312: How One Mid-Career Professional Landed His Ideal Job After 125 Applications with Chris Bond

If you’re in the middle of a job search and feeling frustrated by the lack of responses, this episode is a must-listen. Today, I’m joined by Chris Bond, who candidly shares the data from his six-month job search in 2025. His story sheds light on what’s working, and what’s not, in today’s competitive mid-career job market.

Chris applied for 125 positions and achieved a 50% personalized response rate and a 10% interview rate. These are numbers that far exceed typical job search expectations!

In our conversation, he explains the strategies behind these results, including:

• Why tailoring your applications to targeted roles is more effective than applying everywhere
• How he optimized his resume to pass AI screening tools and land more interviews
• The importance of following up (and how to do it without feeling pushy)
• Why in-person job opportunities turned out to be more successful than remote roles
• How powerful “I help” statements transformed his interview performance.

Chris also emphasizes the importance of being clear about your non-negotiables and how to confidently communicate your value in interviews. His story is a roadmap for mid-career professionals who are tired of spinning their wheels and ready to take a more strategic approach.

Whether you’re actively searching for a new role or simply considering your next move, this episode will help you navigate the complexities of today’s job market with clarity, persistence, and confidence.

Connect with Chris Bond on LinkedIn by clicking here. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Job Search Data Insights
• 4:46 The Timeline: February to August
• 8:15 Maximizing Application Response Rates
• 15:10 Interview Success Strategies
• 19:20 Career Coaching Takeaways
• 33:42 Patience and Persistence Pays Off

Transcript

John Neral: 0:00

Less than a month ago, I received an email from a former client sharing his recent job search experience, along with some data. He ended his email with this. I know this is anecdotal data, but didn't know if it helps you at all. Happy to answer any questions about it, I only had one question for him Would you be willing to share your experiences on the podcast? And he graciously said yes. Today you will meet a former client of mine, chris Bond, who will share what he learned from his recent job search, in hopes it will help you put some things in perspective about this job market, based on his experiences. This is an eye-opening conversation. Let's get started.

John Neral: 0:57

Hello, my friends, this is the Mid-Career GPS Podcast and I'm your host, John Neral. I help mid-career professionals like you find a career they love, or love the one they have, using my proven four-step formula. There are things we can do right or wrong in any job search, and if you're frustrated that you aren't getting the results you want, I want you to get my free guide in video training why your mid-career job search isn't working and what to do about it. In this guide and training, you will learn some of the biggest mistakes mid-career professionals are doing in this job market and how it's not getting them the results that they want. This is a chance to course correct and if you're ready, all you have to do is visit my website, johnneral. com/resources or check the show notes for more information. Now on to this week's interview.

John Neral: 1:54

Chris Bond is a success-driven, visionary and operations executive with unique experience enhancing community relations for nonprofits and academic programs that result in positive organization, visibility and reputation. You see, chris knows how to navigate complex executive team challenges. He does that by influencing stakeholders across multiple functions and divisions, improving accountability, integrity and participation. As a transparent and relatable leader, chris has proven experience evaluating grant resources and data trends to optimize operating and capital expenditures, raising over six figures in nonprofit funding. Having successfully navigated his recent job search, chris is here to share his experiences to help you build your mid-career GPS and learn from what he discovered in this job market. It is my pleasure to introduce you to my client, a wonderful connection and a friend, chris Bond. Chris Bond, welcome to the podcast. It's great to see you again, my friend.

Chris Bond: 3:09

Thank you, John. It's great to see you again and appreciate you having me on.

John Neral: 3:13

Yeah. So, chris, I shared a little bit of this in the interview that a while back. You reached out to me in an email and shared some very personal data related to your job search, and it's why I am so grateful you decided to come on the podcast and accept the invitation today, because what you've gone through is what I am seeing across so many mid-career professionals right now, so many of my clients who are going through this, that while this job market is difficult, it is not impossible, right.

Chris Bond: 3:49

Would you agree? I would agree. It can be frustrating, certainly for anyone looking for a job in this market or any market, but you just have to be resilient. I mean, you don't even have a choice about it. If you want to land a job, you just have to stay at it and be as enthusiastic on day 120 as you were on day two. So my story is not unique. I'm sure many of your listeners can relate, even if not now at some point in their lives or, unfortunately, maybe you know, they'll be looking at the situation soon, given cuts in various places. So I'm happy to share my experience with anyone. Again, I don't think I'm special or unique. I just did what I had to do that anyone else would have to do.

John Neral: 4:38

So, chris, let's go through some of the data. Let's go through the timeline data, let's go through the timeline. So you found yourself actively looking for a job in mid-February of 2025. Correct yes, when did you end up accepting your new position?

Chris Bond: 4:56

It was about on or about August 10th of this year and, interestingly enough, it was a job that I had initially applied for back in March of 2025. So one of the first jobs I applied for was one that I actually ended up accepting, but because of the lengthy job process, it took five months from first application to job acceptance.

John Neral: 5:30

Okay, so to clarify then so you applied for this job back in March, you didn't reapply, it's just their timeline took a while to actually move you through their pipeline.

Chris Bond: 5:40

Correct and I didn't know for most of that time period, so I continued to apply for other jobs. It's a government job, so most people can understand that it is not a fast process. The wheels of any government local, state, federal don't move very quickly, so this was a job with a bureau within the State Department of Agriculture in Pennsylvania. Okay, it took a while.

John Neral: 6:09

Yeah. So right away, it definitely confirms what we're seeing in a lot of the research, that on average for mid-career professionals, we're talking around five to six months to find that new job. But, chris, what I want to highlight here is that in this time period of you applying for positions, you were very aggressive in terms of your application strategy. So, in total, how many jobs did you apply for this year?

Chris Bond: 6:38

I applied to 125 jobs between the middle of February and the middle of June. Okay.

John Neral: 6:46

Out of those 125,. How many responses did you get?

Chris Bond: 6:51

Not counting the, you know, rote response of we've received your application. Responses that were either personalized, like we want to move you ahead in the process, or more commonly thank you for your application, but we've chosen another candidate to move you ahead in the process. Or more commonly thank you for your application, but we've chosen another candidate to move ahead in this process. I heard back from 62 of those 125.

John Neral: 7:14

So I want to stay with you on this for a minute, because when we worked together previously, we talked about response rates and we talked about that. The goal was to get that personalized response and I remember when we were working together, I shared with you if you could get a 25% response rate. You were doing incredibly well. So you're now telling us in this round you were able to get a basically 50% response rate. Chris, what were the things that you did to elicit such a high response rate from your applications?

Chris Bond: 7:53

Sure, I don't know how much of this can be attributed to luck, but I was. I'll say I was pretty specific in what I was looking for, but I have a very niche role. I'll say I was pretty specific in what I was looking for, but I have a very niche role, so that probably limits some of the competition, In other words, a lot of the jobs I applied for. Maybe they didn't get inundated with 2,000 applications previously. And having my resume optimized for the AI that's going to review it first in more cases than not, hopefully that also led to some of my success.

Chris Bond: 8:33

Also following up with a lot of these organizations. If I didn't hear anything back within two or three weeks, I would typically send a follow-up email just say you know I'm still interested in this role. Can you let me know if I'm still a candidate? I'm very much interested.

Chris Bond: 8:49

So a combination of a good resume to begin with that's yeah faces the reality that you're going to probably be weeded out first, you know, by not a human human applying specifically for those roles that I believe I was a good candidate for, rather than taking a shotgun approach and whatever you know hits it, and also just following up Because I was out of work. My job was to find a job, so I had to take it seriously, devote time every day to the search, you know, out of 125 that I applied for, without exaggerating I'm sure I had to read over a thousand job descriptions to find ones that I thought I could be a fit for. So I attribute some of that higher response to that type of follow-up and the you know, having a a good product to begin with to offer to folks that hopefully would be a good fit.

John Neral: 9:51

So, chris, what I'm taking away here is that one. You were crystal clear on the type of positions you believed you were a great fit for, and so, because of that, you were able to pinpoint exactly the types of organizations, departments and agencies that you were going to look for jobs in and apply for.

Chris Bond: 10:16

Correct and I realize not everyone has that luxury. So you know I did not have to take the first job I could find and that is a privilege. I know that. So my experience may not be the same as everybody's. I don't want to suggest that I'm sitting here high on the hog and you know I can take my time and being picky and choosy and what I want. I can take my time and being picky and choosy and what I want, but fortunately I have. I have a partner who was employed and you know I can. I had a bit of savings I could. I could take my time and do it right, even though I wanted to get back to work as soon as I could. So and I realized that that is not a position that everybody can take.

John Neral: 10:57

Well, and I thank you for sharing that. I also want to acknowledge, though, that when anyone, in any situation, goes from a two income household down to a one income household, there are sacrifices that have to be made, right, it's not? It's not easy in that regard.

Chris Bond: 11:14

No, no, there were certainly sacrifices, and you know belt tightening, yeah, despite the fact that my partner has a good income. You're right, we're set up for a two-income lifestyle.

John Neral: 11:27

But to your point, when someone like you is in this process and they're searching for jobs, one of the things that we talked about, too, regarding fit, was you have to have your non-negotiables right. So non-negotiables could be everything from the kind of work where you want to work, but also look, I can't take a 50% pay cut here. That's just not going to be worth my time, effort and energy to applying for, especially given your background and expertise. So that clarity that's what I want to pull out here is having that kind of clarity in terms of exactly what you were wanting to look for was integral in the success of your job search.

Chris Bond: 12:09

Correct, I could not take a 50% pay cut. I mean I would be wasting my time and their time if I were to be focusing on those types of jobs. I didn't expect that I'd be able to necessarily replace the income of my previous job I was hoping to. Fortunately, I came very close with the role I did accept. But, yeah, it didn't make sense for me to devote my time to find something that was going to just put me right back in the same position, because if I had accepted a role that paid half of what I was making, I would still be looking for another job to eventually replace that. So in the interest of my time and potential employers' times, I did not focus on those jobs, okay.

John Neral: 12:53

Right. So you have the career clarity, you have a resume that you feel confident in submitting, that you believed was set up to get you through that initial screen with the applicant tracking system, and then you go ahead, confidence, to follow up regarding that position when, for so many people, they have a thought of I don't want to be a pest, I don't want to be a bother, I don't want to upset the hiring manager. How did you find a way to confidently and competently follow up with prospective employers?

Chris Bond: 13:44

I mean there certainly was some of that self-doubt. I had the same dialogue with myself. You know I don't want to seem too pushy, too pesky and have that be the reason that I'm taken off of the consideration list. But at the end of the day, if I don't advocate for myself, they're not going to. So that was part of the impetus, also just respecting my own time, that there's no point in me devoting emotional energy and getting my hopes up on a particular job if in fact they have moved on to another candidate. So it was as much about respecting again my time as theirs and realizing that I am a potential candidate, I am qualified enough to have applied for that job. Potential candidate, I am qualified enough to have applied for that job. So you know I deserve to know whether I'm in consideration still for the role.

John Neral: 14:48

Absolutely so, chris, let's go back and take a look at your stats, right? So you applied for 125 jobs. You get about a 50% personalized response rate. And then, out of those 125 jobs you applied to, how many of them did you get invited to for an interview? 12. Okay, so 10% essentially Yep, all right, which again is a incredible response rate. Okay, that speaks volumes to how targeted you were in that. Just to take a step back, for people who are listening, it sounds like we are talking solely about you applying for positions online. Did you do any type of networking or outreach to your network in terms of having them perhaps advocate or suggest for you for a position within their organization?

Chris Bond: 15:49

or ones I had worked with in previous roles, just letting them know that this was the situation. Maybe they knew of an opening somewhere, maybe they had a role themselves that I could fill. Even in the interim it turned out that the job I ended up accepting was not one that was the result of networking, but I did in fact rely on some folks to either let me know if they knew anything and again, in the world I'm in, a lot of it is dependent on federal funding, which, of course, in this climate is not abundant. So it turned out that the individuals I'd reached out to they were either they didn't have an opening available or they too knew a lot of folks in the same situation I was. But I still would recommend that people lean on their network.

Chris Bond: 16:53

Even if it doesn't bear fruit this time around, it keeps you in mind for maybe future opportunities. It keeps you in mind for maybe future opportunities. But, yes, the majority of my applications probably 96% of them were the result of just scrolling through open positions. Everyone's experience is not going to be the same as mine. I did not look at LinkedIn Only because every time I saw a job that I might have been suitable for, it says you know how many people have already applied for it, so I did not include LinkedIn in my job search.

Chris Bond: 17:39

I certainly read through job descriptions that popped up, but when did you search? Descriptions that popped up, but where did you search? So my two most fruitful places were Idealist and governmentjobscom, where you can hone in on you know, state, county town.

Chris Bond: 17:58

You can isolate, you know pay levels, whether it's remote work, whether it's in-person work. So I found most of my luck between those two sites, between Idealist and the government jobs. But again, that's because that's the area of focus. I work in either education or nonprofits. But I did not find anything on LinkedIn to be helpful as far as job listings that I followed up on.

John Neral: 18:29

And there's nothing wrong in that, chris, right? I mean, you had to go where essentially the jobs were for you and that's where you were able to maximize your time.

Chris Bond: 18:39

Sure, I also used Indeed, but so probably the majority of those 125 I applied for were on Indeed. The most success I found was with the ones on Idealist or Government Jobs Got it okay, super helpful there.

John Neral: 18:57

thank you All right. So now you get to the interviews. All right, you go through 12 different organizations and interviews and things like that. What can you share with the listeners about your interview experience that either you found very helpful in terms of your preparation, or also what surprised you about interviewing in 2025?

Chris Bond: 19:25

Sure, I would say, the majority of those 12 for the initial interviews were either phone screens or Zoom calls. The ones I went ahead beyond the initial 12 were the ones that I did in person. So I don't know if that is just a function of it's still in 2025, more important to have FaceTime, one-on-one, you know, real-world connections, or that's just coincidentally the field I'm in. That that happened to work. So I applied for a lot of remote work and even though I would get interviews for remote jobs, those didn't work out, for whatever reason. The jobs where I was actually made offers were ones that I had gone to in person right off the bat.

Chris Bond: 20:19

So that's my experience. That doesn't mean that's everybody's experience, of course. So it was surprising that the majority of jobs I applied for were indeed remote, but the ones that were of serious considerations were ones that were local, you know, within 45 minutes drive of where I live. So that was kind of a surprise. I expected that in this climate, I would have more success with remote work, but, of course, the difference being that when it's remote you can get applicants from everywhere across the country, and when a job is in person, unless someone is going to relocate, then the pool of eligible candidates is probably smaller than for a remote job.

John Neral: 21:05

Got it when you were going through your final round interviews for several positions you were applying for and, ultimately, the position you landed. Was there a point during the interview when you felt like you either were going to get the job offer or you felt like this was a great fit? I would be thrilled if they made me an offer.

Chris Bond: 21:42

Sure, and I should have mentioned to your question earlier about interview prep. I took every interview seriously. I tried to inquire ahead of time who would be there, because typically it was a panel of people as opposed to a one-on-one time. Who would be there because typically it was a panel of people as opposed to a one-on-one. I would, you know, do my appropriate level of facebook stalking, so to speak. Uh, try to look up these folks, look at their linkedin if I could find any youtube videos or maybe they were interviewed previously. I wanted to just get a sense of what people's particular expertise may be, how they seem to interact with other people, if I had that information. So, having done my due diligence ahead of time, going into an interview, I did, and that was beneficial. That helped me to be on sense for how they treated customers, how their organization looked, and I came with suggestions. So when I came to the interview, I had let them know that I had done that and I focused on the positives primarily, and then I offered a few instances where my expertise would lend itself well for improvements. They were very impressed with that and I would feel in that particular interview that from the moment we started talking. I felt like you know, without being arrogant, I nailed it, I have this job if I want it, and in fact they were one of the ones that made me an offer. I didn't ultimately accept it, but without having done that preparation ahead of time, I don't think I would have had that level of confidence and had that level of conversation during the interview that gave me that confidence. In another case, for the job I did accept. I was made to feel at ease with some of the introductions where I was congratulated for being one of three finalists out of a nationwide search and just the tone of questioning was not one of. I didn't feel like it was accusatory, like how could you do this or what would you do here? Or I shouldn't say accusatory, but more inquisitive this or what would you do here, or I shouldn't say accusatory, but more inquisitive um, instead it was looking at my previous experience and how we might uh leverage that in the role um. So I was made to feel that I would have been a valued part of the team. So in those instances I felt like I I feel very comfortable that I'm going to get an offer or at least move ahead in this process.

Chris Bond: 24:41

The ones where I didn't get that kind of vibe from the interviewer I did not in fact move ahead with Although I should say there were other jobs that I felt I interviewed well and we had a good rapport, they ultimately went for other candidates.

Chris Bond: 24:56

So I'm not sure what the magic formula is other than to come in prepared, be ready for any type of question. So another aspect of interview prep is actually having mock interviews and I found that very helpful. With a previous job search you helped me with John, where you and I would go through the paces and you would ask me the types of questions that an interviewer might ask. And even though a lot of people know what those questions are ahead of time, it isn't until you actually kind of practice what your answers may be so that you're better prepared and this go-around my partner was very supportive and helped me playing that role of the interviewer. So I could not have had as successful a job search as I did without both the tools that you had provided me with previously and having a supportive partner who was almost as expensive as I was, and you know, finding an appropriate job.

John Neral: 25:55

Absolutely. Thank you for sharing all of that. And when you started your job search back in February of this year and you look back on it and you say, gosh, I had two job offers and I got to choose. I got to ultimately choose between two different job offers, was that something you thought was a possibility at the start of your job search? Or did that surprise you in some way that, given this job market, you would be in a position to entertain two different offers and choose one?

Chris Bond: 26:31

I think at the outset I didn't realize how long of a journey it was going to be and I probably falsely thought that the first dozen jobs I applied for. Well, why wouldn't they want me to come in and why wouldn't I get my pick of the litter? Well, I quickly learned that, you know, 12 jobs became 25 jobs, became 50 jobs, became 100 jobs that I applied for, and then more, more ultimately, and that I would not necessarily have my pick of the litter, that it was a very competitive job market and, especially when you have your expertise lay in a niche aspect of an industry, you would probably be lucky to get two job offers at once. So, whereas initially I probably thought I would have my choice, as the months dragged on, I did not foresee that happening and it was just coincidence that two jobs that I was made offers at roughly the same time allowed me to have that luxury of choice.

John Neral: 27:35

Nice, nice. So, chris, you and I worked together pretty intensely in 22 and 23.

John Neral: 27:42

We touched base a little bit in 24. We touched base earlier this year when things kind of happened and stuff. What I'd love for you to share a little bit is when people consider going through career coaching, you and I often talked, especially at the beginning, that this wasn't necessarily going to be a long-term thing, right. Career coaching kind of drops in, helps out at a specific moment, and then you kind of take away some things with it with career coaching that you get to continue to use and develop and move forward with what would you say was a big takeaway from our work together that ultimately helped you, not just in 22 and 23 when we were working closely together, but even relying on some of the things that we talked about and you got coached on going through this job search about and you got coached on going through this job search.

Chris Bond: 28:41

So I felt more confident in this job search because we had worked together previously for my last job search. So, even though it wasn't necessarily as fresh in mind as when we had last worked, there were several tools that I took away that allowed me to be more confident in this particular job search, one of which was reframing how I present myself, both on paper and in person. I found it very helpful when you taught me that it's very powerful to go in and with your opening statement. Be that I help, that it's a. I'm not going in saying I do this, I do this, I do this, but framing it as what value you bring to an organization and just having a I don't want to say concise, but you know you have to be pithy Having an introduction that is powerful.

Chris Bond: 29:37

So if I go in and say that, you know, oftentimes the interviewer will, you know, tell me something about yourself. Well, instead of hemming and hawing about my background, I could go in with an opening statement and say I hope organizations do this and of course, I would tailor it based on the job I was applying for, making it relevant whether it was, depending on the aspect of the nonprofit or for-profit world it may have been, but to be able to be prepared, knowing ahead of time what I'm going to say, was very helpful, and that was not an approach that I would have had prior to working with you, to be so consistent and on point entering the interview phase. So the tools allowed me to be more confident entering an interview, which can be an intimidating scenario. I mean, you're automatically at the disadvantage, but knowing what to say ahead of time and knowing how you're going to present yourself does level that field a little bit.

John Neral: 30:37

Well, thank you. Yeah, that whole work on the unique professional value statement was definitely such a game changer for you and for so many of my clients and things. But thank you again for just reiterating. There's such power in when we communicate our value by simply saying I help.

Chris Bond: 30:55

What.

John Neral: 30:56

I'm seeing so much right now, especially in this job market, is companies and I want to be careful on how I phrase this, but the reality is companies don't care a whole lot about you. They want to care what you're going to do for them. They want to know how you're going to help them, how your results are transferable or translatable into this new role, what's the successes you've had in a previous role that you can bring over here into this organization? That's going to help move this organization forward, because we choose to bring you on Sure Right. So oftentimes people get caught up in the. You know I'm a hard worker, I'm a great communicator. They expect all those things.

Chris Bond: 31:54

Right, it sounded like you were really able to lean into your results specifically from that place. Believe that that led to some of my success in getting job offers. Nice Good stuff, chris. Go ahead, no go ahead.

Chris Bond: 32:10

I was going to say, and to your point about how they approach you. It's understandable, approach you. It's understandable. If you are having work done at your house, you may be selecting from three different contractors. You don't care if they're hard workers, you would expect that. So you want to know what else they had done and what they can offer you. It's not a matter of necessarily a personality contest. So I guess, just flipping the script a little bit, I can understand why when I go into an interview they don't really care about me personally. They want to know how I can help their organization. So, yeah, totally agree with that.

John Neral: 32:51

Yeah, I mean, yeah, and exactly. I mean there's so many ways they're assessing fit, just as you, as the job candidate, are assessing fit, and of course you have to be a good person and nice person and play well with others and all those kind of things but at the end of the day, they're looking for results and that's how you get to deliver that. So, chris, I am so thrilled and happy for you that you are going to be starting this new job by the time this episode drops. As we go to wrap up, what advice would you give the listeners today who are currently job seeking or they are frustrated with their job search that, as they think about building their mid-career GPS to find whatever is next for them, what advice would you give them based on your most recent experiences to help them?

Chris Bond: 33:44

Patience in this particular market and again, I realize that that comes from a place of privilege, because some people do have to take the first thing that's offered because they aren't able to float in the interim. But just realizing that there are a lot of people applying for the same roles that they may be, be patient, be persistent with your follow-ups and that will likely increase the amount of interviews that you'll get, or at least the amount of follow-ups you'll get from the jobs that you had applied to. Again, I know that that was my experience. It doesn't mean it's going to be everyone's experience, but I think there is value in realizing that you may have to settle in for this job search journey. It's not going to be fixed overnight. So if you go in with that mindset that this is going to take work, I have to stay at it. I have to make uncomfortable follow-up sometimes because your job and livelihood depends on it.

John Neral: 34:46

Yeah Well, Chris, thank you so very much for sharing your story, your experiences, your insights with all of us today. Congratulations again on the new job and continued success and best wishes to you.

Chris Bond: 35:02

Thank you. It was my pleasure, john. I've appreciated working with you in the past and the tools you have helped me to hone, and I wish much success for all of your clients and all of your listeners in their job search.

John Neral: 35:13

Well, thank you so very much. All right, my friends. So look, if there's one big takeaway from all of the wonderful things that Chris shared today, what I want to offer you is it's the career clarity in order to get there. Being resilient in terms of why you are valuable to a new organization or a future organization. And when your brain kicks in and says I don't want to be a pest, I don't want to be a bother, how are you going to help them? That's where the follow-up comes in. How are you going to help them? Let them tell you no, but in the meantime, if they haven't, there is still an opportunity for a yes. That's there.

John Neral: 36:02

And in this job market, where it is an employer's job market, chris demonstrated so clearly the power of patience and resilience in your job search. So, chris, thank you again. Everybody remember this. Just like Chris, you're gonna build your mid-career GPS one mile or one step at a time, and how you show up matters. Make it a great rest of your day. Thank you for listening to the Mid-Career GPS Podcast. Make sure to follow on your favorite listening platform and, if you have a moment, I'd love to hear your comments on Apple Podcasts. Visit johnnerrellcom for more information about how I can help you build your mid-career GPS or how I can help you and your organization with your next workshop or public speaking event. Don't forget to connect with me on LinkedIn and follow me on social at John Nerrell Coaching. I look forward to being back with you next week. Until then, take care and remember how we show up matters. Thank you.