u/awaythroww12123

I was job hunting for about 4.5 months. For context, I'm a software engineer with 6 years of experience.

Over the last 3 months, I applied to close to 500 jobs using easy apply. I even paid for LinkedIn Premium. I didn't get a single response, not even one interview. Most of those jobs already had hundreds of applicants.

Instead of applying to everything, I only applied to jobs that were a good match. I checked LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor, and a few other sites every day, but I was much more selective.

The biggest difference was tailoring my resume and cover letter for every application. I also sent a follow-up email about 2 weeks later.

I ended up sending 78 applications that way. That led to interviews with five companies and two offers. I accepted a one-year remote contract with a startup paying $25/hour, 4 days a week.

Looking back, I don't think sending fewer applications was what made the difference. Tailoring my resume for every job did.

Edit: I used the ChatGPT prompt from this post to tailor my resume:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ResumeTips/comments/1rby70o/after_tailoring_my_resume_i_landed_3_job_offers/

I was job hunting for about 4.5 months. For context, I'm a software engineer with 6 years of experience.

Over the last 3 months, I applied to close to 500 jobs using easy apply. I even paid for LinkedIn Premium. I didn't get a single response, not even one interview. Most of those jobs already had hundreds of applicants.

Instead of applying to everything, I only applied to jobs that were a good match. I checked LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor, and a few other sites every day, but I was much more selective.

The biggest difference was tailoring my resume and cover letter for every application. I also sent a follow-up email about 2 weeks later.

I ended up sending 78 applications that way. That led to interviews with five companies and two offers. I accepted a one-year remote contract with a startup paying $25/hour, 4 days a week.

Looking back, I don't think sending fewer applications was what made the difference. Tailoring my resume for every job did.

Edit: I used the ChatGPT prompt from this post to tailor my resume:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ResumeTips/comments/1rby70o/after_tailoring_my_resume_i_landed_3_job_offers/

I was job hunting for about 4.5 months. For context, I'm a software engineer with 6 years of experience.

I even paid for LinkedIn Premium, and over the last 3 months, I applied to close to 500 jobs using easy apply. I didn't get a single response, not even one interview. Most of those postings already had hundreds of applicants anyway.

The last time I was looking for a job was after the pandemic, and I found one in about a month. This time it took more than four months.

One thing that really frustrated me was ghost jobs on LinkedIn. For example, I saw a posting from a company where a friend of mine works. I already knew they weren't actually hiring for that role, but the listing kept getting reposted as if the position was still open. Looking back, sending hundreds of easy apply applications to jobs like that was mostly a waste of time.

So what actually worked?

Instead of applying to everything, I started checking multiple job boards every day (LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor, etc.) and only applied to jobs that genuinely matched my experience. Some days there weren't any good openings, while other days I'd find 3 or 4 worth applying to. I focused on listings that looked legitimate instead of just chasing numbers.

For every application, I tailored my resume and cover letter to the specific job. About 1.5 to 2 weeks later, I sent a follow-up email.

I ended up sending around 80 applications this way. That led to interviews with four companies, and yesterday afternoon I accepted an offer from one of them.

That whole process took about 1 to 1.5 months.

I'm honestly relieved it's finally over because job hunting is stressful as hell. Looking back, I wish I'd stopped relying on LinkedIn's easy apply much sooner. Taking the time to submit fewer, higher-quality applications made a much bigger difference than sending hundreds of generic ones.

Ironically, this is exactly how I landed my previous job 3–4 years ago. I just assumed easy apply would be enough this time, and it clearly wasn't.

Edit: I used the ChatGPT prompt from this post to tailor my resume:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ResumeTips/comments/1rby70o/after_tailoring_my_resume_i_landed_3_job_offers/