Confessions of a 42-year-old Jobseeker
Media, streaming, and adtech in 2024 on LinkedIn
I have started a new job. Here’s what I learned on the hunt and hopefully someone out there gets something out of my experience:
I have LinkedIn Premium so I can see who has viewed my profile, and while that is useful, I don’t know if that’s worth $29.99/month unless you are actively looking for a new job. Even then, it’s questionable. I did not find the additional search filters to be useful, and most InMail gets ignored. I certainly ignore most InMail.
I took a year off, so I had a gap in my resume, and no one seemed to care. I was honest about it when asked, and obviously, I could have been eliminated from contention before I got an interview and would have never known, but I was getting interviews at a pretty good clip, and never felt like it was a hindrance.
There were 3 different jobs I was interested in, qualified for, and I had an interview with a recruiter, but ultimately had to pass on because it meant that I had to move across the country. I thought we were past this in a post-COVID world.
I was surprised to see so many on-site jobs (or at least hybrid 2-3 days per week). Everyone has different preferences and opinions on remote work, but the average American spends 54 minutes/day commuting, which is awful. Getting that hour back (1.5 hours for me personally) has been life changing. I think a lot of post-COVID return to office movements were covert self-layoff schemes, and I’m sure some companies need to justify expensive leases. My guess is that long term, people are going to vote with their feet and self-sort into whatever they prefer. I’m fine with 2-3 days hybrid if there is a reason for it, but I think it’s a mistake to rule out full remote and shrink your potential talent pool. Also, don’t make me come into an office to sit on Zoom all day. We all know at least one person who is forced to come to an office and never interacts with someone face to face because the rest of their team is located elsewhere.
Shortest interview: less than 5 minutes. We spoke briefly about salary requirements, and then it was revealed to be a position that I could not take for ideological reasons. I ended the call. Some people have no problem clubbing baby seals for a living if it pays well, but I wouldn’t have been able to sleep at night. I had the luxury of not being forced to pursue something I had a problem with, but many people don’t. Don’t judge, it’s tough out there for a lot of folks.
Matthew Katz over at Freewheel says you must make a custom LinkedIn URL. It’s probably a good idea to have a professional looking personal email account too, and not something like techbro420@gmail.com.
I was talking with a former Turner colleague, about another former colleague who had recently died. I noted that I went to the service, and shared that at least 40 Turner employees and alumni showed up. She told me that no one at her current company would be coming to my funeral if I got a job there. Consider if that sort of thing matters to you and ask questions in interviews that give you a feel of the place you’re applying to if it does.
Weirdest application question: What is your religion? The dropdown had all the major ones, “None”, and “Other”. “Other” did not give you the opportunity to write-in. It was framed as an optional, demographic question, along with other traditional D&I stuff, but is this even legal unless you are applying to be clergy?
LinkedIn search is terrible. Search for “foo”. You get some proper matches, but also some jobs without “foo” in the title, description, skills, etc. Later, you will stumble upon a job with “foo” in the description that didn’t show up in your search.
When posting on LinkedIn, you have no idea what it will look like when it is condensed down and the “…see more” is injected, and you have no idea how close you are to the 3k character limit until you exceed it. Use a preview generator, it’s insane that LinkedIn doesn’t have this.
JobsInAdTech.com is worth a follow, check out the site as well. Video-Dev slack has a jobs channel. AdTechGod is worth a follow, slack here, there’s a jobs channel.
I did not use an Easy Apply bot, but they exist, along with other automated application services. I have no idea if this is against LinkedIn ToS. I would use something like this if I wasn’t looking for something niche and was reasonably sure I wouldn’t lose my LinkedIn account over it.
You should follow Evan Shapiro and read his Substack. Same for Alan Wolk and his outlet, TVREV. I’ve also been enjoying NEXT TV and Puck.
The signal to noise ratio on the LinkedIn feed is atrocious. More on this in another post.
It’s getting kind of bleak out there. I’m seeing some people post some pretty personal, heartbreaking stuff. Check on your friends, take care of each other.