Hi everyone!
THE ISSUE:
I have had several phases in my professional life where I was looking for a new position. Obviously, it was always a bit stressful and frustrating, but I noticed that I always had the drive to improve my pitch (CV, cover letter, and references) somehow to feel some kind of self-efficacy during the process. The biggest hurdle was always that I never knew how to improve because I never knew where to start.
MY THOUGHTS ON THIS:
I started to look at each application (and rejection) as data but was unable to turn them into actionable insights. The underlying issue is that there is next to no feedback loop. A pitch, along with your CV and documents, is complex and carefully crafted. There are numerous layers to it, ranging from granular facts to the story it tells as a whole.
At the same time, a rejection is a standardized "no" without any further information due to legal reasons. It is like writing a 10-page essay in school and your teacher just tells you: "Nope." There are no pointers on what was wrong, let alone on how it could be improved. Because the application is complex, you are left with endless possible variations and permutations you could hand in; however, if you always receive a "no," you will probably never hand in a correct one during all your 12 years of school.
WHAT I TRY TO ACHIEVE:
Since a rejection does not offer a feedback loop, I assume the only way to turn rejections into data from which I can derive insights is to add my own data points by introducing specific testing methods to my applications.
My first idea was to introduce a pattern of A/B testing from marketing: have two variants of my pitch and send them out in sufficient numbers to check whether one does better than the other. But I already started to question this idea when I looked at the current job openings in my region. Even for the same role, they were surprisingly heterogeneous. A/B testing only delivers insights if your target group is homogeneous at some level; otherwise, the results would not allow any inference as to whether a change in result was due to the difference in version A or B. Also, with A/B testing, I would not be able to tailor my applications to every job posting, they would be a lot more generic.
QUESTION:
Given my observations, would any method come to your mind, that would be suited for an application process to gain data and insights to create my own feedback loop?