How to Measure Success in a Job Search

How do you know if your job search is going well? This is a question I get asked a lot in our community because people don't know what a job search should look like. And so even understanding what kind of metrics you should be tracking in your job search, if you're tracking metrics, which I highly recommend you do, can be really overwhelming because people don't know what good looks like. So in this episode, I'm going to go through a gold standard job search based on debrief interviews with the thousands of candidates we've placed with our biotech clients over the past decade. Plus, we've identified target metrics that candidates with multiple competing job offers have disclosed. At the end of this episode, you should understand what a successful job search looks like so that you can start to measure up your job search and understand where in the process your metrics maybe aren't aligning so that you can start to fix the root cause. All right, let's identify your current job search bottleneck Karina I'm Karina Klingman, scientist turned CEO of a talent strategy consulting firm. I've helped over 85 biotechs hire and develop thousands of amazing employees. So I know what works and what doesn't work when it comes to landing a job and then excelling in it. I created the Biotech Career Coach Podcast to give you simple, actionable, step by step strategies to help you land your dream biotech job, then move up the career ladder. If you are exploring career paths, looking to learn about biotech, or simply striving to be the type of person who makes an impact and gets promoted, you're in the right place. When we look at a job search pipeline, it looks like a funnel. So you have your top of funnel activities which include your networking and your applications and from there going into the middle of the funnel you have your interviews which can consist of multiple stages. You might have a recruiter phone screen or an HR phone screen. You might have a hiring manager interview, multiple panel interviews and perhaps you give a talk. And then finally at the very bottom of your funnel you're going to have your job offers. So clearly at the top of your funnel you're going to be casting a wide net, you'll be networking your butt off. You are going to be applying to multiple jobs and some percentage of those top of funnel activities will bear fruit resulting in interviews. And during your interviews you should be advancing through the interview process and at the bottom of the funnel, hopefully you're getting an offer. Of course, that funnel narrows at each step because there's going to be attrition. Most candidates are not going to apply for one job, have one interview and get the offer. Most candidates have a few irons in the fire. They're working through multiple interview processes, and they end up with one or two offers if they've done their job right. So with that sort of overview and that picture in your head of how the data should look, it should be wide at the top and narrow at each step. You've got your networking and your applications, you've got your interviews and you've got your offer at the bottom of the funnel. And if you're watching this on YouTube, I made some hand gestures to make that clear, but hopefully you can visualize that if you're listen to this via podcast. So let's start with metrics at the top of the funnel. If you are not networking to try and get jobs, you are missing a huge opportunity. These days, most successful job searches are attributed, at least in part, to networking. We have a whole course on this. This is one of our most popular courses. It really takes you through the LinkedIn process, how to build your network, and especially from a biotech lens, because I don't know about you, but I happen to be an introvert. So LinkedIn, networking and brand building and all of those things don't come really naturally to me. There's something that I have had to develop over time. It's a muscle I've had to learn to use and strengthen, and you can, too. So just to give you a little context, I am a painful introvert. It may not seem like it because I get on camera and I do this podcast and I go to networking events and I do all of the things I need to do to run my businesses, but it doesn't come naturally to me. It is something I work at daily and it has paid off more than I could ever have imagined. So if you are sitting there dreading the thought of networking on LinkedIn, I assure you it is not as bad as it seems. And I plan to have some podcast guests on here who are actually members of our community that have employed some of these tactics and been really successful in their networking and as a result have gotten interviews, jobs offers, all of those things through their networking efforts. But I do want to go over the data that you should be looking at when you think about networking for yourself. So, yes, you need to be doing it, but how much? How do you even know if your efforts are successful? This is what I want to go through at the top of the funnel in the networking category. So when I think of top of funnel, it consists of both your application and how you're engaging with your network. I recommend that you attempt to grow your network to at least 5,000 people on LinkedIn. If you're looking at your LinkedIn right now and you've got a few hundred contacts, trust me, you are not alone. This is very normal, especially in biotech, but it is something you can work at day after day, week after week. And it does get easier, I promise you that. So the metrics I like to teach people are if you can get your network to 5,000 or more engaged people, where you're getting a really good feed that you're enjoying engaging with, they're people who are posting relevant things, they're your peers. They're people that are one step ahead or behind you. They're people that you can actually help by making connections. That's going to be a network that serves you really, really well. And it doesn't need to be bigger than that. If it is, that's great. But what I find is that when you get much bigger than that, you're not going to know as many people or be able to help as many people as a percentage. Absolutely. By all means, grow your network beyond that. Mine is far bigger than that. I think that 5,000 mark is a really healthy network size where you are going to have support when you need to put your hand up and say that you're on the job market. The other component to your LinkedIn that you should be tracking is how many recruiter outreach messages are you getting on a monthly basis. If your LinkedIn profile is well fleshed out, it represents you and what you want to be doing. Well, whether you're on the job market or not, you should be Getting at least one LinkedIn recruiter outreach per month. This means that your profile is being seen for the right things. If you're getting outreach from recruiters but it's in the wrong area, that's something to take note of because you might inadvertently be putting things into your profile that are allowing you to be found for things you either no longer want to do or be found for, or they're not really aligned with what your future goals are. So those are both really easy things to fix that we are happy to help you with in the community. If you're ever curious. That's really a big topic of discussion. What should go on the profile? Where should it be? How should I message it? What if I want to change careers or tracks those are all really common questions that we deal with because the LinkedIn profile is such a great place to be found by people who don't know you yet. Beyond LinkedIn, there's a lot of other networking activities you can do in real life and online. So our free community is one of them. I'll just put a little plug in here. Definitely join that. We have some really great biotech professionals in there that are willing to help people, and we're starting to get enough people in engagement that we're creating geographic pods. So for instance, the San Francisco pod is planning a meetup around a conference that's coming to town next week. So that's really nice in terms of getting off of LinkedIn, sometimes you want a little break from LinkedIn or you want to see what else is out there in a different way of engaging. So there are some online communities like mine that you can participate in. Another great way to do networking is in person, and I definitely recommend joining some organizations. For me, Women in Bio was really instrumental in getting me on my shell. When I finished my PhD and I launched my business, I made meaningful connections that helped to get me some of my first clients through Women in Bio. Specifically, I volunteered to be a chairperson for one of their committees, which meant people had to come to me for different things that they needed during events, before and after events. So suddenly I sort of had a purpose there as opposed to just wandering around aimlessly trying to network. I was kind of working at the event, which put me more at ease and it gave people a reason to seek me out. So it was kind of an icebreaker that I was, you know, a committee chair with a badge that said so and people needed things from me. So just a little tip if you're ever thinking, oh, I would join, but I hate networking or I'm so awkward at these events. Sometimes getting a little bit of clout is a good thing. And I can tell you that these organizations are desperate for help. So it is really easy to get into a role where you can be impactful in the organization and set yourself up for maybe a little more of an easy time Networking. The next top of funnel activity is your applications. So sometimes you get lucky and you can network your way right into a job. But often we need to apply, whether it's concurrently with networking. Maybe it's a contact at a company that says, yes, apply, and I'll make sure to flag your application or you want to apply and then network. That's also a really good tactic, is to put your application in and then see on LinkedIn who you can connect with to find out a little more about the job. We have some podcast episodes specifically about that, if you're interested. But any way you spin it, you're probably going to have to do a little bit of applying. So that means going to the company's website, putting in your application, maybe a cover letter, and seeing what happens next. The metrics around that are a little bit complicated, but in a gold standard. When we talk to candidates that have been really successful in their job searches, they say that they get interviews from 20 to 40% of their applications, which means for every five applications they're submitting, they're getting one or two recruiter phone screens, that first interview stage out of that. If you are not getting that hit rate with your applications, there are some really high impact things to do. So first of all, are you applying to the right jobs? If you're in a really niche field and you're having to apply to jobs that are maybe a little of a stretch for you, or perhaps you're actually overqualified for them, you're going to have a lower hit rate because you're going to get disqualified because you don't have the right certifications, degrees, or you're seen as overqualified. And that's an automatic knockout in some percentage of those job searches. However, with a really good application, a really good resume, and cover letter, mostly the resume, honestly, you can mitigate some of that by explaining very clearly very early on why you've applied for the job. And I've seen candidates really successfully navigate applying to stretch jobs or jobs that they technically are overqualified for and still keeping their hit rate really high for getting those interviews out of applications. Resume writing is an art. It's another muscle that you will need to learn to use and strengthen. And if you do, it will make you unstoppable in your job search, because a good resume document will clearly and immediately convey your value proposition and exactly why you are the right person. You're the one I've been searching for for this role. I actually have another podcast episode and a column about this. And we have a course with all of the things you need, including templates, ChatGPT prompts, all of the things to make a really good resume. I've had multiple people enter our community and say things like, I had a professional resume writer write my resume. I've applied to a hundred jobs and I've not gotten a single interview. But it can't be the resume because it was professionally written, I will tell you right now, it is your resume. If you have applied to a hundred jobs, unless they're wildly, wildly outside of what you should be applying for, you should be getting some interviews from that. That is a really high number to not be getting any, any interviews from. And the thing about professional resume writers is they may write a really nice, pretty resume, but they're often not going to be specialists in your field and those resumes are not tailored for the job. So it is really simple to tailor resumes to the job, but it is something you have to learn to do. It's very easy when you learn, but you must in fact do it. I will link that podcast episode in the show Notes if you want to go back and see how I really teach people to truly, truly tailor their resumes, but it is a must. Listen, if you are noticing that you are stuck in this step and you are not getting a 20 to 40% hit rate on your applications, hey, I just want to cut in to say that if you are enjoying this podcast, you may enjoy the Building Biotechs podcast from our sister company, Recruitomics Consulting, which is a talent acquisition strategy firm that specializes in helping small biotechs hire exceptional talent. In that podcast, we interview amazing people who are building biotechs. They are industry leaders in all different verticals and it will allow you to explore career paths in biotech and to get to know companies that maybe you've never heard about. So if you are a biotech fan, you are exploring careers in biotech. I highly recommend the Building Biotechs podcast. We'll link that in the show notes or you can search for it on Apple Podcasts or anywhere else you get your podcasts. All right, back to our show. All right, let's say that your application stage is not a problem. You are getting 20 to 40% hit rate. You're moving right along into interviews and then you get stalled and you're not getting forward in the interview process. What is a good ratio for moving forward in interviews? Well, from our successful candidate interviews, what we found is that 50 to 75% of the time you should be moving forward. So let's look at a funnel that starts with 10 recruiter phone screens. If you are having 10 phone screens with recruiters, you should be moving forward to speak with a hiring manager. After five to eight of those conversations, you should then be getting two to four full panel interviews and one to two offers. So that should be your ideal funnel, right? You've got 10, you've got five to eight, you've got two to four and you've got one to two. If you're multitasking, I recommend pausing this and writing those numbers down so that you get a good idea of, as you're tracking your progress through your job search, of what to be looking for in the interviews. If you're not moving forward at that pace, this means you have some work to do to polish up your interview skills, which is totally normal. It is hard to be a good interviewer, but there are some really key tricks that you can start to employ and practice so that you're a lot more confident and polished in your interviews. Now, when I say we've spoken with all the candidates and done debriefs after their successful interviews and offers and we're hiring them for our clients, what is really apparent is that some people just really come naturally to the ability to be good interviewers. And does that translate into their job success? Maybe, maybe not. What it does translate to is a really smooth process through the interviews. If they just have a little bit of natural charisma, naturally are good at answering questions, and are naturally good at seeing the big picture and how they would fit in and have a major impact in the company within that big picture. That is something you can learn to do if you are not naturally good at it. If you're not born with that natural ability to just excel and shine in interviews, every single person can get better at that, and there are specific techniques to do that. So if you're hearing this and thinking, oh, I'm so bad at interviewing because I'm not progressing at that pace, not even close. Pause. Take a deep breath. It is okay. This is something that can be learned, and you can learn it. We work with a lot of folks in our community about this very topic, and we've seen a lot of great improvement in people getting jobs as a result. So don't despair. It is something you can work on if you're feeling stuck at this stage. All right, now we're at the very bottom of the funnel, and we are at the offer stage. And the metrics here are actually around your offer negotiation. So let me just say this. You should be negotiating for something at the offer stage. It shows a lot of initiative. And it's funny because all of the HR folks that I work with, we would love it if candidates didn't negotiate, just accepted the offer, started work, all that. But we also kind of question it if they don't negotiate for anything. It's just something that you expect candidates to negotiate, especially the Good ones that came through this process really strong. We just know it's going to happen so often. I'll try and head it off by getting on the phone with a candidate before I prepare the formal offer and saying, look, I want to create an offer that you're going to be really happy with. What do you need? And we'll have a really nice back and forth. And I will try to create an offer that doesn't need negotiation only because they've negotiated upfront. But most candidates are going to find themselves in a situation where they are presented with an offer. Maybe it's verbal, maybe it's verbal and written, and maybe it's just written. But in any case, they have an offer in front of them that they haven't gotten to pre negotiate and then they panic. So what are the metrics here? What do you need to know? This is a big topic and we have a whole course just on this. What can you negotiate? What can't you negotiate? How should you negotiate things, templates, all of that. But what I can say very briefly here is that you should be able to secure an additional 1 to 5% on top of whatever offer they've given you. Now, this is total components. So it may come in the form of signing bonuses, it may come in the form of intangible benefits, it may come in the form of commuter reimbursement or parking spaces. So there are a lot of ways to find this money. But you should not just be signing an offer without a little bit of negotiation. If you haven't done any of the pre negotiation work, when I'm talking about 1 to 5%, just to put that in perspective, for every $100,000, you should be getting at least $1,000 to $5,000 extra in the form of some type of total compensation. So don't leave money on the table at this stage. It actually is really meaningful for your career. There's a lot of research that shows that people who are high earning later in their career were good negotiators early in their career and that negotiation skill compounds on itself if you find it really, really challenging or scary to negotiate for an extra thousand dollars in your first job. Well, when you get 20 years down the road, you'll be so grateful that you have the experience negotiating the smaller sums earlier in your career so that you are prepared to go in and negotiate your worth when those numbers get bigger and bigger. And trust me, the executives that I have hired are good negotiators when it comes to their salary. And we don't begrudge them that, because we know they're going to negotiate just as hard on behalf of the company as they do for themselves. I remember a long time ago hiring a head of business development for a client and the CEO actually pulled an offer from our leading candidate because he didn't negotiate anything. And our CEO looked at that and thought, he's not going to negotiate hard enough in his role if he's not negotiating for himself. It's a really interesting perspective. And when I look back on that, it makes a lot of sense because this CEO was a veteran CEO. He'd seen a lot of business development people and he was flabbergasted that this person didn't ask for more money for something and going into an aggressive round of funding we needed to raise. But he wanted a bit of a shark in that role who would go in and negotiate their butt off on behalf of the company. So keep that in mind. Just food for thought. These early negotiations will set you up really well for later in your career. All right, I just want to sum things up for you concisely. Here. You are looking at a funnel for your job search. And just like anything, there is data that we can apply to this process. I love data scientist at heart. I'm guilty as charged. It is something that as scientists, we forget that we can actually apply data to lots of things in our lives. So let's run through the funnel one more time. At the top of the funnel, you have your networking activities and you have your applications. On the networking side, your goal is to cultivate a network eventually of at least 5,000 people on LinkedIn and be doing things like joining committees, joining groups, doing things outside of LinkedIn that also further your network building. And if you're applying for jobs actively, we're looking for a 20 to 40% hit rate, meaning that for every five jobs you apply for, you should be getting interviews for one to two of those positions. That's your top of funnel. The next step is your interview stage. And there we're looking for 50 to 75% hit rate at each interview stage. Some interview processes are going to be longer and more involved than others, but you should be moving forward to the next stage more than half the time. Does this mean you're going to make it through to the end for all of your interviews? No. But that's where a little bit of this numbers game comes in. Right? If you are applying for an appropriate number of jobs, you're getting then a good number of interviews, you should be seeing success in those interviews. Some a reasonably high percentage of the time in a good job search. If you have 10 recruiter or HR phone screens, you should be getting at the end of that process one to two offers. Now add your network into that and it might be a higher hit rate even because you might have some warm introductions along the way in that process. But if you're mostly relying on applications, that's a really solid goal to go for. And finally, at the bottom of your funnel you have your offer stage. You do not want to leave money on the table. At this stage, it is expected that you will ask for something, so aim for 1 to 5% of that base salary and be flexible on where it comes from. It doesn't have to be more base salary. It might be some bonuses, it might be some intangibles, it might be some benefits you've never even thought of. One thing I teach in the community is to get a little creative with compensation. There are so many different ways to spin the compensation puzzle, so it's not just about base salary. All right, I want to hear from you. Which of these metrics was surprising to you? Which of these metrics are you hitting or not hitting? I am really curious and I'd love to see you in the community. If you have specific questions about your job search, join our free community. We have so many resources and great friendly people in there. We'd love to see you there and answer your questions. That's all for this week. Bye for now. Thanks so much for listening to the Biotech Career Coach Podcast by the Collaboratory Career Hub to join our free Slack group and to get access to other great free resources, resources and materials. Head over to CollaboratoryCareerHub.com and be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn Pro Tip. When you connect with me on LinkedIn, you get instant access to my entire network of biotech folks, which is powerful for your career. If you found this podcast valuable, please subscribe or follow us on YouTube so that you never miss an episode. And if you leave us an honest review, screenshot that review and send it to helloollaboratorycareerhub.com we'll give you totally free free access to our popular LinkedIn course so that you can learn all of the secrets behind creating a magnetic LinkedIn profile that drives your career forward. Have an amazing week and we'll see you back here next Friday.