„From an Analyst’s Diary”

Did you know I picked up speed and slammed into the ATS like it was a wall? No? Well, now you do. And did you know I did it twice? No? Then here I am. That overachiever who absorbs knowledge like a sponge, yet couldn’t write a proper CV. And you know what? That’s okay. You have to learn everything at some point.

I’m not a recruiter. I’ve never worked in HR. I’ve never seen an ATS system from the inside of a large company. I was a candidate. Just like many of you on the other side of the screen. I observed. I don’t claim to hold the only truth. What you’re about to read are simply my conclusions — drawn from what I’ve seen every day on LinkedIn, from reading comments, and from having been, until recently, in the middle of the recruitment process myself.

I came to the second interview prepared. Within a week, I organized and refreshed my understanding of the fundamentals of e-commerce in theory. I wanted to show that I can quickly step into a new area and understand how it works. I no longer wanted to feel defenseless. I wanted to have a conscious, informed conversation. The meeting started with two people who both saw a place for me in their teams.

I began my job search. I approached it very analytically, logging every application I sent in Excel. I can probably say that analysis in Excel had already gotten into my bloodstream. After three weeks without any responses, my enthusiasm started to fade. I explained it to myself with the emails I kept receiving about the number of applicants for each position.

After a week of feeling suspended in uncertainty, with no one I could really ask for advice, I decided to talk to GPT. I wrote something along the lines of: “I’m analyzing my situation of trying to enter the IT industry through Python programming, and I think I may have chosen too high an entry threshold compared to the time I can realistically dedicate to learning. I’m trying to spot some hidden paths, but I probably don’t know enough about the possible roles out there.”