Part 3 of The reroute. Start with part 1: I'm done performing for the feed.
In Dave's words, from his daily Bookmarq sessions, shaped with Marqer.
I had a theory about why job hunting in marketing feels so hard right now. So I checked it against my own records. Some of it held up. Some of it didn't. Here's what I found.
The theory: the marketing job market is confused. Employers don't know what they're looking for. A social media job now quietly means being the face on camera.
The records didn't back me up. Where I still have the full job description, most postings were clear about the work. A few really were one job written like three, but that's a handful, not a pattern. And not one posting asked for on-camera work.
What the records did show is something else. The postings make sense. The hard part is getting to a person.
Check Marq: my job search, Oct. 6 to Nov. 3
- 29 marketing job applications. 15 never got a reply. 12 were turned down. No offers yet.
- 7 made it past the application. In 3 of those 7, nobody was on the other end: two recorded video interviews where I answered questions on a screen, and one screening run by an AI over text.
- One application wanted a 30-to-40-minute personality test before it would count.
- I checked the career pages of about 40 companies from a local "best places to work" list. I found four open roles in my lane.
- I made six versions of my résumé in the first two weeks.
How this was checked: I call it a Check Marq. It holds what I say up against what's written down, and it's allowed to tell me I'm wrong. These are my own records (application emails, my notes and my application log), counted with AI. It's one person's search, not the whole market. No employers are named.
The recorded interviews were the strangest part. A question pops up, you get about 30 seconds to think, and then you talk to your own face for two minutes. I'm comfortable on camera, so that isn't the problem. The problem is that my first impression goes to a recording, and I don't know if anyone watches it.
Getting in the room doesn't close the gap, either. In one panel interview, the company's AI notetaker sat in on the call too. And the questions I get are mostly surface level: which programs I know, what I've made before. The questions I ask are about the work. What's the immediate need? Why does this role exist? What equipment and budget are there to deliver what you're asking for? A lot of these are brand-new positions the company is still defining, so I understand why those answers aren't ready. But it means we're on different frequencies.
A strong record making video and photos didn't protect my last job, and in the interviews since, the craft has barely come up.
The clearest example is a simple one. More than once, when I asked what editing software the team uses, nobody in the room could tell me.
That question matters more now than it used to. Years ago, when I interviewed for jobs in education, they asked me straight up whether I knew Premiere. Now new AI tools keep changing what an editor is expected to know. The skills keep moving, and the people hiring can't tell you where they moved.
So I'm narrowing my focus. I'm looking for places that don't have thousands of applications to sort through, where hiring still starts with a conversation. That describes a lot of the small, local businesses I care about, and they're who Postmarq is for anyway.
My opinion, labeled as one: when I had to take a personality test just to apply, I wrote down, "I don't want to work for a company that itself is self-automated." I still feel that way. I'd rather hear "no" from a person than nothing from a system.
If you're job hunting in the Valley right now, how many of your screenings had a person on the other end? If you hire here, what does someone have to get through before they reach you? Tell me where I'm wrong.
