haven't been able to secure an offer

I started looking for a job exactly 5 months ago thinking I could land something soon but I suddenly find myself approaching the 1 year unemployment mark. I know I should have started my job search earlier but there was the whole hiring freeze from fiscal cliff late last year, the end of the year holidays, and I also traveled internationally in the beginning of this year.

I fall into the 3-5 year experience level bucket (not all finance experience though) and I’ve been having interviews but just can’t seal the deal. For example, I recently had an interview at a hedge fund and they basically told me that they want an EXPERT in the skills they listed even though it was just a junior role paying mediocre salary. I’m averaging about 1-2 interviews per month and I just can’t seem to seal the deal. I’ve recently started to look into other industries that can possibly allow me to get back into a certain career path in finance later. I’ve also expanded my relocation preferences even though I highly prefer not to.

It’s hard to pinpoint the exact issue because each failed interview was caused by a different reason. Some examples are:

  1. I failed to get past a HR phone screen by not answering a behavioral question sufficiently even though I was a great fit for the job. HR incorrectly making snap judgments (in my opinion).

  2. Team fit reason/out of my control

  3. Got difficult questions I couldn’t answer (interview prep wasn’t enough)/brainteaser I couldn’t answer/etc

  4. Found a better fit in another candidate background wise

If anyone has gone through something similar or have other comments/can help me troubleshoot, please do so. Thanks

Dude don’t worry. All this is normal. Just keep at it and eventually you’ll land something.

2 Interviews per month is actually pretty good I think. It’s like one every 2 weeks.

There are people out there who can’t get an interview.

sorry man. I have to echo above, your reasons of not landing it are quite normal. Landing jobs these days is really tough, especially in anything finance related, there’s just a ton of people in line. Companies are all realizing it and trading down in terms of salaries and up in skills required.

It totally sucks, truly.

there’s nothing much you can do except take each loss, try to figure out the gaps that lost you the job, and fill those as best as you can.

I just found a job after 7 months of unemployment, and my experience was exactly like yours. I think I went on 17 interviews and it was a different thing everytime (although I did gradually improve basic skills, e.g. acting confident and keeping eye contact). I think your assesment that most of it is out of your control is very true. Good luck.

How did you get most of your interviews? 17 is a good amount in 7 months.

What are you looking to do, specifically?

My school career website and a lot off of craigslist, I think I only had 1 interview that was not from one of those sources. A lot of the craigslist jobs weren’t so great, but I was desprite. The job I landed was off of the career site and I would of picked it over any of the other jobs I interviewed at. So I got incredibly lucky.

Look you don’t need to worry about it .Not only due to policy problems of country the whole Europe, North America and Asian market is hit with recession. Though the big companies have never stopped hiring but only thing matters to them is specification of quality & ability in new employee that they look into. According to me the reason for rejection is when the hiring person doesn’t find you good or fit for that particular role in his company.

The moral of this story is that if you have a decent finance job, you should think long and hard before leaving it in today’s hiring environment, as the next job may be a year away.

Yeah, you’re interview frequency is pretty high. I am surprised that you have gotten zero offers from seventeen interviews. Maybe there is something off with your interview technique? It’s hard to diagnose over the internet - you should probably sit down with some people you know and conduct some practice interviews to figure this out. I am sorry to hear about your frustration, but at least you are getting a lot of call backs, which is better than what a lot of other people get.

I’m not surprised at the low offer to interview ratio. Due to the excess supply of candidates, employers are now interviewing more candidates for a position than before.