Friday Knockoffs: Career Progressing without Management, Ghostbusting & Spending days on job applications

In Friday knockoffs I’ll answer the questions I get in my DMs. These could be about resumes, salary negotiations, my favourite lawn mower or my top 3 tracksuit pant brands.

You can submit your questions at https://linktr.ee/mitchking

Q: What are you thoughts on Career Progression without wanting to be a manager or a team lead. Is there an alternative career path that still involves growth, higher positions without the responsibility of managing a team? My current title is Senior CSM, but as I look through jobs for my next step, most opportunities out there are of a Lead or a Director position which invariably have people reporting to you.

A:

It’s a great question but unfortunately the answer is that most companies don’t have the structure to support this progression across every role or function. It has been brought into Engineering and Product teams where you have Staff and Product level Engineers, PMs etc but it’s rare to see this outside of those teams.

This can be one of the reasons you see a lot of Senior people become consultants or set up their own business. Once they reach the top of the company structure; either they can’t progress further or like you, don’t want the progression on offer, being able to be very very good individual contributors and earn more money/work less drives them to that turning point in their career.

Q: I believe recruiters and hiring managers may become increasingly uncertain about aligning the position and skill set of an applicant due to the large volume of applications they receive. Quite often they forget to contact after initial screening interview. How can we stand out an application in such situation?

A:

It’s quite a confusing question as it starts off with recruiters and hiring managers being misaligned on the role requirements, pivots to not hearing back and finishes with how to stand out in an application.

First feedback on this is if you’re asking questions in this sort of confusing structure in an interview, that’s something to work on. My brain got ready to answer different questions 3 times in a short period.

But I’ll quickly answer everything you’ve brought up:

1. Yes, companies often do struggle to get alignment between hiring managers and recruiters. As a candidate, there’s not much you can do to control this so I wouldn’t focus on it.
   

2. Not being contacted after a screening interview is poor form on the company side but to try and mitigate this, ask them at the end of the call when you should expect to hear back. Then email them on that day if you haven’t heard back. If they don’t respond within 1-2 days, try them again. After that, all bets are off. If you have the Manager or the CEO’s details, cc them in to the next email along the lines of “I just want a yes or no bro, don’t be an asshole”.
   

3. How can you stand out is not one answer for all companies, what one company looks for another is trying to avoid. You can make sure your resume communicates the key information quickly, you can be prepared for the interview and show specific interest in the role and company, you can communicate well through the process.
   
   But as I’ve said 1000 times and will say 1000 times again, there is no magic way to stand out to employers, no matter what you see on the TikkyToks.

Q: I’m only applying for roles I feel I’m a great candidate for and therefore spending a few days on each application—researching an organisation, catering a resume and cover letter to the role, connecting with recruiters, just to get rejected in a few hours. Love to hear your reflections on this and other strategies worth trying.

A:

I admire the commitment to putting so much effort into an application but unfortunately the game doesn’t work this way. No company is spending days reviewing your application, so you shouldn’t spend days on your application.

Customising is good but that should only take you minutes.

Slight changes to resume to highlight the most relevant skills/experience to what the company is looking for.

A cover letter addressed to the recruiter/hiring manager/company that says “I’m applying for this role for specific reason”.

A LinkedIn connection request to say “Hey I’ve applied for the role but I’m super keen for this specific reason. hope we get a chance to talk”.

These are all good things but beyond that, you’re investing too much time too early in the process. Would you plan your wedding with someone you haven’t even gone on a first date with? If you answered yes to that, I’m sorry I didn’t call you back in 2008, you were too intense for me.