kinds of roles you're looking for and wher
I feel for you. Being “of a certain age” myself, it’s harder to land something later in life.
Some things to consider:
1. Resume: might want to have someone take a hard look at your resume and critique it. If it’s too generic, or mistake prone or difficult to read or fails to properly highlight your most marketable skills, you may need professional help to “market” yourself properly.
2. Interview Skills: If you are getting calls from the recruiters or HR representatives, but going no further, or get interviews that go nowhere, it may be time to work on your public speaking skills. This website/app has a wealth of information on the types of questions asked in interviews. Other websites have the types of questions typically asked at interviews for your type of role. Gather a list of them. Record yourself answering them. Practice. By practicing a variety of questions and your answers to them, when you do get an interview, you’ll have a “canned” answer that you’ve practiced and you’ll naturally feel more confident. A lot of questions will naturally be technical, but I’d expect you might get behavioral questions. “Tell me a time that you had to deal with a difficult colleague- how did you address it and what was the outcome”. “What was your greatest success/failure”. Expect to explain the scenario, what you did to address the issue, and what was the outcome (quantity if possible) and what you learned.
3. Perhaps the most difficult issue: Is your skill set current- that is, has the industry passed you by? Have you adapted and kept up as technology has evolved? Like, if you’re a Lotus notes developer (I know, ridiculous example), you’re as good as a dinosaur. Can you take any online classes in something (AI? IDK I’m not a developer)?
Regarding ageism, here are a couple tips. In education section on your resume, do not include YOG. For experience, with 25 years of experience, does work you did in 1998 really apply to what you’re interviewing for? Doubtful. Leave some off the list or if you must include them, have an Other Employment section and list the company, location and title. No dates.
Good luck, I hope you find something soon
What position are you exactly looking for? It's a tough job market right now, and you really have to do something to stick out. Hopefully within the next 6 months, things start to slowly rebound and then you'll see an explosion of positions
I saw Pomeroy on LinkedIn is hiring for a Project Manager for remote position
I’m sorry you’re experiencing this. It is an unprecedented job market. There is really no search method I can offer that will guarantee a job right now. Lots of layoff have happened recently and so the candidate pool is over saturated with highly qualified candidates. The competition is a lot stiffer than I’ve ever seen. All I can offer is to keep trying and take breaks. The search is soul crushing so you have to step away from it sometimes. Chin up!
I feel this my friend. I went from an upper level position at an international banking firm to a NOC technician making less than half the pay… And only took the position because funds were running out and I was a year out of work. Best of luck to you.
Im at the 200 mark for my apps. Where is your network? 25 years in the game means you should have ROLODEX's up the wazoo. My apps are going through, but Im not getting interviews and this is with a network at each company I apply at.
I’ve stopped counting; I’m hearing things like unstable background… not enough of the *targeted skills set. Not enough time in the industry; not a PMP.
But I have a masters in Business Administration and minor in PM AND over 15 years exp in PM as well. How do you get a job in this market with the constant rejection for what PMs do? move from project to project.
Never to late to get PMP certification and scrum master too! Better than mindlessly applying
Applying for jobs is kind of broken now. You need to network with recruiters in your field
What job are you looking for? Where are you located?
I am a certified Project Manager in Toronto.
Thanks for the feed back from everyone. I think there is something I didn't add that is important. I have 32 years in IT not 25. I felt old saying I had even 25. I said I submitted 900 applications over the last year but it has been 18 month. That works out to 2-3 applications a day. It is hardly spamming the job market.
I am a certified technical senior project/product manager in Toronto. My portfolio specialty are system integration, Intelligent automation and infrastructure. My skills are up to date. My resume has been reviewed and updates several times. My interview skills are pretty good. I have interviewed at 45 companies. Which is 1 interview for every 20 submissions which I think is pretty good.
I don't know why but for some reason I can't land a job. I had 6 interviews last week and have 2 this week. Even if I land a 6 of 12 month contract am I going to be back going through this hell again in a year. When I started my career all you just had to say was HTML to get hired. Now the market is oversaturated. I am seeing 2000 application for a PM job after an hour.
Toronto has got to be the most competitive market for tech professionals looking for work. The sheer number of folks in ur exact same shoes is scary.
900 apps is a LOT. I have a feeling a good resume polish is in order. Styles change. It is possible your resume reads in a way that is consistently making recruiters brush it aside. Use more than one polisher to see a common thread in current advice. There are free resume seminars and webinars all the time. Your local library has one every now and then. Your university's alumni services has some. LinkedIn has many, although some might be paid. Use them. That might be all you need. Reframing your current experience in a way that appeals in the current market.
And finally, tweak resume per job post. Might be minor switches, but worth while.
Well it is 2 - 3 application a day on an average day. To tell the truth I stopped tracking after 3 months but I think that number is close. I have had 45 interviews which works out to 1 for every 20 submissions. I had one interviewer spend an hour with me refining my resume after the interview and ran it through her ATS. I am getting a lot of good feedback from my resume.
I’m so sorry that’s so stressful. What would you switch careers to? Could you go get a (or an additional) degree?
I NEED JOB AS CIVIL ENGINEER I HAVE MORE THAN 126 CREDIT HOUR ELIGIBLE STATE LEVEL EXAM FE.I HAVE EXPERIENCED IN UAE & Pakistan
Wow, you'll get weeded out fast. Just sayin'
One thing I'm always curious about is your own honest anonymous assessment of where you stack up to the competition.
For example, I'm an average Engineering Manager. I've seen better and I've seen much worse. At my last company, I'd have been ecstatic to hire a slightly below average EM as pickins are slim, the std deviation for managers is wide, and most follow Sturgeon's law religiously. If I were in a situation where I needed a job, I'd focus more on IC roles as I'm a significantly better Software Engineer than manager.
The job market will change. You may need to find something else temporary or similar to what you were doing. Right now it is expensive for companies with the interest rates being higher. The one thing companies can do for cash is layoff people. We are all still a bit unsure when the rates will end up dropping. The job market is actually contrary to what is being said here... is strong. This is both good and bad. It makes inflation harder to cut down on but is great for economic growth. Not too long down this road companies will be back at it and hiring again for these types of jobs but I think the biggest issue you are going to come across is that during covid a lot of people were hired on as PM with very little experience nor a background in IT or PM. There were so many roles filled at larger companies and now these young fresh people were all let go at once but now they have like 1-2 years experience. There are a lot of companies out there that love to hire people newer to the job market. I am 37 and getting up there but look like I am probably 26. On paper though this can be hard to hide. I actually limit my experience on my resume when applying for jobs. Consider the reason why age 40 is a protected class for hiring. For now I would absolutely start shifting to something that is higher in demand.