In this talk, I plan to share my experience over the last year (April 2023 – April 2024) trying to get hired in Design Operations after being laid off from a Design Operations Manager role at Meta. I will share my stories – both the good and the bad – and what I learned from those moments. I’ll then shift my focus from the candidate experience to how we as a community can improve the job search experience from the perspectives of hiring teams and recruiters. I have and will continue to source thoughts and feedback from professionals in these roles.