We occasionally hear from ecommerce pros seeking employment. Many this year report extended searches with little to no acknowledgment from would-be employers after submitting a resume.
To inquire, we once again turn to Harry Joiner. He’s a 20-year ecommerce recruiter with a seasoned perspective for job seekers and the companies that hire them.
The entire audio of my recent conversation with Joiner is embedded below. The transcript is edited for length and clarity.
Kerry Murdock: In January, you called the state of ecommerce employment fragmented. What is it now?
Harry Joiner: It’s still that way. It’s the Baskin-Robbins 31 flavors of candidates: part-time, full-time, remote, interim, project, et cetera. It’s crazy.
Remote roles are more brittle than on-site. It’s easier for a company to phase out remote roles because those folks will presumably land on their feet more quickly. That’s an anecdotal observation on my part.
Overall, it seems companies are hiring for incremental improvements in, say, sales and operations but not high-impact strategic roles. For my money, nothing beats a full-time on-site role where the executive controls the entire ecommerce profit-and-loss statement.
Murdock: What’s a brittle role?
Joiner: It’s one with a higher risk of going away, such as a project-based position. Folks in brittle roles must figure out how to extend their worth to the company. They should study how the company makes money and how it creates value for the customer to find out what drives their utility.
Murdock: We hear from experienced ecommerce pros looking for work who send 50, 100 resumes with no response from the employer. What’s your advice to them?
Joiner: A lot of it has to do with candidates not being targeted about who they’re sending their resume to. I addressed it in a recent LinkedIn post, “10 Ways to Speed Up Your Job Search.“
At a high level, candidates need to do many things: optimize their resume, optimize their LinkedIn profile, network, use job alerts — all of that — and consult with job coaches and mentors. There’s a right way and a wrong way to manage an ecommerce candidacy. We’re seeing highly qualified people make it to the top of a search funnel with an opportunity to phone screen. And they are not converting that phone call into a second-round interview.
It’s not because their LinkedIn profile or resume didn’t serve them well. The purpose of those things is to get a phone screen. But once on a phone screen, the candidate’s job is to unpack how they will make money for the company. A lot of people can’t do that. That’s where coaching and mentoring comes in.
I offer that type of coaching, as do others. It’s all learnable. It starts with knowing what the company is looking for and connecting the dots of what the position will cost the company versus the candidate’s return.
Murdock: Do you ever work on an engagement that doesn’t involve LinkedIn?
Joiner: I’ve been doing this for 20 years. I’ve had only three searches that didn’t involve LinkedIn. Two of those were my first. There was a search about five years ago where the winning candidate didn’t come from LinkedIn. He refused to be on the platform. But everybody else, yes, you need to be on LinkedIn.
Murdock: Changing direction, we’ve all read the headlines that the ecommerce growth is slowing. What do you hear from employers?
Joiner: The ecommerce industry is maturing. It’s not declining. My business partner, Allan Seibert, told me recently that we are not seeing that many searches this year for new positions. We’re seeing searches for backfills to replace folks who have left. We’re also not seeing new positions stemming from artificial intelligence technologies, by the way.
Murdock: What does that mean for candidates, no new positions?
Joiner: It’s a competitive market for job seekers. It’s critical that job seekers remain in the right head space. Stay fit. Don’t drink too much. Watch what you eat, et cetera. Candidates should look very closely at what they have done right in their careers, their successes. What outcomes or organizational transformations have they driven? Candidates need to do a better job of taking an inventory of everything they’ve done right so that those things will show up in how they market themselves and engage with hiring committees.
I addressed other tips in my LinkedIn post. Start with practicing and preparing for interviews. Conduct mock interviews and record yourself. There’s no shortcut to researching the company’s culture and business model and understanding how it makes money. Look at the company’s products online and its sales tactics. Who is buying those products? Put yourself in customers’ shoes. It will help you prepare better questions for interviews. It will also demonstrate interest and your fit with the company.
Next is the mental state, which I touched on. I’m seeing candidates this year get ground down with the job search. To them, I say stay organized and proactive. Establish regular follow-ups, review and adjust the strategy, take online courses, join professional communities, stay connected with people, and figure out alternative ways to get in the door. Be as proactive and positive as possible.
Murdock: Tell us again how folks can follow you, get in touch.
Joiner: Our website is EcommerceJobs.com. HarryJoiner.com resolves to my LinkedIn profile, where I post regularly.
