Job Hunting Chronicles

Happy Friday 💙 One of my regular cat sitting clients is moving this weekend so I had to stop by their house earlier this week to return their key. I am going to miss this view (I usually took a picture like this every time I left their place) 🌊 They are moving out of my service area but wanted to try to retain me, so we worked out a new rate schedule with the intention of trying it once to see how it goes. I truly appreciate clients like these. Not only do they care about their cats, they care about me as well. Have a great weekend! #freelancer #FreelanceWork #FreelanceLife #WorkFromHome #RemoteWork #CatSitting #CatSitter

Happy Thursday💲 Recruiters and others reaching out to candidates, PLEASE put the pay rate in your message.  I live in a state where it's mandatory to disclose pay*, yet close to half of the recruiters who reach out to me fail to include the pay in their message ("competitive pay" is meaningless for those who are wondering 🤔). It's always going to be my number one question if it's not included, you want to why? Because the bank won't accept my love of fostering cats as payment for my mortgage 😹 Let's stop with the games. If you're serious about filling a role, be serious with your pitch. It's not rocket science 🚀 End of PSA ✔️ *companies with 15+ employees are required to disclose pay in job ads. Yes, technically reaching out to a candidate is not a job ad but that's just splitting hairs IMO #freelancer #FreelanceWork #FreelanceLife #WorkFromHome #RemoteWork #SalaryTransparency #JobHuntingChronicles

Happy Wednesday 📖  This is my current read on freelancing. If you've read it, I'd love to know your thoughts. I'm always on the lookout for freelancing books. What books have helped in your freelancing journey? Feel free to comment below or send me a message with the title, I'll add it to my TBR list. #freelancer #FreelanceWork #FreelanceLife #WorkFromHome #RemoteWork

Happy Tuesday 💙 For a couple of years now, there have been a lot of posts on LinkedIn by candidates complaining about recruiters (and hiring managers) ghosting them. We all know it's going on but I'm not sure complaining about it really helps. I get it though, if it's not called out, the behavior gets normalized and it shouldn't be normal to ghost someone you've interviewed. For the last year, I've seen recruiters posting about candidates ghosting them, and again, I get it, it's unprofessional, but it's not really the same thing. Yes, in a broad sense, ghosting is ghosting. But when a recruiter is ghosted, they can just move on to the next candidate (I'm simplifying it, I know there can be repercussions with your client). When a candidate gets ghosted, they don't have that luxury. It's borderline insulting to candidates who have been ghosted to see recruiters complaining about the very thing a lot of recruiters have done to them. As a job se...

#MerryMonday  💙 I actually had someone reply to my comment with a variation of "calm down". Are you kidding me??? Here's the backstory: Recently, a headhunter posted that he sent cold-call emails to 50 people about a position he was trying to fill. Of those 50, 4 replied almost immediately. But here's where it goes off the rails, 3 asked when they could talk (to which OP replied and scheduled times), the other person apparently had the audacity to ask questions, some of which, like what's the salary, should have been covered in the cold-call email. The OP's reaction to that email? "And we never spoke again". I'm pretty vocal about this topic because I live in a state where it's mandatory to disclose salary, yet at least half of the recruiters who reach out to me fail to mention it. It's been my experience that recruiters who aren't up front about salary have a client who doesn't pay well. I'm not saying that's an abso...

#MerryMonday 💙 I hope everyone (especially job seekers) took a little time off over the holidays to enjoy some downtime. Some people believe December was a great time to "get ahead" for job seekers, while others noted that "companies still hire in December", and while both those statements may be true for some, I am glad I stepped away from LinkedIn for a couple of weeks. Ok, I admit I posted three times (once to remind everyone that scammers don't take holidays (thank you, Christmas Eve hacker 😠), once to repost the year-end recap that I wrote on behalf of Surfcat, and finally last Saturday's quick "Happy Saturday/Happy New Year, let's hope 2026 is better for everyone who is looking for work" post), but I didn't look at notifications or my LI feed - I literally posted what I wanted to say and then logged off. And you know what? It feel great 🙃  For me, 2026 is the third year in a row that I've started without a full-time job. This c...