Transcript of Why Applying for Jobs Is a Waste of Time (And What Actually Works Instead) | Ep 301 with Julia Arpag Founder of Aligned Recruitment

Julia, something I keep reading about in the news lately has been jobs. Obviously, we can go in later around what's the future of jobs? But I'm really curious because I haven't applied for a job, nor have I had a traditional job in quite some time. But I hear a lot of negativity around jobs and applying Now that supposedly AI is doing a lot of the filtering, so people are like, Okay, I need to game the system to make sure my resume or something when I apply because AI is going to see it not a human, to me, the whole thing seems very confusing. What should people do when they're applying for a job?

People should actually not apply for jobs. I know that's an insanely hot take, but hear me out. In my experience, I've been recruiting for about 10 years. I have myself applied for jobs. It almost never works. If the goal is to get a job, that is almost never the avenue through which you actually get a job. More often than that, I would estimate probably about 70 to 80% of the time, the way you're going to get a job is good old fashioned manual outreach, ideally to someone you actually know who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone. Right? Like, networking has never gone out of style, not for one second. With all the new tech we have available to us, That is still more often than not the way that people are going to get jobs. Or if you're me, a headhunter, you're going to get a job because your LinkedIn profile is optimized to the teeth, where I'm like, Okay, I need a B2B SaaS product manager who's worked in fintech for five years. Let me see that you are that person, right? Don't spend all this time AI-ing your resume just to send it into a black hole where AI will reject it.

Stop doing that. Optimize your LinkedIn, reach out to the people you actually know and pound the pavement. You've got to do it the old-fashioned way.

Now, okay, so somebody in your position, obviously, you need to make sure that somebody like yourself, you stand out to people like yourself. If I want to make sure that I stand out to someone like you, you mentioned LinkedIn. What specifically makes people stand out?

Great question. Number one, you've got to optimize your headline. Those words that are right next to your picture when you just see the little thumbnail. Make it so easy. When people are like, I optimize systems and processes, I'm like, What the freak is your actual job? Just give me your job title or the job title you're aiming for. Make it super clear. Don't make me pour through your LinkedIn to understand who you are and what you do. Just make it super clear. So that's number one, optimize that headline. Secondly, when you're listing out all the jobs that you've had, just give me three bullets of when you absolutely killed it. You improved site visibility by 89%. You drove 1. 2 million in revenue. Whatever you did, that's your Bragg book. Your LinkedIn is your Bragg book, and I need to see the bullet points of what you've done. Because my job is to make my client happy. So my client will be happy if I bring them you who has this beautiful description of everything you've done. You and I have gotten a phone call because I was so impressed by your profile. And now I can brag about you to my client.

We both win. The client wins, I win, you win.

Okay, so what do you do in terms of getting people ready? Or do you suggest, are there certain things that somebody should get ready before an interview?

Oh, my gosh, 100 %. So whatever your job is, you have to have soft skills. That's obvious. It should be so obvious. But I can't tell you how many candidates I get on the phone with where I'm like, Am I the first person you've spoken to? What is going on? You just need to have this. Really, it comes down to EQ. You need be able to read the room. You need to have prepared talking points about what you've done, even just for that initial recruiter interview, even if you got headhunted. Again, for us to be able to present you in the best possible light to our client, Make your own life easier. Make your own chance of getting the job easier. Just prepare your talking points, prepare your energy. Come in excited to have the conversation, and then do the same thing for every step in the interview process. It doesn't have to be crazy. Again, if you've got that Bragg book ready to go on LinkedIn, just review it. Just remind yourself of what you've accomplished, and then come ready to talk about it and bring the energy and enthusiasm so we can see that this is a role that you're actually interested in.

What are you finding companies are coming to you for? Is it a specific type of role, or are you finding there are certain traits, or is it certain skills that these companies are looking for?

Great question. We're a tech recruitment firm, so We recruit solely in the tech sector, but we work across departments within tech companies. People will come to us for engineers. They'll also come to us for product managers. They'll also come to us for salespeople. The type of role we recruit for is broad. The type of company we recruit for is tech companies, typically tech startups that are between seed and Series B. That's our most common focus. I will say, though, within that world, the most common roles that we're being approached for right now are sales. I think because to your point earlier about AI making the application process a madhouse, AI has also made the sales process a madhouse because people have such AI fatigue. They're getting bombarded with automated emails, messages, phone calls. Nothing's authentic, nothing's human. So the demand for sellers has only gone up because you've got to use AI as a tool, not as a replacement for your actual ability to talk to people and to understand what they need and match it with what the company can offer them.

I've seen this before. Anytime you democratize something, it's great because you give the ability for almost anyone to try to do something. The only thing is you create massive competition and like you said, the fatigue. It's great that a small company with no budget can spend $50 a month with a tool that can now send 10,000 emails a month. But now you have a million companies sending 10,000 emails a month, and now we're bombarded with messages. It's good to know that sales, which I've seen growing up myself, I knew when I dropped out of college, I learned sales, and I knew I would always have a job if I knew how to sell. Is there a certain range of salaries that these type of tech companies, if you're allowed to talk about it, that there are... Do they tell you the salary ranges that they are looking at?

Oh, of course. Yeah, I can't headhunt if I don't know the dollars that we're talking about. For a seller, With, let's say, 5-8 years of experience, we're looking at around 150K base. And then you're on target earning. So the bonuses and commissions you earn on top of that is going to be double that. So your overall earning potential is going to be 300K, if not higher. So sales, I mean, is the oldest profession in the world. It's still one of the most lucrative. And if you can master the art of sales and not lean on the crutch of AI, because like you just said, it's really not helpful when you're one of a billion messages in their inbox, you're we're going to freaking crush.

What was the craziest or most fascinating interview that you've personally been to?

Where I was the one being interviewed?

Yeah, maybe you were being interviewed or maybe even someone that you've heard a story around.

Oh, gosh, that's such a good question. You know what? I heard... So this is a friend of mine. This wasn't one of my clients, but she went to a sales interview where it was a walk and talk interview. And the goal was to see... He just threw these crazy lobs at Questions you wouldn't think of would be in an interview. He asked her just... I can't remember the specific details, but I do remember they walked laps around the lake, and afterwards she was like, I feel like I just got haze for a sorority. It was just the most random, bizarre experience ever. So Salms and reviews tend to be off the cuff because they want to see, can you handle weird Atlanta situations? Because you have to do that as a seller. So it cracks me up.

So one time, I was an assistant manager. My manager, I said, Look, I want to do a test. Let's put ourselves really high on chairs and put a chair really, really low for the people that we're interviewing, and let's see what happens. Oh my gosh. It was hilarious. There was one guy who was 6'5, and the chair was really low. And he sat down the chair and he made a comment like, Well, this chair is really, really low. But he's not used to being much lower than people. We were probably two feet higher than him. It was hilarious. It really did get to people. But talking about- Did it work? I don't think we hired him. I can't remember exactly. I had so many stories. Did you hire anyone? I do remember this. Okay, I got a resume one time when I was a store manager, and the resume talked about how this person lifted weights, and he was like, fitness, competition, resilient, jiu-jitsu, black belt, the most random things for a sales job. I'm like, I want to interview this guy. I've never seen this on a resume. He comes in, I'm not even kidding.

He was like 4'5. You would think he was in his 20s. He was in his 60s. He was not in any good shape that I would think from what his resume. Everyone at the start thought of this story. I ended up hiring him last week. Why did you hire him? Because we lied to him. I don't know. I just thought he had so much confidence. He thought he was 20, but it didn't work out.

That's hysterical. Circle.

Anyways, less about me. What I wanted to know from you, and thank you for sharing all this, now I understand how is the market and the tech scene. Sounds like pretty good paying jobs still exist. For you, what made you go from being in a job to saying, I want to be my own boss?

That's such a good question. So similar to sales, the beautiful thing about recruitment is that if you have a phone and a computer and drive, you You can do it. You can crush it. You don't need a company. You don't need this youth institution. I'd been recruiting for several years. I had been thinking about going out on my own for about a year, but I was like, It feels so scary. I don't know the first thing about it. And then I had my second son I'm on maternity leave, and my CEO calls me out of the blue. Five weeks into my mat leave, I have a literal five-week-old infant, and he's like, Hey, I'm so sorry, the money's gone. I'm laying everyone off. We're on the verge of bankruptcy. I haven't paid myself in months. I have no money for you. This is the end of the road. It was the best thing ever because it kicked me out of the nest. It was no longer an option to stay at that W2 job. He did me a huge favor. I was very fortunate that I put feelers out in my network, and a bunch of people came and offered me jobs because I'd been recruiting for so long.

They knew what I was capable of. But I was like, You know what? If I start my own firm, I can say yes to all of you, and I can work as a consultant, and I can hire other recruiters to work under me to recruit for you. That's what we did. It took off. It's been a freaking wild ride, and I've loved every second.

Sometimes we need that push, right? You're thinking about it, you want to do it, but you're scared because now you don't have the guaranteed paycheck. But in the end, many times it works out. I know you've built a seven-figure business. What would you say are maybe two or three things along the way? When you look at the beginning, let's say the first six months, the first year, was there two or three things that had to make sure that you did in order to continue to scale?

Absolutely. The number one thing I did was I hired an executive coach to teach me how to sell. Exactly what we're talking about here today. If you can't sell, your business is going to fail, period. It doesn't matter what your job is, your job has to become that you're a seller. I didn't know how to sell. I wasn't like you. I had never sat in a sell me a pen interview a day of my life. I hired an executive coach who had sold and scaled her own recruitment companies very successfully. She taught me every single thing I know to this day about sales. She is still in my corner. She's still absolutely a spitfire. That's such a blessing. She taught me everything. I journeyed through that process that first year, got my feet under me, and that really was the difference between success and failure.

I'm glad you bring up the hiring of a business coach, but somebody who specializes in a very specific thing that you want to learn. I I think that's something that you don't hear a lot of people talk. Obviously, you hear life coach, and there's business coach, but I don't think people understand hiring a coach for a specific thing who's an expert in that specific thing. I've had a lot of success doing the same thing. When I want to learn something, I hire somebody who's an expert in that one thing versus a general coach who knows a little bit about a few different things. When you looked at scaling, because you go to zero to 100,000, 100,000 to a million, when you exceeded the million revenue mark, and I think it's only like 4 or five % of women, it's something very low. It's like single digits will ever create a business in the US, at least, that does over a million in revenue, what did you see that needed to change within you?

Oh, my gosh. That's such a good question. That's an ongoing journey because I've run the business for about two and a half years now. Like I said, I have the baby I have another baby who was born right at the layoff. I have another baby who was born before that. So my sons are now two and four. I'm married to this magical, delightful man who also works full-time. So it's an ongoing seasonal navigation of I need to honor my commitments in multiple I guess. I'm a mom, I'm a wife, I'm a founder, I'm a Christian. I have all these categories that I'm not willing to let these balls drop. So I have to constantly be in this juggling act to figure out who I need to become, how I need to grow, and what I need to to master what I need to learn so that I can continue to succeed. And honestly, the answer is it depends. Who I've had to become has really changed season to season. Year one, I was like, foot on the gas. I'm going to freaking figure out this sales thing. I'm going to freaking kill it. I'm going to take over the world.

I did it, quote unquote. I did figure out how to sell. Here I am today selling. Year two, though, was about getting back into balance, where I was like, okay, I feel like I'm in a good place. I feel like I know what I'm doing. I've got my feet under me. There's It's always more to learn, more to grow, more to master. But I want to lean back into this more balanced posture where I'm not that founder who's checking their phone all the time, who can't turn their work brain off, who's just married to my business. I never wanted to be that person. So year two was really about honing that balance. And now going into year three, it's continuing to scale up in both of those areas, both in strategic intentional sales and also in not losing myself and losing my priorities of faith and family while I do so.

So while you're juggling all these things, was there a moment where you said to yourself, You know what? I think I'm going to go get recruited myself back to a job. Of course.

Every founder thinks that all the time. The There's the lure. It sounds easy. It sounds easy. Oh, my gosh. I wouldn't have to make as many decisions. I wouldn't have to be in charge of literally every single thing. But then when I think about it, I'm like, But then someone else gets to tell me what to do and where to go and what hours to work. For me, the freedom and flexibility of business ownership is worth all the costs. That has been so, so clear to me from the two and a half years of running the business. So yeah, any founder who denies that they've thought longingly of the ease of a W2, if they tell you they're not thinking about it, they're lying. But ultimately for me, I just come back to my why, and I come back to the benefits of doing this, and it keeps me on the path.

I think about it once a month. If somebody like yourself reaches out to me and they're like, Hey, you'd make a great role, I think, for this. I'm like, You know what? Maybe I should go to this interview. I would tell my wife, and she always laughs because she's much stronger-willed than I am. She's way more resilient and business than I am. She'll be like, one, you're not qualified to do that job. Two, why? Are you going to quit? She's been my backbone for sure. When you look at talk And talk about relationships, and I think a lot of people say entrepreneurship is a very lonely place, do you find that you have friends who are also either in the same industry, in business? Are there organizations, are there groups or are there places that you've joined in order to not be in a lonely place? Because I think we all need to rely on others that know what we're going through.

100 %, yes. I have not walked Not a single step of this founder journey alone. So I hired that executive coach. The first check I got, the first money in the bank, I gave to her. I took note. I was like, Here you go. Let's go. So that was step one. Step two, I've been in a executive circle since I started two and a half years ago. So the circle, what it is has changed. It's one year intensive, basically, for recruitment founders who wanted to scale to a million. Now I'm in this two actually different executive circles. Both are faith-based. Like I said, my Christian faith is very important to me. That's where I'm leading into this year is Christian founders who are on that journey specifically. But yeah, every single step is so much lighter, and your load is so much lighter. If you can carry it with other people who get... You're not in a W2 job. You don't get to clock out at the end of the day. You do have to make hard decisions. You do have to forecast and look down the road and see what's coming, good and bad.

So, yeah, that's been huge.

My final question for you is, will jobs exist in the near future?

Gosh, I wish not, right? I wish we could all go retire to Bali. That'd be ideal. Yeah, unfortunately, I'm kidding. Yes, Jobs will always exist. What they are will shift. This cracks me up. Anyone who studied history knows that this panic comes around whenever there's a new technological advancement. It happened with the printing press. It happened with the industrial revolution. It's It's been happening with AI since the '50s. Ai is not new. Just the way we're using it keeps changing because it's such an iterative tool. No, jobs will always exist. They will change, and the people who are able to land on their feet are the ones who are adapting.

I was talking to somebody about this yesterday, and he was mentioning to me around purpose, like having purpose in life, but without profit. It's like having a purpose that's not tied to money. He was talking about longevity. He's a doctor talking about longevity. Like humans need to basically have a purpose, but it's not just the purpose that's tied to some money or monetary gain. It got me thinking about younger generations and how we look at Gen Z or maybe... I don't know if alpha is in the workforce yet or that's too young, I'm not sure. But at least for Gen Z, what I've seen, or younger people, they are really big on purpose, but the purpose that is not necessarily tied to money, and aligning themselves more with a company who has the same morals, values, purpose. Where when I was in my 20s, I took any job that somebody was willing to give me money for. I could have sold anything. I would have sold toilet paper, whatever it was. I didn't really care because what do I care about purpose? I'm here just to make money. But it It seems like these new generations of people are looking at things differently.

How does a recruiter like yourself, how do you see that with these companies who are trying to hire these people?

Yeah, I think that that's huge. I think you've got to resonate with the mission Even if it's not, to your point, maybe it's not an explicitly values-based company. I definitely see. And founders want that, too. Founders want people who look at their mission and care about their mission. They want it to matter to individually. So one of our clients, for example, is a cyber security company. They want people to care about cyber security. Maybe it's not the thing they talk to their husband about during kill-of-talk at night when they're falling asleep. But they do want it to be something that matters to them, something that they see the value of in the world, that they want it to matter to them that they're protecting their clients from ransomware attacks. They want to see the value of that. They want to see why they're doing that. They want to see why they get them out of bed in the morning. I think it goes both ways, and I think it's a good thing. I think it does matter that you care what you're spending the of your life doing. I think it does matter that a founder knows they're hiring someone who's bought into what they're trying to build.

Well, maybe they'll live happier, longer, healthier life because they do care about these things where Other people like myself at that age did not care about those things, although I care about them now in my life. So I did. Okay, you got there.

I did, yes.

Six years ago, I said, I'm going to move away from a life that's purpose-driven of money to a life purpose-driven, not related to a business or any monetary thing. But Julia, this has been really great. I'm sure people need to impress you, so they're going to have to go look up your LinkedIn profile. If you can share what that is and your website, because they want to crush it in a new tech job.

I also want you guys to crush it in a new tech job. You'll find me on LinkedIn. I am the only Julia RPad on LinkedIn, so you're going to have a really easy time finding me. Then my website is just the the name of our business, alignedrecruitment. Com. Again, super easy. You'd have to try not to find me, honestly.

There you go. If there's a tech company who's got a seed plus Series A, B, C, D, E, F, Z, if they have any of those, they should reach out to you because you can obviously find them the best talent. But, Julie, this has been great. I learned a lot today. I'm more hopeful and positive for the future, and I hope the audience learns a lot because I think they're going to take away. I know there are a lot of people that did get laid off, sadly, from Amazon and other companies right now, and maybe they can get a job at Google or these other tech start. I love the tech startups. Don't work for a big corporation. Work for a tech startup. Maybe you get shares, equity. I don't know. Maybe you get bonuses. If I was in my 20s and 30s going back, instead of working at corporations, I would have rather worked at a tech startup. I could be a billionaire right now. Julia, thank you so much for joining us on Founder Story.

My pleasure. Thank you for having me.