UX Hiring Insights: Why It Can Take 12 Weeks to Fill UX Roles (and What to Do About It)

Sarah Doody: [00:00:00] Hello. Hello everyone. Welcome to our special takeover of our Q and a this week. And welcome to some of our former people from Career Strategy Lab. We invited alumni back for this special q and a. We’re super excited to see some familiar faces, et cetera. But Today we are joined by. Heather Casar, who is VP of people at a company called nmi, and Heather has over 15 years of experience leading people strategy, a little talent acquisition, obviously at high growth companies like Cash App.

I just heard someone speak. From Cash App a couple of days ago at the conference. Pioneer and Uber, thanks to Uber for getting me around Europe. Um, Heather has scaled teams globally redesigned company values and built the [00:01:00] infrastructure for organizations to thrive during rapid growth. Heather’s also seen the hiring landscape evolve from multiple angles from startups to large enterprises.

And today we’re really excited ’cause she’s bringing that perspective to help us understand how UX and product professionals can really stand out in a tough job market or frankly, just any job market. A lot of the things that will make you stand out are timeless including building real connections and positioning yourselves for roles you want.

So Heather, thank you for joining us today. Do you have anything else to add or anything you wanna share with us before we get started?

Heather Cassar: I am pumped. This is my favorite topic, so I’m just really excited to be here and I’m excited chat with you all.

Sarah Doody: And for everyone, I would just kind of encourage you to imagine that this is basically a user research interview with Heather, who is [00:02:00] representing and, and herself, one of the users in your quest to get hired.

A lot of these tips, as we know, can translate to getting promoted as well. So Heather hiring is pretty wild right now, and we are all about in career strategy lab, like separating opinion from fact, which is why one of the reasons we’re really excited to have you here today. So I’m curious. As someone who has a front row seat to hiring, et cetera, and the job market, what shifts or changes are you seeing in how companies are approaching hiring right now?

Heather Cassar: Yeah, I, I think wild is like the perfect word to describe what’s happening right now. Um. Lots of people are interviewing for jobs right now and it probably feels really painful and that’s because it is. So there’s some, some kinda like big trends that are starting to emerge.

And I think the first one is that [00:03:00] companies are just slower to hire right now. So roles are staying open for longer, like headcount is being much more scrutinized across. Frankly all industries. There was this, I, I wrote it down before this call, but in August, the, in the United States, the United States only added 22,000 jobs, which for like normal people sounds like a lot of jobs, but across the United States is, is nothing.

Right? It’s essentially flat compared to what most, like most months have looked like in, in previous years. And so kind of what it means for, for those of you who are looking is that companies are really trying to define must have versus nice to have roles they’re getting really focused on only opening up roles that are kind of revenue driving and making those their priority.

And a lot of companies are looking for candidates who have cross-functional skills. So I think what we’re seeing is this trend of, you know, kind of getting rid of this middle layer of management, people who are you know, sort of only managers and really much more of a focus on kind of the player coach model and people [00:04:00] who can do more than one thing at a time.

Sarah Doody: And I’m curious, why do you think companies are expanding their time to hire? Like what are a couple of factors that are driving that, in your opinion?

Heather Cassar: Yeah, this is something that we’re dealing with at Army right now. We have, just like for reference, like some HR nerd stuff. We try to hire in about four to six weeks.

So when we open a role, we try to get somebody in the door or get someone to sign their offer letter between four to six weeks. We’re averaging 12 weeks right now which is really long and I think what we’re seeing is people who are really cautious to leave their current roles.

So in the same way that company, like companies are kind of cautious to make. Hires and bring people on. I think individual people are feeling the same thing. Sort of the general climate and kind of like what’s happening, you know, politically, environmentally, like kind of what’s going on in the world right now.

Has people thinking that it might be better to stay with like. [00:05:00] The devil, you know, versus the devil, you don’t. And it can be really scary to, like, even if you don’t love the job you have now, if you take a, a risk and you jump into a new job, what if that one’s worse? Right? And what if you’re, you’re even more unhappy there.

And then with the job market the way it is now, then you’re gonna have to go through this process again. And so we’re seeing a lot of people who are staying put. And there are a lot of people who are more hesitant. NMI is a series B startup and startups are inherently risky. And, and I think that we’re seeing, you know, among the industry of other people at the size and stage that we’re at, just really a lot of trepidation around going to a smaller company, certainly.

And then on the reverse end, we have like large paying tech companies that it feels like every day I get a popup that’s like, so and so laid off 5,000 people. Right? So it’s kind of like there’s these really big extremes on, on either end.

Sarah Doody: Yeah. And I wanna follow up on that timeline at, at nmi, which it was previously four to six [00:06:00] weeks.

Now it’s 12. And just correct me if I’m wrong here, but you said candidates are being a little slower to make moves, let’s say. Mm-hmm. So is part of that practically triple the time it’s taking you to hire people? Is part of that because candidates are somewhat dragging the, the process because maybe they’re asking tons of questions or taking longer to get back and so is that contributing or did I misunderstand that part?

Heather Cassar: I think it’s more at the beginning of the process. Okay. Where we’re finding that it’s harder to get people started interviewing. Mm-hmm. It’s hard, that initial sell. I think in, in my experience in previous years, especially in 20 20, 20 21, the beginning of 2022, it was like everybody was like, yeah, I’ll take the call.

Like, sure, let’s just have a chat. Right. And let me just, you know, kind of see what this is like. And now people are like, I don’t even wanna, I mean, most people are not as rude as I’m about to make it seem, but, but people are like, I’m not even, I don’t even have time for this. Right. Like, yeah. I’m like, I can’t even consider this right now.

Yeah. And I’m not [00:07:00] even gonna reply. So that’s the part that’s taken a lot longer is kind of initial sourcing. Once we get, for the most part, once we get people in the process, we’re, you know, not to too our own horn, but we’re pretty good about moving people along. It’s that kind of initial, like just getting people to be willing to take the jump.

Sarah Doody: Well, and if I were to throw out a guess as to why that initial phase of getting candidates into the pipeline is taking so long, it could also be because, at least from my perspective, I hear so many reports of higher or candidates being contacted by fake recruiters, et cetera, right? Yes. And this total trepidation, realistic trepidation of that.

So, that’s really interesting perspective. I’m, I’m glad we clarified that, that slowness is really on the front end of that too.

Heather Cassar: Yeah. And again, I mean, I’m just speaking for kind of like the sort of startup world. Yeah. I think if you were recruiting at Google or Meta or somewhere with like a pretty [00:08:00] big brand name, yeah.

You might have a different experience,

Sarah Doody: yeah. No, I mean, if, if, if you’re working at a company that is a household name, you know, it might, they might not have this problem that like NAMI has, which not everyone has heard in nami. But interesting. Okay. A hot topic that comes up often is contract roles.

And sometimes we hear from people in career strategy lab, like a hesitation to take a contract role and or even mention it on their resume because people are, people have an assumption or perception that contract roles come across as bad or negative on the resume. So I’m curious, what are your thoughts on that?

And then we can get into, do contract roles, you know, lead to full-time roles, and what does that look like? So what are your thoughts on the, the positioning of contract roles as a candidate?

Heather Cassar: I’m so fascinated to hear you say that because I love the [00:09:00] contract role. Like I, I don’t, I. I am trying to think of a time in which I’ve looked at someone’s resume and thought, Hmm, I’m gonna pass on this person because their last role is a contract role,

Sarah Doody: right?

Heather Cassar: I think some of that is the way you tell that story, both on your resume and in your conversations, right? I mean, if it’s like, Hey, I’ve had 12 contract roles in a row because I don’t know what I wanna do and they’re all totally different and I can’t make up my mind and I kinda am jumpy, then yeah, maybe a little bit, right?

But if it’s like, Hey, I have had an incredible opportunity to work for these four or five different companies and I wanted to experiment with different industries, or, Hey, just because of my personal life, like I wanted to be able to take time in between roles. I’m caring for my kids, I’m caring for elderly parents, and being able to, you know, have chunks of time in which I can work and then pull out is like meaningful to me as part of my lifestyle.

I think the way you tell that story is, is super important. I mean, from my, I’ll give you my personal point of view, right? I don’t see it really much stigma around that at all. I think especially [00:10:00] now, contract roles are just more and more common as companies start to really kind of tighten that budget.

And you, I’m jumping ahead a little bit ’cause you, you kind of asked this question. If you all have an opportunity to take a contract role, take it. I, I see those as kind of, if you, if it’s a company you wanna work for, I see it as an extended interview for you and for the company, right? So the company gets to evaluate your performance and, you know, if they are kind of struggling with budget or they’re not sure if they wanna hire, they get to say, Hey, like I have seen Erin’s performance over the last six months and she’s amazing.

And like, of course, like it’s a no brainer. Of course we would make her this offer. And then for you, you get to trial the culture of that company, right? Is this the kind of place you wanna work? Yeah. Or do they, do the values of this place align with, with my own, like an interview process is so short as compared to the span of.

What you’re, you’re experiencing you know, in, in, in a, in a job and in a career. So I, I’m very pro contract role.

Sarah Doody: [00:11:00] that’s great to hear because and I know your opinion is just one person but, this question of contract roles and the perception around it sometimes surprises me too.

And I think you clarified it so well in that if it’s jumpy and it looks like you’re not focused or you keep leaving jobs, you know, and we’re not sure why that could be a yellow flag, but in general, especially as you said, contract roles are so common right now, even in the job market that I would hope this gives candidates just some confidence and clarity around this maybe myth that contract roles are a negative.

So thanks for that. Do you have anything else to add to the, to the contract role topic?

Heather Cassar: I would say like, in terms of telling the story if you can get people that you’ve worked with, particularly people who hired you at those contract companies to write you a review on LinkedIn after you leave, that’s pretty powerful.

And it kind of, you kind of get ahead of that. Like, oh, did this person leave because the organization asked them to leave and ended their contract early or was it [00:12:00] always supposed to be 12 months? And now they have a glowing reference that’s like publicly available, so. Right. So maybe a little pro tip, if you, if you can,

Sarah Doody: we are here for the pro tips.

Okay. Let’s kind of walk through the stages of the candidate kinda. Interview and an application process and think about that first part of candidates have applied and they’re trying to stand out once they’ve hit that application button. So based on, you know, what you’ve experienced in the past and more recently, what things help a candidate stand out?

Yeah. I know it’s a broad question, but we’re, we’d love any specific examples that kind of have stuck in your mind or just broad tips. So

Heather Cassar: Okay. I’m gonna start with a hot take which is the substance of your resume is more important than the design and aesthetic of your resume.

Like, you have to [00:13:00] remember that you don’t have to do anything. I would say that you should remember that. Your resume before it gets to the person you’re gonna work for. For the head of product design, the CTO, whoever you’re gonna be reporting to, you’ve got at least two layers, which is one the tool that is parsing through your resume and the data and information in your resume.

GEM is a company that does this, does this well, and they just put out their sort of state of talent acquisition report, and I think they said something like 67% of companies are now using some sort of AI tool to help parse through resumes, right? So you want this, the information on your resume to be clear and upfront.

And then the second step is a recruiter who is probably not a designer and they’re probably, they could be. They’re probably not right. And so they have to be able to open up your resume and within like 20 seconds, scan through it to understand, okay, great, this person got pushed to me. They have, you know, their resume says that it matches the skills in the job description.

My AI enabled sourcing tool has told me that [00:14:00] now I’m gonna scan through it to just look for kind of some things to check off that this person is a person that I should reach out to or call or email or respond to their application. And so when the resumes are like really kind of fluffy and you have this like, beautiful aesthetic and like, and I love a good aesthetic, so it doesn’t have to be one or the other, but when it’s only that, and you’re not sort of like formatting your resume to SEO enabled searches, you’re gonna, you’re not gonna stand out as much.

Or the opposite could happen where it’s like, so. Big and long and wordy and verbose, that it’s like also kind of falls away. Yeah. So I would say that that’s a pretty good place to start of just when applying to the job before you even get to that point. I think the most important thing you can have is not your resume, it’s not your interview skills, it’s your network.

So if you’re applying now, if you think you’re gonna apply it, unless this is like your last job and next year you’re about to retire, [00:15:00] building your network is the most important thing you can do. Especially in this market, like we talked before about companies really kind of tightening the belt and not wanting to take as many risks.

Referrals are low risk candidates and they’re typically better quality hires. So if I have someone who’s coming to me who’s from a referral, you know, if Becca says, Hey, I’ve worked with with Jonathan before and they’re amazing and you should, you know, go and hire them. Great. I’m gonna give Jonathan a call, right?

She’s right off the bat because I trust Becca and I trust that she’s sending someone my, and you know, we might not hire Jonathan. It might be the wrong skillset. But that first call, right, that initial call is so important. So leaning on your network is huge. And building that network before you need it, because reaching out to someone now that you haven’t talked to in years and, and like their, your first point of contact from the last seven years is like, Hey, can you help get me a job?

Just like in human nature, it’s a little like, ooh, I feel like a little icky [00:16:00] and like, I feel like a little used and like, I don’t know if I wanna do this. There’s I forget which CEO it is, but someone does this thing where they like set a reminder on their phone and like every Friday they just send out like 20 text messages to people that they’ve worked with before.

So keeping like a roster of people that you’ve worked with in the past to just, it’s, it can be so simple, it’s just, Hey, I’ve been thinking about you. It can be like genuinely, Hey, this thing reminded me of you. It can be, Hey, I was scrolling through LinkedIn and I saw something that you posted and I loved it.

Just, even just truly as simple as like, you’ve been on my mind, just an open conversation. It’s just, oh, this per, like, I remember this person, I’m we’re keeping in touch, right? And then it could be months or years from then when you’re like, you need that person’s support and then you have it, right?

They’re more willing to help you, they wanna kind of reach out for you. So the network is so, so, so important. So I, I just spoke a lot, so maybe I’ll stop there. No,

Sarah Doody: no. You said it, you, you covered so many things. I was taking a few notes. [00:17:00] So I wanna just come back to a couple of things regarding like the referrals, because it comes up all the time.

People often post in our community, does anyone work here? Does anyone know here? Can I get a referral? And it’s like. It’s great that someone might know someone there. However, that relationship, it kind of has to go in an order of hierarchy of relationship and then referral. Right. In a perfect world versus referral and then, oh, let me try and like quickly invent a fake relationship to try and get this person to gimme a referral link.

But to, to your point, when you started talking about referrals, you said they’re low risk and better quality and it’s low risk for the company, but it’s high risk for the person making their referral. Right. And so

Heather Cassar: Yes, exactly.

Sarah Doody: If I, ’cause I, I, I’m sure it happens to you, I get it all the time. People asking me for real referrals and I’m like, I don’t even have a clue who you are.

I’m not introducing you to anyone ’cause my reputation is on the line. So I think it’s [00:18:00] really important context for people to understand and like the why behind investing in relationships before you need them.

Heather Cassar: Yes, agreed.

Sarah Doody: Can we go back to the, the two layers you mentioned really quickly, which I thought was brilliant in terms of layer number one is the tool, right?

And there’s a lot of hot takes out there on LinkedIn, et cetera, around like, AI is overtaking the job search and it’s, you know, making it so unfair or unhuman or something. And my perspective is tools have been in, in hiring like before 18 months ago when AI became like, so popular, right? Like software like Workday and Jobvite and all the other ones have been around some of them for decades.

So there has always been software involved in hiring. Uh, it’s just that I think the, the, the realization of that is at the forefront now because no one [00:19:00] really realized that until, you know, the last couple of years. So I’ve just. Emphasize these kind of two users early on of the resume, which is the tool, and then the humans, which is we have to figure out how to make a resume that meets both their needs.

And you said it really well in that the content is what each of those quote users needs to make the decision if that person is worth moving along to like a screener interview.

Heather Cassar: Yes. And, and I think I’ll just add one more thing, is that when you’re focusing on the content of your resume, talking about the impact of the work you did, so every bullet on your resume, this is like, i, Erin and I went to school together and we, we know each other, and Erin and I have a mutual friend who, who just lost her job and she sent me her resume and she said, Hey, can you look this over? And every bullet was just, I managed a team of 20 people and I sold this kind of software. She’s in the sales role.

And I said to her, I was like, so [00:20:00] what?

Yeah.

Like, who cares? If you managed a team of 20 people, what did you do? What was the impact of your work? And if you can quantify that or qualify it in your resume in that bulleted, you know, short bulleted sentence, it’s really powerful. I managed a sales team of 20 people and we drove Rev, we increased revenue for the company by 12%, right?

I led weekly team meetings that increased our engagement score by 12 points, you know, whatever the thing is, right? Like being able to quantify it or qualify is, is huge. And then when you get to that point of like a real human being, reading your resume and especially a hiring manager reading your resume, they’re like, oh, okay, this person has like the chops.

They can, they can do this and then they can ask you questions about it in the interview. Yes. Which is a really powerful way for you to kinda like, show off how great you are by having that as kind of a, a talking point that already exists for them.

Sarah Doody: Yeah. The, the more you can add context and as you said, quantify and qualify what you did, the more it [00:21:00] opens up follow up questions, right?

It’s like if you’re out in a social setting at a conference or something and someone, I ask someone, oh, what’d you think of the last session? And they’re like, it was good. Like, it’s kind of a conversation killer, you know? Yeah. And instead you wanna be looking for opportunities to capture people’s attention and curiosity.

So they ask follow-up questions saying, create a relationship.

I feel like we could talk about resumes for an hour, but we don’t have time. So one of the things I think is valuable to go over quickly is like, what’s one thing that candidates maybe think matters a lot? So myths or misconceptions around like.

Where candidates may be inaccurately spend their time or energy on different activities in the job search. When from your perspective, you’re like, you know what? The biggest bang for your buck is going to be spending time on [00:22:00] X, Y, Z. So how would you fill in that blank?

Heather Cassar: So I, I think I have two, two things maybe to share.

The first is that it’s not just the hiring manager who’s important in the process. And sometimes I see candidates really kind of like prepare and be thoughtful. And they have this hiring manager interview, right? The person you’re gonna report to, they’re hiring for the role and they’re like, they show they’re amazing.

They show up and it’s 10 out 10 in that conversation, and then they talk to like three or four or five other people. And it’s just like, sort of this like slow degradation of quality of the interview. ’cause some folks are like, oh, it’s just not that important, right? Like I’m, it’s okay. Like I, I did the thing I was supposed to do and I really nailed it with this first person.

But decisions around hiring are hiring at most companies, like a team, a team effort and kind of like a team decision. So that first conversation you have with the recruiter, they hold an insane amount of weight, right? Like at well run companies, a recruiter is a trusted advisor. And so if [00:23:00] you can impress the recruiter.

You will have a good head start. I see sometimes people treat, especially in more technical roles, no one here obviously, but I have seen people treat recruiters as kind of like an administrative function, right? Where it’s just like, oh, like this. I don’t care what this person thinks. Like I just need to get past them to move on to the next level.

But actually, they’re again, at well run companies. They’re a strategic advisor, hiring managers, working with them, they’re trusting them. They wanna know their opinion, right? They’re, they’re kind of that, that person that they’re going to and asking for advice, do you think we should move forward with this candidate?

And so really kind of making sure that you’re sort of spreading the love mm-hmm. Around, around the, the full interview panel. The second one I would say is that hiring is not fair. It’s just not it should be your talent and your ability to do your job and how how beautiful of a portfolio you have should be the most [00:24:00] important thing.

But it won’t be always. Sometimes it is, but it won’t be. Sometimes timing and budget outweigh talent and it kind of sucks. Uh, and it shouldn’t be the right thing. Sometimes somebody else gets the job because they knew a person there and you didn’t like it is, it is hard for me to say this because I’m a, I work in this space, right?

And, and I tried to influence this as much as I can, but it’s not gonna be a fair process. And, and I think understanding that and not taking it personally when if you get a rejection or if you know, it’s, it is so hard not to like. Take that to heart and be like, wow, am I actually not good at what I do?

Yeah. I started at an army in February, but I was unemployed for seven months before that. And it was a tough lesson that, that I learned even as someone kind of like in the, in the space of, okay, like I, I should have gotten that job and I didn’t, and now I, I have to be able to move on from it.

Sarah Doody: So what’s [00:25:00] one coping mechanism or tip you would give to people having been in a seven month job?

Search yourself in terms of like, how do you deal with rejection and this reality that hiring is not fair? Like it was just one thing. If, if you could just say what’s on the top of your mind.

Heather Cassar: . I would say ask for feedback as much as you can. Some companies won’t give it to you. Like I’ve worked at organizations where there was like a general policy where the feedback from the recruiting team had to be super vague because some companies are afraid of like getting sued if they say the wrong thing.

I was interviewing for a role that I, I really thought was like a slam dunk. I was super excited about it and like, we were like right at the end of the process, I had, I had met with, it was a startup and I had met with like the board, like, I, like I was pretty far in.

Yeah. And I didn’t get, I didn’t get the job I said to the hiring manager, I was like, can I just have 20 minutes of your time and can you just, I just want your advice. I’m gonna interview again. I’m gonna interview for roles just like this. This [00:26:00] is like kind of my dream job. I wanna have more of these conversations.

What advice would you give me? Which is sometimes a more helpful way of framing, I’m, I’m doing like hr e stuff now more than recruiting stuff, but it’s sometimes just a helpful way of asking for feedback. ’cause you, you said this before, if you, if you’re just like, how did that go? Like right after a conference or something, if you ask a general question, you get a general answer.

But if you’re asking specifically, what advice would you give me for the next time I have an interview like this? And it was a really good conversation and, you know, it was candid and you won’t always get it. But I think that helped me to feel like I had some semblance of control in a largely a process that’s largely out of my control is to go back and ask for that feedback and then try to action on it.

Sarah Doody: I love that. I just wanna underscore the quality of the feedback you might receive is directly related to how you ask for it. And I would wager that. A lot of the people that we see expressing frustration around not receiving feedback or being ghosted after asking [00:27:00] for feedback, I’d be curious to see how they’re asking for feedback and if we were to help them craft a better way to ask, they might get that feedback.

So, yeah, I mean, the worst that can happen is, no, it happened to me years ago. I don’t even know, maybe 12 years ago, the company Envision, which now doesn’t even exist. Same thing. Went through the whole thing and then thought it was a slam dunk, asked for feedback and in my case the feedback was so off the wall.

I thought to myself, thank goodness I asked because I don’t think I wanna work at this company because the feedback was so left field. So yeah, very important to ask. Similar to negotiating salary, which I don’t know if we’ll be able to get into, but if you don’t ask, you don’t get the shot. Right.

Heather Cassar: That’s

right. Shoot

your shot. Yeah. As the, as the youth say.

Sarah Doody: Just trying to stay relevant here, guys. All right, so someone has applied, they’ve stood out and now we’re in kind of that [00:28:00] decision phase, I guess, in terms of will a candidate move forward in the process even further, or will they get the offer?

So what are some things that candidates often misunderstand about how hiring decisions are made? And one thing that I took away, and my notes so far is like, hiring is a team sport and the level of influence that everyone can have that you interact with in the process. So what are some other things that, that candidates kind of misunderstand when it comes to hiring?

Heather Cassar: I mean, I, I think we’ve covered a lot of the, the big ones, like the ones that you have control over in Yeah. Like once you’re already in the process, like you really, every step along the way is you kind of lose control. Yeah. Of like, what, what happens? You know, I think perhaps just reinforcing that, like sometimes just budget and timing are the most important factors in making a, making a decision where you might, you might [00:29:00] genuinely be the top candidate that everyone is really excited about.

And then someone way up here at the C-suite level is like, you know what? We don’t have budget for this role, or We’re actually gonna do, we’re gonna move things around internally. And I think that’s happening more and more again as companies are sort of like tightening that purse string a little bit and, and really looking to see how they can kind of like maximize efficiency within the organization.

It’s, it’s shitty when companies do that. Yeah. Like, it’s not, it’s. I try my best to make sure that doesn’t happen at, at Army and other places I’ve worked, but it does happen. So I think maybe just the misunderstanding is like how much, how much control even the hiring team has

Sarah Doody: Yeah. Process. Yeah.

It’s sometimes like as with decisions for projects we work on in our day-to-day roles, sometimes you work on something for 2, 3, 12 months and a month before it’s launched. It’s like great work. We’re not doing that anymore. You know? I mean, I myself do that sometimes with our [00:30:00] own stuff inside Career Strategy Lab.

Yeah. And it’s not because I don’t like the work, I don’t like the people I’m trying to like throw someone under the bus. It’s just because priorities changed and we have to make this decision for X, Y, Z reasons, right?

Heather Cassar: Yep. You know, I’ll also say one more thing on that, which is, a big red flag as interviewers for, for each of you, is if the company you’re applying for has like a, an absurd interview process.

If they’re asking you like bananas style questions in like the knockout round, if they are jerking you all around, if it’s like hot and cold, that is a, that is how they’re going to behave once they’re, once you are, you are employed by them. So if, if you’re getting those kind of signals and you’re like, wow, this is like, I see some like red flags right now.

Like this is like a little crazy. And you and a lot of people are like, you know, when you’re unemployed, especially if you find yourself suddenly unemployed because you’re laid off, you’re kinda desperate for a job and you’re like, [00:31:00] let me just like continue. It’s kinda like dating. Yes. You know, like your first date with someone, like you’re supposed to, like your first date is like when you really first impressions matter and you show up and you’re like bringing the best version of yourself.

If the best version of yourself still kind of sucks. Like that you are gonna kind of suck like the rest of the relationship. Yep. So it’s like the best version of that company is rescheduling interviews a million times you know, taking weeks to respond back to you. Like it’s a huge red flag. And I would say like, move on because it’s, it’s not gonna get better once you’re, once you’re employed by them.

Sarah Doody: Yeah. The, the way that companies hire is a foreshadowing of the way they’re going to treat you once you’re hired. Right.

Heather Cassar: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Doody: One quick misconception that maybe you can clear up, maybe you can’t, but feel free to dodge the question, but you know, we hear all the time, especially right now when companies post a role, oftentimes there is such a high volume of candidates.

I’m curious if you [00:32:00] can tell us anecdotally and this will be a guess, but like what percent of candidates who apply do you think actually. Meet the bare minimum, let’s say, versus they just practically didn’t even read the job description, had no business applying, but somehow applied anyway. Because I think one concern job seekers have, and I think it contributes to the anxiety of the job market right now, is when you see this job was posted five days ago and it has 400 applicants or five hours ago, and it has 400 applicants.

So can you level set around like quality of candidates and what to make of these numbers?

Heather Cassar: I would say that qualified candidates for a highly desirable role, like the ones that many of you would be applying to, less than 5% of the applicants are qualified. Sometimes even less than that.

Sarah Doody: Mm-hmm.

Heather Cassar: For many of the roles that we, the technical roles especially that we [00:33:00] are interviewing for, we are often, we often don’t hire anyone that’s applied.

We’re, we’re, we call it outbound sourcing. We’re going out and like finding people who have those skills. There’s this sort of like influx of AI generated, like you can pay a company to like blind apply to jobs for you. That’s certainly something that certainly increased the, the number of applicants that we get.

I think, you know, again, there’s. Less jobs available. So just applying to anything and sort of like casting a wide net is certainly happening, is a very low number. And, and I should say, I don’t wanna say that to discourage you, like you should still, you should still apply to jobs that you’re not a hundred percent qualified for.

And, and when I say like qualified, I don’t mean someone who’s like, you know, less than 5%, I mean, like people who meet like 80% of the, the job description. Like no, very few people are gonna meet a hundred percent of any job description, like perfect candidate. [00:34:00] Yeah. it’s so low. It’s, it’s actually like alarming low.

It’s, it’s one of the most frustrating things in the recruiting spaces. I’m like, oh, I wanna give someone a chance, but there’s just no one here. You know, we, we posted a, a mid-level product manager role a few weeks ago and we had 367 applicants, uh, by the next morning that about 24 hours later, we didn’t hire any of them by the way.

We had, we had to do outbound sourcing.

Sarah Doody: Yeah. I think so many, so many people are number one, relying on these robo tools that apply for them. Let’s be honest. It’s happening. And I think so many people are not paying attention to the details that matter, such as your friend that you mentioned who had the resume, and it was just, I was responsible for, I managed, I did blah, blah, blah.

And to go back to the beginning of our conversation, did not just take the extra time to qualify, contextualize, et cetera, what they did, and [00:35:00] tell even just a 10% better story than other candidates. 10% better is one of my new philosophies. But I think it’s so important because with just, with just 10% better, not perfect, just 10% better, you could probably be seeing results.

Yep. Okay. A hot topic really quick. Cover letters or no cover letters. What do you think

Heather Cassar: cover letters are? Bullshit. Don’t waste your time.

Sarah Doody: And why do you say that?

Heather Cassar: No one reads them? Uh, like some companies will require, I actually think companies that require a cover letter are red flag companies.

Sarah Doody: Okay.

Heather Cassar: That’s a broad statement to make. Yeah. So sorry if you’ve worked in a great company that required cover letters, but they’re just totally unnecessary. I think especially with like the, I think before LinkedIn, you know, maybe 10 or 15 years ago before LinkedIn was as big as it was, it was helpful.

But anything you put on a cover letter you can articulate in your LinkedIn profile, you can expand on that. You can have, you know, posts on [00:36:00] that, uh, you know, and yeah, I, I wouldn’t waste your time. Yeah, unless it’s required. And if it is required and you still wanna apply for that job, call up your good friend chat, GPT, and drop in the link to the job description, dropping a link to your resume or PDF of your resume and say, Hey, help me write a short concise cover letter that describes why I’m qualified for this role.

And then, you know, do a little preview but don’t spend a lot of time on cover letters.

Sarah Doody: Yeah, I think it’s one of those topics we could ask 15 people and it would be split down the middle potentially. We do cover cover letters inside career strategy lab. And one of the reasons I wanted to cover it is because it can help take a little bit of work off the, recruiter, hiring manager, et cetera. If you can keyword succinctly, connect the dots in the cover letter. And I think one of the reasons cover letters get a bad reputation is because it’s like, dear hiring manager, I am so excited for this role to change the [00:37:00] world at your company and blah, blah. And it’s like mm-hmm.

They’re so shitty. And so I think a well-written cover letter might be effective, but it depends. I mean, yeah. You don’t use them though, which is totally fine. I’ve never, let’s see.

Heather Cassar: Never required

it.

Sarah Doody: Yeah. I’ve never read me is like, why bother? You know, I don’t like requiring it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So another thing that we’re curious about is like the. Potential impact or value of trying to contact a hiring manager before or after you apply for a role at their company? Has this happened to you? Did it result in positive things for the candidate? Negative things like do any examples come to mind?

Heather Cassar: Yeah, I, or did you do

Sarah Doody: it in your job search?

Heather Cassar: I did a couple of times. I think it depends on how you do it. If you are thoughtful [00:38:00] and you’re specific, I think it’s really helpful. If you are messaging the hiring manager and saying, please look at my resume. I just applied to your job. That to me, per this is different for different people.

But for me personally, that’s a turn, turn off where I’m like, this is, like lazy outreach. And, and maybe that’s unkind to say, but it’s kind of like if you’re gonna take the time to like find the hiring manager on LinkedIn, you’ve already applied to the job. Like, tell me something new, tell me something I’m not gonna get by reviewing your resume through like our applicant tracking system.

Right? Like make some sort of connection. I think when you’re thoughtful it helps. It should be short, it should be value add, right? Like it, it should be in addition to whatever’s on your resume. I, the best way to do that is if you have even like a loose, tangential connection in any way. Like the best, best way is if you know a person who knows the person, right?

And they can make the introduction for you. That’s often more powerful, you know, which is to say, Hey, you know, and Erin [00:39:00] says, Hey Becca, like I know Heather and she’s applied to the CSL to come and work for you. Can you, you know, give her a call? Like, that’s great. Or if it’s even just some other connection, right?

Like we’re all human beings and like we all desire human connection. It’s the same thing when we’re thinking about recruiting. So just something that’s thoughtful, that stands out, I would strongly advise against messaging and just saying, Hey, please look at my resume. I just applied to your job.

Sarah Doody: Yeah, it, it just screams lazy in my opinion.

If you can say something unique, extra additive to what was already there, you know, connect the dots. Like maybe take what, maybe you would’ve put in a cover letter and use one of those things for the outreach.

Heather Cassar: Yeah,

Sarah Doody: yeah. Okay, so we kind of already covered relationships. So I think we’re gonna move on to, uh, the idea of career bro, career growth and promotion.

And I’m [00:40:00] curious like what signs. Tell you that someone is ready for the next level whether it’s like in their own department or maybe moving across departments. Like how do you guys think of that? How do you think of that?

Heather Cassar: Yeah, I think it’s gonna be really company dependent. And kind of like how your company thinks about things.

My philosophy in like the HR and people space is when you get promoted at a company, it should be at the intersection of two things, which is individual readiness and business need.

Sarah Doody: Hmm.

Heather Cassar: So I think when we’re earlier in our careers, a promotion is sort of like expected, right? Like if you are at an entry level or you’re in an entry level role.

For like 10 year, like something’s probably like, you’re probably not that good and you should think about a different job, right? Like, I mean, unless that’s where you wanna be, unless you’re like, Hey, I love it here. This is like easy peasy. This is how I want my life to be. Then more power to you, right? But if you want to [00:41:00] advance and you’re kind of staying at the same entry level role for an extended period of time, there’s, that’s probably a signal for you.

But as we get more senior and more experienced in our careers, a promotion is not guaranteed. I’ve worked at company when I worked at Square and for Cash app, it’s something called terminal levels, which is, Hey, once you get to this level, we had nine levels, and terminal level was often level six. So once you get to this point you might never get a promotion.

And that’s just how it works, right? And it doesn’t mean that you’re not growing. It doesn’t mean that you’re not learning. It doesn’t mean you’re not taking on more responsibility. It doesn’t mean you’re not getting paid more, recognized more, but just in terms of like a on paper promotion, it might not happen after this level.

And it was something that was really widely. Accepted across the company. So I think that your individual readiness is just as important as whether or not there’s a business need. Some companies think about promotions as an actual change to your job. So just because you’re, I have a, a coworker who used to work at Palantir and at Palantir you didn’t get [00:42:00] a promotion unless your job actually changed.

Sarah Doody: Hmm. So

Heather Cassar: I didn’t go from like HRVP to senior HRVP to like extra senior HRVP, like that didn’t exist. But if I went from HRVP to head of Talent acquisition, then I would get a promotion because this is a different, different job. Right. So really kind of depends, I think, on your company. And personal readiness is only, only half of it candidly.

Sarah Doody: Yeah. And I’m curious, what’s your perspective on candidates, not candidates, current employees initiating discussions about. Promotions proactively. Should they wait until performance reviews, et cetera? Like what is the best way to approach that with your manager? Do you have a hot take on that?

Heather Cassar: I don’t think my take is particularly spicy, maybe like poblano pepper level, but like you should talk to your manager all the time about your growth and performance.[00:43:00]

You should never wait until a review cycle. You should never wait until like a, a specific point in time. I mean, lots of companies like. You only get a promotion at, you know, twice a year or once a year, or whenever the cycle is, but the conversation should be more or less continuous. Mm. And I don’t mean like every one-on-one, you should be like, am I ready yet?

Am I ready yet? Is it happening now? Yeah. But to say in your first conversation with your manager, if you’re new to a company or they’re new, one of my favorite questions to ask people who are new to my team or when I’m new to a team is, what do you wanna be when you grow up? Mm-hmm. Like, what, what do you wanna be?

What is it? What it, like give me the like big picture. When I retire I’m gonna look back on my career and I will have wanted my resume to say these things. That helps me as a manager understand like, what is someone working towards? And I think as an individual you can share something similar with your manager, right?

Which is like, Hey, I would eventually like to be. The chief design officer or the chief product officer at mm-hmm. A large public company. [00:44:00] That’s my dream job. The next step for me, I think looks like this. How can we work to, to get there? What are some of the things that you think I’m missing? What are some right?

And you just ask for that feedback. Some of you might have amazing managers who give it to you proactively. You will be in the minority with that. There are amazing, we want every manager to be amazing at Army. I adore all of them, but they’re not all good managers. And so you, you have to own some of this.

If your manager is not asking you and you have to say, this is where I would like to go next. This is what I see as the next step in my career, I think that these are the things I’m missing. Do you agree? Can you help me get there? And your managers opt to help you. I wouldn’t say that it’s their job to sort of tell you, okay, now you’re ready.

Right. Like there’s a big element of kind of being in the driver’s seat as as an employee.

Sarah Doody: Yeah. Yeah. I think the, the takeaway there is. Always be thinking about this. And similar to relationships, like be investing in [00:45:00] this before that performance review every June or whatever it is. Because if you’re waiting that long to plant those seeds, guess what?

Your manager is also thinking about the other 10 people on their team and it’s too much probably. Whereas if you had invested the time to put the bug in their ear and have honest conversations beforehand, you might have like leapfrogged the opportunity to get a promotion.

Heather Cassar: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I, I would, the last thing I’ll say is I, I also don’t think you need to always frame it as a promotion, but rather like, I wanna continue to grow and I’m, I am always wanting to learn and, and be able to do my job better.

Mm-hmm. And to kind of move further along in my career. What are some of the things there, it doesn’t necessarily have to be like. How do I get a promotion? It could be for sure. Yeah. Like promotions are great. Like there is no knock to promotions here, but it might be more like, Hey, you know, if you just started at a company, for example, like, I wouldn’t say unlike month two, you [00:46:00] should ask your manager about when your next promo is gonna be.

Sarah Doody: Right.

Heather Cassar: But you know it, but saying, hey, really clearly, like, this is what I wanna do with my life and my career and you know, I love your support in getting there.

Sarah Doody: Yeah. It’s kind of like dating, right? Like it could be weird on the second or third date to like say so, and you wanna get married, like kind of awkward.

I’ll reserve my own personal stories, but

Heather Cassar: but, but using that analogy, using that analogy, it’s not weird to say, I would, I would like to have kids one day,

Sarah Doody: right? Yes. Are you aligned with that?

Heather Cassar: I don’t, I’m not saying I wanna have kids with you right now tomorrow.

Sarah Doody: Yeah. Right.

Heather Cassar: But that’s something that’s important to me.

Sarah Doody: Yeah. No, I think it’s, it’s about like. Tactfully, pacing these conversations. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so last question. You were hired seven months ago, but if you were job searching right now given the job market and current climate, like, is there anything you would do differently and what are one or two tips you [00:47:00] would give people or that you would be applying to your own job search right now?

Heather Cassar: Yeah. I would lean harder into my network. I would lean harder into networks that were not mine yet, but I wanted to be a part of. Hmm. I really like the idea of networking events and then I show up at them and I’m like, wow, I’m so uncomfortable and I don’t know who to talk to and like. I just sort of like gravitate towards the easiest thing where I like sit alone in the corner.

I’m like, pretend I’m like, hello, have a phone call. Right? Like, like, and, and the like presentation part is great, but I am, I, I don’t know, I just get like a little bit nervous in front of new people, which I think is perhaps common or, or maybe you all are like more extroverted than I am and this is like a no brainer for you and you’re like, get over it, Heather.

But I would, I would maybe force myself to be a part of those things or find networking events that are. Better suited to the way that I like to talk, [00:48:00] which is like small, intimate group things as opposed to like, Hey, a hundred other people are in this room with you listening to this panel. So definitely lean, lean into the network that exists already and one that I wanted to be a part of.

And just on a personal level, I would do a better job of building a routine for myself. It was really fun, like the first month to be like, I’m unemployed and I can just do whatever I want and I can wake up whenever. I mean, I have two small children, so I can’t really like wake up whenever I want, but like I didn’t have like a alarm clock to set.

Right. But very quickly I. Fell into like a, like not a great routine. And, and for me as a person, I love a good routine. I like doing a lot of the same things every day. And I would’ve been more thoughtful about like, okay, I’m gonna get up at the same time and I’m gonna do my job search stuff from eight to 12 every day, and then I’m gonna take a break and then I’m gonna do something that I enjoy that I can’t do.

I’m gonna play with my kids, or I’m gonna like go for a walk or I’m gonna go to Trader Joe’s at 2:00 PM on a [00:49:00] Wednesday when no one else is there. Like, whatever the thing is. Right. But I, I definitely would’ve done that. So if you’re, if you’re in a, an extended period of not working and you have a similar personality type, I would say find, find your routine sooner rather than later.

‘Cause it, it definitely threw off my, how sharp I think I was when I did get that call for an interview. ’cause I was kind of like, not in the right head space.

Sarah Doody: Yeah, no, I think routine is so important and, you know, the, the routines that we apply to one area of our life. Tend to influence other areas of our lives too, right?

So even if you’re also like making sure to schedule workouts or you know, meal prep or spending time with family, et cetera, like it all just starts to mold other parts of your life. So I’m a huge fan of that. Yeah. I know we have a ton of questions. I know we don’t have a ton of time left ’cause we covered so much, but Erin and Becca, I don’t know if there’s any questions or themes.

I [00:50:00] mean, we could go on for a long time, but is there like a

Erin Lindstrom: Yeah, I have them all and I blaming questions I think would be, yeah. So Heather, welcome to the most questions ever asked on a call. Thank you for being here and sharing with us. I boiled this down to things that I think are still top of mind and we can do kind of like rapid, fiery answers.

Circle with that. Yeah. So here are the three that I have on the side. How do you recommend leaders build a network to land leadership roles, which you kinda just touched on. And is it true that leadership roles are rarely filled through cold applications?

Heather Cassar: No, it’s not true that leadership roles are rarely filled through cold applications.

It is always easier to get any job when you know someone, but not, not true that it’s always, that it’s ineffective to do it through cold outreach or just like applying to a role. What was the first part of the question,

Erin Lindstrom: Erin? It was around building your network. So I guess anything to add to what you just said about using your network and then building the one that you want?

Heather Cassar: I, I think for a leadership role or an individual [00:51:00] contributor role, it’s the same, the same advice, right? Like finding the places that, that your network exists and leaning into those.

Erin Lindstrom: Okay. Let’s myth bust. This one says there’s a lot of talk of how the a TS works and applying with a certain amount of time.

A job goes up, is there any validity to it? So the longer the job is sitting there, the less likely you are to get at the job. Do hire men, do hiring managers look at the first 20 or 100, or does it not matter?

Heather Cassar: Okay, this is, I love this. So it, the applicant tracking system, they’re all different, but they all do the same kind of thing, right?

Right. Which is like, they get your information. Someone asked in the chat, I saw like, does it matter where I apply? If I apply here? If it, it go all goes to the same place, it doesn’t matter. I don’t even like, there’s some metrics on the backend that say like, this is how many people applied via LinkedIn.

But I don’t see it when I’m looking at resumes. It doesn’t matter. Whatever’s easier for you. Uh, the applicant tracking system, when a role is open for a long time, it has nothing to do with the at TS. It [00:52:00] is more likely to do with what’s happening internally within the company. So it is true that the longer a job is open, the less likely it is that you’re gonna get that job.

But because of. The internal dynamics of the company, not because like a job that’s been open for 60 days is inherently like not a good job. You, you know what I mean? So like, it could be that they’re already in process and they haven’t closed the rec out. A lot of companies are posting ghost recs right now, which is just total nonsense, where they’re like fake roles because they wanna like generate applicants.

NMI would never do that. If you wanna apply for a job at nmi. They’re all real jobs. But a lot of companies are doing that, so I wouldn’t, it’s not causal. But it is true that jobs that are open longer are less likely to, to make a, a higher.

Erin Lindstrom: Awesome. Thank you. Last question. On the subject of finishing things up, uh, you gave us your hot take on cover letters. How do you feel about thank you notes and like follow up, uh, conversation after the interview.[00:53:00]

Heather Cassar: I love a thank you note that is specific to the interview. So if you say thank you so much for the conversation we had about these specific things. I really enjoyed talking to you about your experiences. I loved hearing that story that you told me about when you were, you know, an early career designer and the thing that shaped you.

Yeah, chef’s Kiss. We love those. Do not send a thank you note. That’s like, thank you so much for your time. It was a pleasure to meet you. Sincerely, Heather Casser, it does like I, this is my personal opinion, not broadly, but I just delete them. I don’t even like, I’m like, I don’t, this means nothing to me.

It’s like a waste of my time. The personal thank you notes I engage with and reply to. It makes me think better of a candidate. But the super generic ones I like, I just, they get thrown into the archive of Gmail.

Sarah Doody: You’re better just to not to send it. If you’re gonna have a generic, I would just not send it.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Heather Cassar: Yeah. Also, I don’t think thank you notes are like required anymore. [00:54:00] I think if you’re like really wowed by something, you can certainly send it, but I don’t think it. Makes you a less attractive candidate if you don’t send them.

Sarah Doody: My hot take on thank yous is that it also provides the opportunity to keep the interview going as you just said.

Like your may, maybe you’re following up with a question you had or you mentioned like an article or a software or something, and it’s a chance to come back to them and say, oh, like by the way, you touched on this, or we mentioned that, here’s that article I read that I thought you might like, you know, like it’s the compounding impact of all those little touch points in IT interactions that lead to building your first impression and more trust.

Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. This has been amazing, Heather. Is NMI hiring any UX or product roles right now? I didn’t check, but uh,

Heather Cassar: we have one product role open oh one and we likely one, but we’ll likely hire a [00:55:00] designer. Probably. Just below mid level. Yeah, right above entry level. Just below mid-level. Probably end of this year, if not really next year, but connect with me on LinkedIn and tell me you are from the CSL and I’ll like note that.

And I know there are so many, I, I’m horrifically bad at multitasking, so I answered like two people’s questions in the chat. Oh. And that was all I could manage and still listen at the same time. But I’m happy to answer any in writing like Erin or the team, if you wanna send them to me, I’m happy to answer them or happy to, to just, if you have questions, just message me on LinkedIn or email me.

And I like, this is my, this is what I do all day long. I love it so much. Oh. So I’m happy, happy to chat about it.

I’m such a treat to be here. Thank you all so much and if you’re searching for a job, good luck.

Sarah Doody: Yeah. You’re living testament that even after six months, seven months, you know, you were able to navigate this job market and it’s not just the UX or product job market right now.

Like it’s everyone so it’s everywhere. So Alright. Thank you so much for your time, Heather. We really, [00:56:00] really appreciate it. We’re gonna let you go and that’s it for today, everyone. And Thanks. Bye.