A late-stage PhD student asks -
I’m getting towards the end of my PhD and was planning to start looking for jobs soonish. I know people who are applying for jobs right now and they’re not hearing back from anything even though they’re well-qualified. It seems like the market is bad, so what can I do?

In a difficult job market (and acknowledging that the job search when you are finishing your PhD or postdoc is always quite difficult!), the best you can do is focus on the factors that are under your control. Fortunately, you only need to find one job (at a time), so general job market conditions shouldn’t change your approach to job searching too much (hiring rates dropping from 4.6% to 3.3% is a difference of scale, not an entirely different environment). It’s probably pretty tempting to react to a rough job market by mass applying to as many jobs as possible to increase your chances of finding something, but there is no magic milestone number that will get you through. Churning out a higher number of low-quality applications will tend to be a waste of time. You should focus on making each application more likely to succeed, not focus on just doing more applying. 

It is still important to: 

• Focus on differentiating yourself from the typical candidate for the positions you apply to. Write an application that pitches you as a stronger choice than most, rather than just listing out the ways you meet the baseline requirements for the job. 
• Spend dedicated time networking during your search. It is still extremely valuable and a great use of your time- the more you understand about a position (and the more accurate your understanding is), the easier time you will have differentiating yourself! As a bonus, having a networking contact inside the organization you are applying to might be able to help you learn if a job opening is actually being filled (or just a dead-end posting).
• Consider broadening your search! If you do some reflection on a larger variety of careers that excite you, you may be able to identify more options you’ll be a strong fit for. 

Additionally, if you can, you can try to give yourself extra time by starting your search earlier and planning on a slower response time from everyone- if there is more competition (in the form of more applications to process) or general uncertainty, it can make it more difficult for an employer to respond as quickly as they would under different circumstances. While it is hard to get precise measurements, we (at OCPD) are still working with students and postdocs being successful in the job search from the same strategies, but have noticed a significantly longer wait and slower response at each stage of the process (from employers). 

-David Blancha, Assistant Director, Career Development Team for Researchers