“Oh, No!” job searching versus “Oh, Yes!” job searching
So I’m increasingly convinced that there are two major categories or types of job search out there, and the advice for each is diametrically opposed to the advice for the other. Which leads to a lot of frustration from people and advice that will help someone doing a No search but would really harm the candidacy of someone doing a Yes search, or vice versa.
An “Oh, No!” job search is where you’re going “Oh no, I have no fucking money and I need a job yesterday.”
An “Oh, Yes!” job search is where you’re going “Oh yes, this looks like a job I’d love to do.”
A No job search is one where your overriding concern is GET THE JOB BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.
A Yes job search is one where your overriding concern is finding a job that is the Right Fit for you and checks off a good chunk of your “dream job” checklist - or at least, checks off more of it than your current job does.
A No job search one where advice to be honest about your experience and/or lack thereof, because “it’s about finding the right mutual fit of each other’s needs”, is bullshit bc you need to pay the goddamn rent and buy enough food to make it through another week, and who gives a fuck about ~right fit~?
A Yes job search is one where you’re interviewing the company as much as they’re interviewing you, because you can and will turn down the job if you don’t think you’ll work out well there long term.
So you can see why those are two completely different worlds and the advice for one is literally the opposite of the advice for the other.
Someone who has a job (or a well-off family or partner, or a good cushion of savings), and who is looking for a good next career move, a lateral shift of career focus, better pay, shorter commute, or any of the other non-immediate critical reasons people look for new jobs, absolutely should NOT lie on their resume or exaggerate their skills in the interview, because that sets them up for failure in the new role if they get it. They could wind up moving into a new job that is actually not a good fit for them and they are back to job searching in a few months - in a worse case scenario, they could be fired for poor performance.
Someone who’s broke and struggling…loves, you have my wholehearted permission and encouragement to do whatever the fuck you have to, in order to game the job search process and get a job. Lie, exaggerate, fake it til you make it. Do what you have to do. It might not be The Right Job but it’ll keep you going while you keep hunting for the right job.
But it’s so rare that I see people acknowledge this difference, and it gets frustrating watching people give advice that’s right for one to someone who’s doing the other. A person asks a recruiter for advice on how to fake a skill they don’t really have bc they really really need to get this job they’re interviewing for next week, and the recruiter explains that faking a skill they don’t have will just backfire on them in the end, and it’s better if they don’t - they should admit their ignorance in this interview and see if they get hired anyway, and if not, in the future they should target their search toward jobs that are a better fit.
Which is not *untrue*, exactly, but tbh sometimes “get a job so I don’t wind up homeless” has to take precedence over “be honest if the job isn’t a great fit for your skills”.
The ability to be picky in a job search IS A FUCKING LUXURY. It’s something you get to do when you have an in-demand professional skillset, a strong reputation in your field, a good network of contacts, and some breathing room from financial pressure.
I know, because I’ve been in both places within the last 5 years. I’ve been the underemployed retail/service/temp worker who just needed a job, any job, please gods. And now, I’m the stable professional with marketable skills who might be interested in moving up the ladder with a new job, but getting or not getting a new job isn’t going to make or break me.
And yet I also worry about people hearing the “do whatever you gotta do to get the job” advice taking that to heart as blanket advice for the future, and maintaining that mindset even once they’re able to get themselves positioned for a Yes search. Because when you’re doing a Yes search, lies and exaggeration come with a much higher cost - with a No search, you’ve got not much to lose by risking lies and exaggeration; with a Yes search, you’re sacrificing current stability for the potential of future betterment, which means you do actually have a fair bit to lose if the gamble doesn’t pan out.
Please, my dears. Love yourselves. Learn to make the distinction between types of job search, learn to critically examine the advice you get and discern which search type it applies to before you swallow anything and move forward with a strategy based on potentially very very bad advice.
Neither turn your nose up at people coaching job seekers to lie their way into a job, nor roll your eyes at people encouraging job seekers to have an honest back-and-forth with hiring managers about whether it’s the right job for them. Both strategies have a place. I would be thrilled if we lived in a world where everyone’s search was a Yes search and nobody was ever compelled by economic desperation to lie their way into jobs that will be bad for them, because a bad job is less worse than poverty - but we don’t live in that world yet, and until we do, “fake it til you make it” job search advice still has a place in the conversation.
But also remember, don’t drag that strategy forward with you once you’ve got your baseline stability in place. When you make the shift to a Yes search, that can and will come back to bite you, hard.
