When you don’t hear back after an interview

Welcome to Worksheet, a newsletter about how people are working smarter in these turbulent times.

Every week, this newsletter will share analysis on the state of work by S. Mitra Kalita, a veteran media executive, author, and journalist.

In this week’s edition, Kalita delves into the new ways the young and jobless are approaching the job hunt.

Ghosting. Over and over, candidates find themselves finalists, writing memos or performing challenges as a part of the last interview round.

“Many times companies don’t get back to you…or they get back to you 3,4,5,6 months later,” Bradley said. “Sometimes when the company says they’re hiring for a leadership position but after they get those great ideas, they decide to lower the budget and hire for a lower-level employee and ask them to still do that level of work. The job seeker who hasn’t heard back is thinking to themselves, ‘Is it me? Is it me? Is it me?’”

Dutifully tracking her own efforts to find work in a spreadsheet, Bradley kept applying. “I approached unemployment from the mindset of being a business owner because that is what I had most recently been. What are my KPIs?” she said, referring to key performance indicators. “Is it how many jobs I apply to in a day? Or is it how many interesting conversations can I have in a week? What’s the ultimate goal? How do I growth-hack my way into the right job?”

Kalita goes on to explain that the pandemic’s unemployed aren’t just looking for jobs—they’re “career seekers,” motivated by values, purpose and a sense they belong.