COVID-19 – How Many Interviews To Secure A Job?

Posted On 10 Aug 2020

COVID-19 – How Many Interviews To Secure A Job?

10 Aug 2020
From an analytics perspective, it’s quite fascinating, and for a job seeker, it is vitally important to understand….

Candidate Resource, Employer Resource, News & Events

From an analytics perspective, it’s quite fascinating, and for a job seeker, it is vitally important to understand….

Let me provide some background first…

Pre COVID-19

Consider pre COVID-19, if you were a job seeker in our space, i.e. office support, business support, administration, the chances are, you could attend three interviews and be offered one if not all of the jobs. That’s because Australia was experiencing and had been for quite some time, an incredibly tight talent market. This talent shortage inflated salaries and made the competition for candidates highly highly (almost unattractively) competitive. If you were a Hiring Manager, you had to have a compelling story, strong value proposition, understand your audience and move at lightning speed. Job vacancies were filled in 24 hours, no exaggeration, or, every so often open for 6 months plus – disturbing, but also no exaggeration.
In Our Masterclasses

In one of our recent Masterclasses, we discussed this very topic, “How many interviews will it take to secure a job now?”.

One of our very lovely candidates shared with us that she had just found a job, and when asked how many interviews she attended, the answer was between 10 to 15 (to note, this is the number interviews not the number of jobs applied for – that is a whole other blog!). This is vitally important to know, in managing your expectations, the disappointments and the psychological roller coaster of the job market right now. The environment/playing field, at present, has changed, and thus your expectations need to shift accordingly. If it helps, the environment before wasn’t ‘normal’, so let’s not use that as our norm or baseline either and what you are experiencing in your job hunt now is not a reflection on you personally.

Is Talent Really In Abundance?

What I would say to Hiring Managers as a caution, please do not take for granted the current situation of an increased talent pool. Following best practice guidelines of still working with efficiency and developing a tight process is critical. The abundance of job seekers sees everyone applying for as many roles as possible – this makes it hard to see and identify the real talent for your role clearly. Plus, when we transit from scarcity to abundance or excess, it requires a considerable change in mindset and behaviour on everyone’s part. Which brings me to this; let’s be respectful of the situation we are all in, both as Hiring Managers and job seekers and remember that all these incredible individuals are someone’s Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, Friend….

The Right Attitude

The lovely candidate who secured the new job shared some wonderful, wonderful advice, music to my ears – after each interview, she reflected and sought to learn from it, to improve for the next one. This is fabulous, positive, proactive thinking. Quite inspiring.

Finally, thank you to all those who contribute to our Masterclasses. I LOVE seeing familiar faces; it creates an experience of relaxation and trust and helps everyone feel freer to exchange information and helpful advice and provides me inspiration to write pieces like this!

 “In any given moment, we have two options: to step forward into growth or step back into safety.” – Abraham Maslow

About the author
Roxanne Calder
Managing Director

As Founder and Managing Director at EST10, Roxanne has an all-encompassing role that includes building and growing the business, as well as actively recruiting and consulting.

After completing a Bachelor’s Degree at Monash University, Roxanne began her recruitment career with renowned recruiter Julia Ross. From there, Roxanne worked in HR and recruitment with a number of global players and boutique businesses throughout Australia, the UK, Singapore and Hong Kong for over 20 years. She has been responsible for managing large teams and projects, implementing RPO models, managing and assisting businesses to an IPO and assisting companies in setting up their recruitment teams and processes.

Following completion of her MBA at the Australian Graduate School of Management, Roxanne launched EST10 in July 2010. In doing so, she hoped to combine the flexibility and high touch service levels of boutique agencies with the structure and strategy afforded to larger firms. Roxanne believes in high-touch, high-care consulting and is always on the lookout for consultants that share this vision of recruitment.