Yahoo Finance Man's desperate move after being rejected from 500 jobs in Australia
Yogesh Kumar stood in public with his CV hoping someone would give him a job.
A man has resorted to standing in busy areas in Sydney and Melbourne hoping someone will hire him. The job market is brutally competitive at the moment and people are doing everything they can to get their applications to the top of the pile.
But few are going as far as Yogesh Kumar, who has been searching for a job since September last year after being let go by a graduate training program in data analysis. He told Yahoo Finance he's sent out around 500 applications and has been rejected from every single one.
So, he decided to put his CV onto a board and stand in public to get more eyeballs on his situation.
Have you been struggling to get a job? Email stew.perrie@yahooinc.com
The board asked if anyone was looking for a data analyst and included his skills and phone number.
He did this stunt at train stations and popular CBD spots in Sydney and Melbourne for a few days and it certainly caught the eye of some passersby. Several people have posted photos of him on social media and praised his outside-the-box approach to getting a job.
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"This really caught my attention not because I’m looking for a data analyst, rather that Yogesh’s approach says more about him than just the words on the sign," said one person.
"Something about his courage to do this and the analogue feel for a data analyst of all things, tells me he's probably an independent thinker. I dig that," wrote another.
"I’ll give him 10/10 for creativity and having the guts to do this," added a third.
The response has been huge
Kumar has been flooded with calls and messages since posts of his efforts went viral online.
The 28-year-old said while none have translated to job offers, there have been plenty of recruiters and hiring managers who said they would get in touch the moment a role becomes available.
"They say that this is financial time and companies are doing their taxes and everything and waiting for the government to release the budget and once that comes there will be a lot of positions opening up again," he explained to Yahoo Finance.
After moving from India to Melbourne in 2019, he did a masters degree and graduated in 2021. He beat out hundreds of applicants to get a role analysing data at The Data School but was made redundant last year.
He had only racked up six months of experience before being let go and said that, combined with being on a graduate visa, has hindered his ability to get a job.
"Companies want someone with full working residency status or experience," he said. "If you don't have experience, then you need residency. But it's like a loop."
He said sending out hundreds of applications can take a lot of time out of the day because some positions require a cover letter to be written that's specific to that company.
But he's holding out hope there could be more roles on offer to him once the financial year ends.
He even he wished he stood in public sooner as that might have nabbed him a position earlier.
Available jobs are scarce because Aussies aren't jumping ship
Australian employees are becoming increasingly cautious and unwilling to risk the open job market for better pay, a new survey has revealed, as job cut fears envelop the workplace and the country shifts to an “employer’s market”.
Talent company Randstad surveyed 6,105 Australian workers to find the country’s most desired employers on criteria ranging from job security to work-life balance, and found stability in employment was a key metric of workplace happiness for 56 per cent of employees.
Redundancy fears are stopping employees from searching for better pay, the report states, with 67 per cent of respondents stating they would not consider searching for better pay elsewhere.
Randstad professional talent solutions director Jo Jakobs said she was not surprised to see employees shift to a risk-adverse posture.
“While we know from our research that a decent salary is one of the top motivators for 59 per cent of Aussie workers, it’s not surprising, given daily headlines about redundancies, that Aussies are feeling too risk-averse to seek new employment to secure better pay,” she said.
- with NCA Newswire
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