Nothing has changed

I wrote this three years ago, and nothing has changed: 

 

There are tons of jobs I’d be a competitive candidate for. I can’t write applications for all of them. I need to write applications for the ones that appear flexible and inclusive. 

 

The problem is, everyone has anti discrimination policies, but they don’t apply them in reality. As a disabled job seeker, this makes it practically impossible to identify which jobs to apply for/where to spend my energy.

 

Full post: Apparently I’m an advocate now.

 

In the past, I’ve applied for jobs, not gotten anywhere in the recruitment process, but they’ve liked me, kept my resume on file, and hired me later. All of these things make it impossible to choose what to apply for. There is no correct approach. The information to make a correct choice does not exist.

 

I can’t tell if my application will get through to someone who is reasonable or unreasonable about letting me do my desk job work from my own desk – so I don’t stick to applying for only remote jobs. Most jobs I do, can be done from home, yet are “offered” hybrid. 

 

All of this means that these days I take a volume-based, generic application approach. I get my resume out there and see what comes of it. I apply for whatever I can, as much as I can, whatever my capacity is that day.

 

I don’t ask about accomodations, they are listed as a requirement on my resume. My needs are not a negotiation. They are clear and straightforward needs.

 

It’s not the “correct” way of doing things, but so far, with my set of variables, people have been unable to tell me what “correct” way of doing things is.

 

So, I do it the way I want to. The way that’s easiest for me. I don’t spend a whole lot of time on applications, because people don’t read them, especially with the use of AI in recruitment. My generic application is very good, and it only needs about thirty seconds of customisation for each job. 

 

I was talking to a friend recently, and they shared that they had spent an hour on an application, only to get a clearly automated rejection with ten minutes of applying. That’s exactly why I don’t put much effort in, and I use my quick system. Employers are proving they are not worth the effort they expect of prospective employees.

 

Expecting applicants to spend hours on something that you refuse to read is gross and I won’t participate in that. 

 

I also recently volunteered my time to talk to an academic who was researching the use of AI in recruitment and the impact on marginalised communities. It was a really great chat (apparently I was very quotable!) and I’m looking forward to reading the research when it gets published. 

 

On a related note, I’m working through final edits of my next book. When I was job hunting three years ago, when I originally wrote the words at the top of this post, I kept a lot of notes about job hunting as an openly disabled person for the first time. I’m just tidying up language and making it more “readable”, and sometime in the hopefully near future, I’ll be releasing it as a book. I’ll share it all over social media of course, but if you’d like to skip fickle algorithms, sign up for my newsletter to make sure you don’t miss out.