Landing a job today isn’t just about qualifications. The hiring process is more competitive and complex than ever, and even strong candidates can get filtered out before a human ever sees their résumé. In this Part 1 – PM Hiring Guide, we talk with HR leaders about how to stand out, avoid common interview mistakes, and position yourself for success.
Chapters
00:00 … Intro
04:50 … Today’s Job Market
07:26 … The Slow Drag Interview Process
10:08 … Be Truthful
11:25 … Is Being Qualified Enough?
14:19 … Being a Good Fit
16:18 … Finding the Company Culture
20:39 … Getting a Job Coach
21:56 … Brushing up Résumés
24:52 … An Interview Checklist
27:32 … Don’t Speak Negatively
28:29 … Talking about Salary
32:20 … Address the Gaps
37:03 … When to Talk about the Gap
38:29 … Staying Motivated
41:42 … Don’t Quit
43:04 … Find Out More
44:33 … Closing
Intro
WENDY GROUNDS: Hello and welcome to Manage This, the podcast created by project managers for project managers. As we celebrate 10 years of conversations, lessons learned, and real-world project stories, we just want to say thank you to you for joining us and for being part of Manage This. I’m Wendy Grounds, and in the studio with me is Bill Yates.
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If you’ve been applying for jobs and wondering why it feels harder than ever to get traction, you’re not imagining it. Today’s job market is crowded, slow moving, and confusing, even for highly qualified, experienced professionals. In this episode, we’re going to break down what HR leaders are really seeing right now, why hiring decisions take longer, how résumés get filtered out before a human ever sees them, and what actually makes candidates stand out in a sea of applicants.
We’ll also talk about interview mistakes that quietly derail strong candidates, how confidence can erode during a long search, and what to do if you’re employed but starting to feel uneasy.
This is the first episode in a two-part series that we’re focusing on careers and job searching. In our next episode, we’ll narrow the conversation specifically to project managers’ career paths.
We have two guests in the studio with us today. The first is Cindi Filer. Cindi joined us previously on Episode 197, Thriving Project Teams: Retention vs. Turnover, and we’re so thrilled to have her back in the studio with us today.
She’s the CEO and founder of Innovative Outsourcing, a company she launched in 1994. Cindi is passionate about helping small business owners navigate constant change, while also connecting candidates with work they genuinely enjoy. Prior to founding Innovative Outsourcing, she worked as a corporate lender at First Union, and in human resources at Delta Airlines.
And also, with us today is Matt Filer. He joined Innovative Outsourcing in 2018; and, yes, he is the favorite son of Cindi. Matt began his career in the Chick-fil-A leadership development program, where he served as an HR director. He later brought his passion for building strong relationships to Innovative Outsourcing, where he now works in an account manager and marketing role.
BILL YATES: Wendy, this is going to be a great conversation. And for project managers, just helping them think through their career and their job search and giving them practical advice for everything from making sure their résumé is not old and stale to practical interview techniques, this is going to be great.
One piece of news for project managers, you’re in a good area, this area of project management that we all love and talk about on this podcast. It turns out that it’s growing. So, when I’m looking at some statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor, project management specialist positions have a growth rate of about 6% estimated for the next decade. That’s faster than the average for all occupations. So that’s – that’s good.
Practically that means just in the United States there’s 70 to 80,000 openings per year. They’re driving into that with a median average, with a median pay of $100,000 per year. We’ll have more to say about that in the future, but I just wanted to give you that sense of project management is still a field that’s growing, and the need for savvy project managers is always there.
WENDY GROUNDS: All right. Let’s roll up our sleeves and get started. Hi, welcome. Cindi, thank you so much for joining us today.
CINDI FILER: Glad to be here. Thanks for asking us again.
WENDY GROUNDS: And I’m so glad you brought Matt along. It’s lovely to meet him. Thank you for being here, Matt.
MATT FILER: Yeah, thank you for having me.
Today’s Job Market
WENDY GROUNDS: So, we’re going to pick your brains. We’ve got a lot to talk about on the job market, on HR issues. Just to get an overall picture of what the job market looks like right now, why are so many strong, really experienced candidates finding it hard to get traction in the job market today?
CINDI FILER: Yeah, well, I think you’ve got to kind of look at the job market in two ways. One is that there are jobs that are high availability jobs, and jobs that are low availability jobs. So, the high availability jobs, those are the ones that there are a lot of candidates for. They are hard to get a job or an interview for right now because they’re flooded in the market. You know, this may be administrative roles. It can maybe be remote roles. If it’s something in the sports industry, those are the ones like everybody wants; right? And so those industries are flooded.
And then there’s the low availability roles. And those are the ones that, at least in the Atlanta market right now, are kind of like controllers and bookkeepers and paralegals. You know, those are jobs that are really tough to find people for. So, you know, you get interviews more because they’re harder to find because you’ve got deficits in those in different areas in the country. So, I think as you look at some jobs, I mean, you get an interview almost immediately. In some jobs, you may be part of one of 10,000 people looking for that job, all depending.
MATT FILER: I also think 2025 as a whole, we talked to a lot of our recruiter friends and they say that they struggled for the year. That they were not having as much deal flow from a client standpoint. I feel like we’re a pretty good barometer of the market and, you know, where it stands. But I think 2026, we’ve seen an uptick in our clients. And I think we’re probably going to see more in that way as well.
CINDI FILER: The unemployment rate went up, the number of jobs went down. I think 2025 was the year of, we want to fill this position; but six weeks later, we’re still not sure if we’re going to. And that’s why you see a lot of that pause. It’s not so much that they’re so busy that they can’t interview, but they’re looking at their financials and deciding, do we really want to place this, or do we want to leave it empty?
MATT FILER: There’s no desperation.
CINDI FILER: Because I think everybody didn’t know what was going to happen with the tariffs, the government contracts. You know, everything was so up in the air in 2025 that it wasn’t like the business owners just said, I’m hiring this, and then they hired it two weeks later. It’s like, we’re hiring this. We’re putting our toe in the water. If there’s the perfect purple cow we find for this job, we’re going to hire it. But if we can’t find somebody perfect, we’re just going to not even hire the job.
The Slow Drag Interview Process
BILL YATES: That helps explain. I think, you know, we’ve all had friends or colleagues who have experienced this slow drag through the whole interview process. Maybe the tariffs have slowed down the instability, the uncertainty now. We’re sitting right at the beginning of 2026, and we’re still looking at processes that used to be real snappy. You’d know quickly whether you were the one or not, and they were hiring. And now it just seems to drag on forever.
CINDI FILER: Yeah. Well, that’s also, I think, the inability of the hiring managers to make decisions. We’re seeing that decisions that used to happen so quickly. They’ve been burned by candidates, I think, so much in the last five years. It could be a candidate said they were one thing. They put something on their résumé; and then as they interviewed, they were perfect.
And then they came in, and they were less than perfect, and even poor, and they had to let them go in 90 days, you know. And I think they’re all a little burnt from that. And so, they’re like, we’re not going to make a mistake twice; right?
So now we’re going to interview seven times. We’re going to have 14 people in our company meet them because I don’t want it to be all on me if they turn out to be a dud. And I think candidates have misrepresented themselves.
I was talking to one potential client this morning, and she said, “What do you do to check for people not being frauds?” And I was like, “Well, I mean, we do background checks. We do really, really intense reference checks that are like 45 minutes per client and all those kinds of things.”
And she said, “What about this?” And I’m going to get the name of the company wrong, but it was like Deceive Me or something. I’m like, “What are you talking about?” She hired a bookkeeper this last year, and she’s a fairly big company. She hired a bookkeeper, and that bookkeeper stole money for seven years from her, and evidently this person is on this Deceive Something site. And so, they’re putting references that are not real companies. So, you’re seeing Jane King was their supervisor, and then you’re calling Jane King, and you’re getting a whole conversation with her about this, that Jane King doesn’t work for that company. There is no company.
There’s these companies that are helping people get jobs that may not be the best candidates or may be fraud. And so, she’s like, how are you mitigating against that? I mean, that’s what’s going on on the Internet. So that’s why employers, to give the employers the benefit of the doubt…
MATT FILER: They’re getting almost too picky because they’ve been burned too many times.
BILL YATES: Yeah.
CINDI FILER: Yeah, whether it’s a candidate who misrepresented what their skills were; or, in this case, somebody who was going to steal $945,000 over a period of seven years, now is behind bars. So, you know, I think they’re all a little gun shy.
Be Truthful
BILL YATES: Man. So, if I’m a candidate out there for a project management position, I want to put legitimate references, and I want to push them as far as I can, make them as easy to contact, cell phone numbers, email addresses, of course working with my reference on that to make sure that that’s acceptable. Just because I want to fight against that, if I know that, okay, those employers that I’m talking to may have been burned very recently. So, I want to make everything as transparent and easy to access as possible. Man.
WENDY GROUNDS: Yes. Also not to be surprised if there’s five rounds of interviews and ability tests.
CINDI FILER: Yeah, and being extremely truthful.
MATT FILER: Yeah.
CINDI FILER: Because I think what happens is oftentimes you make your résumé, like well, I helped establish the policies and norms for the entire company for 10 years. So, we inflate all those things we do on the job. And then they call that reference, and they’re like, well, she was an executive assistant. And all of a sudden there’s a disconnect. Like you overinflated what you said on your résumé or in that interview, and you’re going to get caught.
So be careful to, I mean, you want to put your best foot forward and not just say “I was an executive assistant” and “I typed.” But you know, you want to say something that’s truthful. And so, again, that’s a huge red flag for hiring managers specifically.
Is Being Qualified Enough?
WENDY GROUNDS: So why isn’t just being qualified enough anymore? You know, what are the employers looking at? What are they filtering before the humans even get to see the résumé? Where’s it going?
CINDI FILER: Yeah, well, a lot of times we have keyword issues. Because if you say before the humans, a lot of times we’ll have an issue like, let’s say you’re going for a billing specialist position. You write down on your résumé you’re a billing specialist; you’re into billing. Well, the new current word is “invoicing.” So even though that’s the same job, two different companies, one’s calling it an invoice specialist; one calling it a billing specialist. It won’t pick you up, and you won’t even be close to the top of the search because you’ve got the wrong word.
So, you’ve got to do some real research work on AI that you can insert those words. That’s not wrong, it’s just a different term. Or like a title, like if you want to be, let’s say you’ve been a VP of HR at a company, and now you want to work for a smaller company.
And so, you’re looking for the VP of HR roles. Well, little companies don’t usually have those. They’re directors or managers. Right. So, if you’re looking for those, and you’re putting in you’re a VP, you’re not going to get pulled for that because you haven’t had that title. So again, you have to do that research work. You can’t just sometimes put in your own title. You have to then figure out what the current titles are for those things, or the search won’t pick you up.
MATT FILER: Or can you change little things on your résumé that fit what that job that you’re going for, you know, if you’re a project manager, and you’re wanting to work for a construction company, what are ways that you can gear yourself more towards construction rather than towards another industry that you could have been industry adjacent. But how can you look for what that recruiter has been told to search for; right.
When we meet with a client, they tell us, here is all the things that we want from this person. And they’re giving us a lot of the lingo in their world. Right? So, we’re looking for that lingo. We’re looking for that when, you know, these people speak on interviews. But we’re also looking for it in their résumés, cover letters, whatever it may be. And so, we want to make sure that, we’re deferring to that. So, if you know the industry that you’re going towards, how are you gearing yourself towards that I think is important.
CINDI FILER: Using those appropriate phrases.
MATT FILER: Yes, phrases, keywords, whatever that could be.
CINDI FILER: And not exactly wrong to do that, but it’s how can you make your current experience valuable towards the goal of what you’re trying to do. But it is hard because even in our small recruiting firm, I mean, I was talking to recruiters this week, and we had a job that has 800 applicants. So, we have an applicant tracking system that culls through those.
But if you think we have 800, and we’re a small recruiting firm, that means that for bigger companies or for, you know, bigger recruiters, they may have 10,000 in that list. So, you’ve got to make sure that your keywords come up to the top. And that’s just the applicant tracking system mechanism.
Being a Good Fit
But then your question was kind of what else are they looking for. And we’re finding that they’re looking for a certain type of person from a culture standpoint. At least our clients are. You know, they may be definitely needing a particular skill set, but they’re spending most of their time telling us it’s not a good fit, it’s not a good fit, it’s not a good fit.
Which had nothing to do with skill set because we’ve already gotten a skill set. You know, being a recruiter, I mean, if we haven’t hit the skill set, we’re in trouble. Right? So, by the time we send it to our clients, they should be only looking at them for who fits in our company.
And when we get the – I noticed that was one of your questions, was what’s not a good fit. That usually is a culture thing. And it matters to them if they can see them around the table. Right? If they would, I mean, a table could be virtual; right? But if they could see them participating in conversations, if they could see them, you know, not talking too much or too little, those soft skills tend to be the things that, at least in our world, tear people out of those jobs once they’ve gotten to that at least virtual interview standpoint.
MATT FILER: And one of the biggest ones that we actually see is they say, you know, we want someone that’s technology savvy; right? They want someone that can keep up. And then they go on to a video interview, and it’s the worst setup you’ve ever seen in your life. They’re like half blurred because they have a virtual background…
BILL YATES: On their side.
MATT FILER: On their side, yeah. And they just – they can’t – they’re just not putting a good foot forward when it comes to how they’re presenting on their first interview ever face to face. And they’re like, okay, if you couldn’t figure this out, then how are you technology savvy enough to be a part of this organization, to be able to handle all of our systems?
You know, whether that’s a CRM or an internal program or whatever that is, you’ve got to be able to put your best foot forward. So even doing prep for that of making sure you’re in a good spot. I mean, we haven’t hired people because we’re like, if you’re a recruiter, you’re going to be on video calls all the time. Can you make your environment look like we would want it to look?
Finding the Company Culture
BILL YATES: That’s good practical tip. I want to go deeper on this idea of the fit. Let’s say I am excited about a company that I’ve applied to, and I know there’s a lot of competition. So, it’s really important to me to research what would make me a good fit in this organization. It’s probably leading into my excitement about working for the company; right? Give some advice to that person who said, okay, this is a company that I want to work for. How do I figure out what their culture is to confirm it’s really a company I want to work for, and then to know how to impress upon them, I am a good fit.
CINDI FILER: That’s a hard one because, unless you’ve worked there, you don’t really know what their culture and the soft skills that they embrace are. If you’re working with a recruiter, that’s a really good time to ask them that question. And a recruiter should be prepping you on that. You know, they’re looking for somebody fairly that will share ideas freely in the role. They’re looking for somebody who has experience, yet may not be a verbal processor.
So, we’re giving clues to our candidates so they can then handle themselves in the interviews the right way, and hopefully that sits with their personality or not. But if you’re coming in cold without a recruiter, having a friend in the company is really helpful, and just saying, what do you think they’d want to see in an interview?
But then, honestly, I kind of think being yourself is really important because if you interview like I’m the biggest extrovert in America, and that gives you such heartburn every day, and you’re going to hate that job, then that’s when that person shows up. And the hiring manager’s like, I thought you were this huge extrovert; and he’s like, well, I interviewed that way because I knew that’s what you wanted, but I’m an introvert.
Yeah, so you don’t want to go too far away from your true self, in my opinion, or you’re not going to be happy.
MATT FILER: Yeah, and there’s ways to be like, this is going to sound creepy, but you can kind of be like a little bit of an investigator, going on to the website, finding the different people that could be in – maybe your prospective supervisor based on the role that you’re going for who could be that person and trying to find interests, what – they have their bio up there. Sometimes they have on there, “Loves to golf and hang out with his two kids.” And you could talk about your two kids that might be the same age, you know, or you could talk about golf or anything like that to try to relate.
CINDI FILER: Or you can see that they’re like, they love Patrick Lencioni’s leadership books. And you’re like, okay, I should probably brush up on some of that.
MATT FILER: Hungry, humble, smart in the conversation.
BILL YATES: Exactly. Yeah.
MATT FILER: Yeah, just slip it right in. I’m hungry. I’m humble. I’m smart.
BILL YATES: Next question.
MATT FILER: Next question.
BILL YATES: No, but that’s good, though. I mean, there are things that we can do. We can look on LinkedIn. We can look for, like you say, friends and colleagues who work there or know someone who works there. To maybe we can even have coffee with somebody and say, “Hey, what’s the vibe like at this place? You know, what’s the meeting culture? Where do you see, when people really thrive, what is it about them that you think sets them apart versus, you know, the flipside of that? For people that burn out there, do you see a common trait?”
CINDI FILER: Well, and if they’re going to, if any of your people work in very large companies, you can’t ask really about the company. You have to ask about the department or the manager because, I used to work at Delta Airlines, and my husband still works there, and every different division and department has its own characteristics.
So, somebody would get a job in one that wouldn’t get a job in another because the values are the same, but it’s more the nuances; right? So, you almost have to not find somebody that works in all of Delta Airlines, but you’d have to have somebody that works in this particular piece to match it, and that’s tough.
BILL YATES: Mm-hmm.
MATT FILER: One of our recruiters told this story the other day, and it kind of lends itself to this. But we had one client that just kept on denying our candidates. I’m like, they are all a great fit. I just can’t see myself working with them every single day. He was like, I don’t really know. I’m not trying to be difficult. It just doesn’t seem like somebody I’d want to work with every day, to get a beer with or whatever it may be.
And so, our recruiter did a deep dive on this guy and just got, like, all of his interests, what he likes, did all this stuff. And, you know, we had people that were like sci-fi nerds, and this guy was just a guy that wanted to talk about college football and golf. And so, you know, she was bringing up in interviews with candidates, what are your interests? Because she knew that that was what was going to get these people in. You know, wasn’t going to be the qualifications that they had. They had to have those, but what was going to set them apart was how they could relate to this guy because that’s who they’re going to be sitting next to every single day.
CINDI FILER: Because nowadays the actual job skills are table stakes. You have to have those to get to the party.
BILL YATES: Yeah.
Getting a Job Coach
CINDI FILER: But then you have to have these soft skills that if the candidates aren’t really developing their EQ, their soft skills, their ability to answer questions, their knowing when to talk and when to be quiet in an interview, and when to show excitement and when to not show so much excitement. I mean, if they don’t have that skill set going, they need to be coached because they could be extremely excellent at their jobs, and they will never get a job.
WENDY GROUNDS: So, there comes a time that maybe if you’re just not getting jobs, you need to get some coaching?
CINDI FILER: Absolutely. We think that’s crucial sometimes, you know, especially if they’re younger folks and just haven’t gone through a lot of, like, big company coaching. You know, some of us got that when we were young, and a lot of the big companies don’t do that anymore. So, it’s kind of like we really need to focus on if we’re not getting jobs that we’re interviewing for consistently, like somebody’s interviewed for nine jobs. Now, maybe this isn’t the person that didn’t get through the applicant tracking system and even get an interview, but this is they got through the applicant tracking systems, they’ve interviewed for nine jobs, and they haven’t gotten one of them. We have an interview issue. You know, we probably don’t have a skills gap or a job gap. We have a personality or a soft skills.
Brushing up Résumés
BILL YATES: Let me step back in the process for a minute too, because having you experts in the room, we’ve got to ask about résumés. How can you tell when a résumé has a bunch of dust on it? Give us advice as to, okay, this is what makes a résumé stand out as stale, and I’m just throwing it in the trash, and how to brush those up.
CINDI FILER: Well applicant tracking systems will only pick up résumés that don’t have all the bells and whistles on them. So, remember how we used to put, like, columns or people’s pictures, or they used to use all that black lines on them so that they would be in like quadrants and stuff. Well, the applicant tracking systems won’t pick that stuff up. So, they may not even get their information into one of those systems. You’ve got to kind of go back to that basic résumé-ish style, which is basically all the information you need without all the cute graphics. The graphics will throw you out, as well as pictures. No pictures.
And then “objective,” It used to be the big deal to write the objective. And now that makes you look like you’re well over the age of getting a job. So no, no using “objective” anymore. You know, it’s always going to be to get the job. That would be the objective, but you don’t need to put that on your résumé.
And then, you know, making sure that there are quantifiable results on your résumé, not just skills, and not just job experience. So, if you can put in something like saved $20,000 in mailing costs or 35% efficiency increase in X, or I increased sales by 228%.
MATT FILER: Or in, like, a project manager case of, managed projects worth over this amount of money; right? Because if you put that dollar figure, that stands out more than, even if it’s just a crazy project that you were one of the three leads on, then…
CINDI FILER: You still were on it.
MATT FILER: You still were on it, and it still was that much money, and it brought money to your organization or, you know, the project just in general. I think that sets you apart. Our recruiters were big on that of just like having numbers and quantifiable results I think is huge, instead of quantity.
BILL YATES: A lot of the companies that we train with, they’ll divide up their project managers, not just by seniority, the experience, but also by the project size. So that’s absolutely right. They may have three levels, and maybe they’re hiring for level one. So, it needs to be, you know, you’ve managed projects in this range. Or for the really big budgets, you know, maybe we’re looking for a Level 3 project manager. So yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
CINDI FILER: And then hobbies and personal information. No room for that on a résumé. Used to be. Now it isn’t; right? That’s something you can put on your LinkedIn. So, if they’re looking at LinkedIn, they’re going to probably get it from that. But really, a résumé should be very job-focused and not like, “I like to go hiking.” You know, we’re not wanting to see that on a résumé.
MATT FILER: “I like to travel” is our favorite.
CINDI FILER: Yeah. Everybody likes to travel.
MATT FILER: Who doesn’t? Yeah. Right? I just think it’s hilarious, things like, you know what I like to do more than anybody else? Travel. Yeah.
An Interview Checklist
WENDY GROUNDS: So, for our candidates who are trying to prep themselves before they go for an interview, just kind of the checklist. What are some non-negotiables that they need to consider, especially in a crowded field, if they’re trying to break into that job?
MATT FILER: Yeah, I think so. I mean, we even have this on our website as just like an interview preparation checklist, and something that our recruiters give to all of our candidates. But visiting the company’s website is huge. Again, doing that almost like investigative journalism on the company, seeing what they stand for, their values, pretty much everything that you need to know about the company because you won’t want to go to an interview and feel like you’re uninformed about what you’re going for because they’re like, “This person’s just a mass interviewer. They’ve had seven or eight of these today.” You want to be specific.
CINDI FILER: And find something you love about the company.
MATT FILER: Yeah.
CINDI FILER: You know, one of the things was I wanted to interview here because I really love that you enjoy having people to work that are family people; you know. Or you say in here that you are international, and that’s very interesting to me. So, kind of as you look at that website, you’re picking out something that you think stands that company apart in your mind because they want to hear what’s cool about their company.
You know, same with when you’re looking at the people that you’re about to interview with. “Oh, I saw that you also used to work at Deloitte. That’s so cool. You know, my dad used to work at Deloitte.” I don’t know. So that you show that you’ve done your homework, and you have a hook.
MATT FILER: And going off that homework, you know, this is for the end of the interview, but having questions prepared about the company, questions prepared about the specific job, about who you’re going to be working for, what that’s going to look like. You know, I think just having two to three intelligent questions. I think a recruiter’s worst nightmare is if you come to the end of an interview, and they say, “Do you have any questions for us?” And, like, “Nah, think I’m good.”
And you’re just like, oh, that’s such an opportunity to set yourself apart that you’ve thought through not only doing research on the company, but thinking through a question that kind of relates the two; right? The company that you’re trying to interview for, and then how your role could fit into that. Or asking about the growth of the company or anything along those lines, you know, anything that makes you stand out in that is huge.
Another one that we have, there are some that are just very basic. But the silencing your cell phone, you would be shocked at how many people have cell phones go off in the middle of interviews, or dings on computer…
CINDI FILER: Interviewers, as well.
MATT FILER: Interviewers, as well. We can talk through that for days, that interviewers are 12,000 times worse.
CINDI FILER: They are.
MATT FILER: And it’s because they don’t care as much. You know?
CINDI FILER: A lot of them are answering emails while they’re interviewing you, and that is very frustrating.
Don’t Speak Negatively
MATT FILER: One that we have to coach a lot, though, because it comes up is never speak poorly about a past employer because they are then going to project themselves, like, “They’re going to do this to us when they inevitably leave our organization.” Right?
So, I think if you show your true colors as soon as you start to negatively talk about another company, and I think that’s a big one that lots of candidates do because they can say, “Why are you looking for a job?” And they’ll be like, “Well, my last company was just the worst. My boss was terrible.” And then they speak negatively, and you don’t get into, you know, what you should be doing is talking about your skills, how you relate to the company, different things of how you can relate to what the role is and how you’d be a great fit. And then you just kind of sabotage yourself by talking about how terrible the last place you were was.
CINDI FILER: This does sound like a mom instead of a recruiter, but you don’t want to be the negative Nellie. Right? You don’t want to be that person because nobody wants anybody working for them that are going to bad-mouth people.
Talking about Salary
MATT FILER: And the last one that we have to coach is just don’t talk about salary. In the first interview at least, there’s going to be interviews that come up that you probably should talk about salary. But if you have a recruiter, leave that to your recruiter, and you can make the recruiter be the uncomfortable third party.
CINDI FILER: Or actually get the offer and then negotiate it.
MATT FILER: Yeah. I mean, we have candidates all the time that want to talk about salary, pay rate, whatever it is.
CINDI FILER: Like, when do you get raises?
MATT FILER: So, all this stuff is a little bit predictable, but you would be shocked at how many times, you know what…
BILL YATES: This is good, yeah.
WENDY GROUNDS: I have a thing about that, though, because a family member I had who went through many, many interviews, and that salary thing was difficult because she needed a certain salary to live where she lives. And she could not find out what she was going to be paid, She said, “I may be going through this whole process, and they’re not going to pay me a livable wage.”
MATT FILER: Hmmm. We can go off on a tangent here.
BILL YATES: Ha ha ha ha ha.
CINDI FILER: We really can.
MATT FILER: This is on the client side where they fail candidates is clients like, you know, with all of our jobs that we ever post, there’s going to be a salary range on there. Because there has to be.
CINDI FILER: And we want it to be fairly small because sometimes they’ll say 80 to 100.
MATT FILER: Sometimes I’ll see 65 to 120 based on experience. And you’re just like, what are you supposed to do with that?
CINDI FILER: It’s tough. But I mean, you really have to know that you can have something in that range to begin with before you choose to interview. You know, you could ask the question before the first interview, can I get the range on this position? And then you kind of can get a guess. But you can’t really ask as you go through because that’s just not done these days, and it’ll kick you out in many cases.
MATT FILER: Yeah. But that is a tough scenario to be in is when it’s that high of a range. I guess we were going off our own experience where we get to dictate how it’s presented to candidates of they should know exactly what the range is to at least…
CINDI FILER: Because that’s the right thing to do.
MATT FILER: Yeah. 5,000 is kind of our, you know, we put a range of 5,000. So, 120 to 125. We try to stay within that. The most it’ll ever be is 10 to 15. But there are so many companies out there that don’t, especially on LinkedIn, they’re not putting them on there, and people are applying. I don’t know why companies would do that because they’re getting so many candidates who are unqualified or overqualified for a certain job.
CINDI FILER: And would never take it because they couldn’t take the pay cut.
BILL YATES: This checklist is helpful for me. This is really practical stuff. Some project managers who are out there who are thinking about a future job, they need to take a look at your website, look at this checklist, do some other research and kind of raise that self-awareness of, “Oh, man, I’ve made that mistake before.” Or “I tend to want to do that.” Or “I tend to over talk.” Or “I tend to over share.” Or “I’m getting into personal stuff too much in the interview.”
And they may want to have that cheat sheet, especially if it’s a video interview they’re doing, and just have that up so they can be reminded. I was thinking as you guys were talking, I was thinking, I can’t think of the name of the movie, but Will Smith is showing Kevin James how to dance.
CINDI FILER: “Hitch”?
BILL YATES: “Hitch,” yeah, yeah, yeah. So, he tells Kevin James a very specific area he could stay in. You got to stay right in here. And if he stepped outside, he would slap him. I don’t know if you guys do that with your candidates or not.
MATT FILER: Not yet. Yeah.
BILL YATES: But just having that checklist to kind of, okay, I go over this, just to have it front of mind.
CINDI FILER: Yeah, and you brought up personal, and I had not brought that up, but that is really important. We had somebody tank themselves on an interview recently because they had just gotten a divorce. It had been a bad divorce and kind of, “I want to come back into the workforce because of this terrible divorce.” And you know, this is what happened, and went then to a 20-minute, and, yeah, it was bad, and did not get another interview, and should have.
So, you’ve just got to really keep those emotions in check and realize that the person across that table as an interviewer is not your safe person. Right, there is somebody you need to tell about that, but it’s probably not them.
Address the Gaps
WENDY GROUNDS: Another thing that’s important to talk about is sometimes on your résumé you’ll have the gaps or the layoffs or short tenures or things like that. So how can you talk about that and build credibility while you explain away the gaps in your résumé?
CINDI FILER: Yeah, I would definitely address the gaps. You address them rather than waiting for them to address them, if they ask you a question or whatever. Because in many cases there’s a gap because of something important. Like I was taking care of a sick parent, or I was taking care of a kid for a couple of years, you know, those kind of things.
So, I think just truthfulness is super important there, and a little bit of transparency. But I also think that, and it’s so funny that you asked this question because I just did a video, and it is actually to employers about how not to discount people because of quick job switches.
Because it used to be, back in my day, maybe your day, that, you know, you see somebody that only had a tenure of a year or two at five different jobs, you were not to interview them because it looked like they weren’t able to commit. It looked like they were flighty. It looks like, yeah, somebody didn’t like them.
Well, these days life has changed a little bit, as your people probably know. I mean with private equity, buying companies, and when private equity does, sometimes people lose jobs, not because of a fault of their own, but because that happens. You know, also the government cuts that we’ve seen, we’ve seen a lot of loss of jobs, plus just still the pandemic is still so fresh in people’s minds from five and a half years ago. We have seen a lot of people lose jobs or be out of work and have to get another job, not to a fault of their own.
Now, it could be they were job jumpers, but in many cases now we have, more so than ever in our history that I can remember, we have excellent candidates that do have job losses and gaps between their jobs because they had to go find a job. And we really need to make sure employers are considering those people and asking the question of why.
Also, the other thing I was thinking about is so many people are working for small businesses these days. And if you’re working for a big business, let’s say you’re working for Coca-Cola, and so people look and say, “Oh, you were at Coca-Cola for 10 years.” But if you look underneath, they were at six different jobs in Coca-Cola; right? And so, they did change jobs, but they were with one company.
But if you’re a small business person, so if you work for a smaller company, and maybe the only way to get a different job and, you know, and to increase your skill set is to move companies, whereas if you had six jobs at six different companies, not under one umbrella, those people interviewing you would go, “Oh my gosh, there’s a job hopper.” But if you were still at Coke and had six jobs, it’s like, “Oh yeah, they worked up, and they were kept.”
So, I think we’ve got to look at it through a different lens now than we used to. I mean, always keep it in the back of your mind. If you’ve got somebody with six jobs in six years, you probably need to ask the question. But let’s just not write people off. Like sometimes our clients are writing people off right away without even knowing their reasons. And we can’t do that because I think we’re going to miss out on some gems of candidates that are really great that, you know, just happened to land in places where things were bought or things were sold or bad things happened.
BILL YATES: Yeah, that’s so interesting. As you share the example with Coke, I’m thinking, if I see an employee who’s been with the same company for six years in six different departments, I’m thinking, “You’re a bad potato, and they just kept tossing you to a different manager; didn’t they?”
CINDI FILER: Could be, but then some people, you know, maybe back in the day that we were looking at, go, “Oh, they kept their job for 10 years.”
BILL YATES: Yeah. Right, right, so yeah, there’s no good assumption. You have to dig into it. That’s good.
MATT FILER: For the project manager that’s interviewing, really being upfront about the reason that you were laid off I think is a huge reason. Government shutdown, huge reason. I think a lot of employers would be like, “Okay, makes sense. You know, that’s probably not, that’s not your doing.”
And then private equity, everyone knows private equity is cuts. And that’s their role is to cut down on organization, to cut down on areas where they think their internal systems can take over. So just trying to be as upfront about it, and hopefully you have a good reason. But being able to say, you know, this is the reason why this is, because we’re trying to coach our clients as much as possible to not do that. But it really is hard because we have one client that he was just like, if their last job, they weren’t there for more than four years, I don’t want to talk to them. We’re like…
BILL YATES: Wow.
MATT FILER: …no, that’s a terrible practice.
CINDI FILER: Because that’s taking their candidate pool down from this great big candidate pool to the really small one, and you’re missing out on some people. And I believe his explanation to us was, if you’re good, if you’re cutting people, you won’t cut the good ones, which is so not true.
When to Talk about the Gap
BILL YATES: Let’s say it’s me, I’m looking at my résumé, and there’s an 18-month gap that to me just feels like a big red thumb, right, standing out there. So, I’ve kind of thought it through, and I’ve got an explanation for it that I think is good. And I make it to an interview with a company, and it’s a position I really desire. And I’m ready, you know, I’m ready with my answer, waiting for it to come up. Let’s say it doesn’t come up. Should I bring it up, or should I let it go?
CINDI FILER: I like the idea of bringing it up.
MATT FILER: Me, too.
CINDI FILER: But if you’re caring for an aging parent or something like that, I mean, I’d say bring that up because it’s going to possibly make you look better.
BILL YATES: Right. I like that.
CINDI FILER: That, you know, this wasn’t an option for me. I had a sick mom, and this is what I did. And now I’m back and, you know, she doesn’t need my help anymore, and I’m really excited to restart. You know, that’s better than just leaving it open.
BILL YATES: Yeah. My fear would be if I didn’t bring it up, then I’m one of several candidates. And then this person, they may really, the one I interviewed with, they may be all about, yeah, I want to hire Bill. He’s top of my list. But then other people are looking at it too; right? And they may say, what did he say about this gap? Oh, he didn’t say anything about it.
CINDI FILER: Yeah. I definitely say be proactive about it, and make sure that they understand that this isn’t a trend for you.
BILL YATES: Yeah.
CINDI FILER: Like, you know, I’ve been working for 20 years, and I took this year off because of this certain medical situation. This is definitely not my plan going forward. It just is something that happened.
BILL YATES: Yeah.
Staying Motivated
WENDY GROUNDS: Personally, for candidates, how can they stay confident and motivated when it’s a long job search, and you’ve just got to keep going back after rejection and being ghosted? How do they just get up the next day and do the same thing?
CINDI FILER: Well, I think it’s just one of those. It’s just like everything else we do. You’ve got to kind of keep the end in mind. You know, you’ve got to keep the why I’m doing this in mind; right? I’m doing this to get a job that’s a better fit; or I’m doing this to provide for my family; or I’m doing this for, you know, what am I doing it for?
And that kind of makes at least knowing that’s the goal, and then all the little steps to the goal, just trying not to get frustrated. And knowing that it’s probably not you because we’ve talked to a lot of candidates that are like, oh, is this – is the reason why there’s eight interviews because I’m not a very good candidate? No, it’s just the world’s changed; right?
BILL YATES: Yeah.
CINDI FILER: You know, I’m not getting any interviews. I’ve submitted my résumé to 22 websites. This is where we are. This is not you. You’ve got to kind of look at it in a non-personal basis. Now, again, I do change that when they’ve gotten all the interviews, and they haven’t gotten jobs.
BILL YATES: Right.
CINDI FILER: Then it means I may need a coach. And that helps them then. If they have a coach, it’s never bad to have a coach. They have a coach that can walk them through that and say, okay, well, this is what we did wrong this time. Okay, we’re going to do it again. But it is hard to get a job right now unless you’re in a couple of fields that are really sparse. It is not the easiest time. I mean, the market’s changed. It is now favoring employers, not favoring employees.
MATT FILER: Something that I’ve told my friends who have struggled with trying to find a job is go to an industry or some company that you want to work for. And it might be a confidence hit, but take a role that’s lesser than what you think you deserve based on your experience, and then work your way up in that company because they’re going to find out that you are more resourceful; and, you know, you’re a huge addition to the company. And they are going to promote from within rather than wanting to hire a recruiting firm and hire from the outside. They’d rather hire from within. Most companies would. Most companies would love a referral.
But yeah, just try to create avenues for yourself, and try different things. Go to networking events even if you hate them. I hate them. I still go to them. You know, but go to networking events and try to find people that are in the field that you want to be in and, you know, try to make connections that way rather than just blind submitting résumés.
CINDI FILER: And I’m a big fan of not just sitting there sending out résumés. I’m a big fan of relationships. So, if you’re out of work, you should be using that 40 hours a week that you’re out of work, let’s say. And those should be you’re setting coffees with people, even people that, you look at somebody’s résumé, and you have coffee with a boss, or you have coffee with somebody at church, or you have coffee with somebody that you met, you know, in your neighborhood, just to say, what do you do? What do you like about your company? What don’t you like? And what would be your recommendations for me as a job seeker?
I feel like just getting out there, you start to figure out something that you didn’t know before, rather than just sitting at your house and getting very frustrated and feeling like the world is falling down. It also keeps away that depression and anxiety that can come with not getting a job because you’re out there with people.
Don’t Quit
And then, you know, I’ll just add, I’m a huge proponent of don’t quit your job before you have a job. I know that everybody says that, but literally this year I’ve just been bombarded with this. Like, I hate my company so much I’m leaving, and then I’ll find a job. And you’re like, not now. This is not the time. It could have been the time five years ago, four years ago, when you could get five jobs in a week. Um, it is not the time now. Or this is also not the time to change careers. If you have to, because your career is gone, let’s say AI is doing something with your career, okay.
But just if you were like, you know, I’ve been in insurance for a while, and I think I may want to go into marketing. You’re like, no. Like, this isn’t the time to do that because there are so many candidates. They’re not going to pick one without experience in that particular area. You know, unless there’s something very unique and different about you, and you’ve come with a book of business. Um, so keep your job, even if you hate it.
BILL YATES: Yeah.
CINDI FILER: Talked to a lady the other day that didn’t like her job because they went from two days a week onsite to five days a week onsite, and said I’m just so mad, I’m quitting it, and then I’ll find a job. And I was like, oh no, you just need to drive into that job five days a week…
BILL YATES: That’s right.
CINDI FILER: …until you find another job because it does not look good on a résumé if you just walked.
BILL YATES: Tarzan always, before he let go of that one vine, he always had his hands on the other vine. So that applies to jobs in my mind.
CINDI FILER: Absolutely. It looks terrible to a future interviewer.
Find Out More
WENDY GROUNDS: Before we let you go, how can our audience find out more? You have a lot of resources on your website.
MATT FILER: Yeah.
WENDY GROUNDS: What’s the best way for them to get in touch with you?
MATT FILER: Yeah, absolutely. Our company is called Innovative Outsourcing. We have – our website is Innovative-Outsourcing.com, and we actually have a candidate portal where we have candidate resources. I think it’s called the Candidate Portal, and it has interview prep checklists. It has, you know, different things you should do for even a video interview – what you should have set up, should have a pen and paper, you know, even though that seems elementary. Different things to kind of walk them through. And so that’s a big one.
And then we also have, you know, jobs on there as well, job openings that we’re filling and, you know, the clients that we work with, as well.
BILL YATES: Well, for project managers, we know that at the end of our project, then hopefully the company we’re working for has another project they’re going to assign us to.
CINDI FILER: Absolutely. That’s nice.
BILL YATES: But you never know. And one of the beauties of project management is we have skill sets in our backpack that can apply across industries. So, the idea of looking for jobs and being ready to move within our organization or to a different organization or even a different industry is just a part of being a project manager.
And it’s super helpful to have you guys in here to talk us through some of the specifics of things that maybe we’ve been out of the interview and job-hunting market for a while, and we need some reminders. So, this has been very helpful, very helpful.
CINDI FILER: Great. Glad to be here.
MATT FILER: Yeah, thank you guys.
Closing
WENDY GROUNDS: Thank you for joining us on Manage This. You can visit us at Velociteach.com, where you can subscribe to this podcast and see a complete transcript of the show.
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