[thinbeige]

> you don't want to be sending the same thing to 180+ companies

Would disagree. If one has a good generic cover letter plus CV and a very good and wanted profile this would work.

Why? Because it's a number game and better send many standard applications than few individual ones. Leas work and better result.

[gk1]

Well it's clearly not working in this case. Having hired people before, boilerplate cover letters tell me that the applicant couldn't be bothered to take 10 minutes to customize the cover letter.

Also, if you advocate for playing the numbers game then you can't complain about recruiters doing the same.

[thinbeige]

> Well it's clearly not working in this case

So, maybe his CV is just not good or has some huge mistake and it's not about personalized cover letters?

However, in the high demand market of software engineers an individual application is the not the key of getting a job. Not at all. It's your profile (is is good? does it fit?) AND that you applied at all. Just guess why devs get dozen of headhunter calls per week without writing a single cover letter...

[sotojuan]

Because they are experienced. For a fresh grad, the job market is tough. Very tough in some cases.

OP is actually above average by having an actual side project. He just needs help with his resume or application.

[thinbeige]

> For a fresh grad, the job market is tough

Good point, I agree

[MechEStudent]

It was a numbers game 20 years ago. The first "gatekeeper" is the computer, and if you don't have enough "keyword match" then your papers don't make it through the first gate no matter how many you send. The probability of randomly hitting the right keywords is poor because there are millions of words in English, and they aren't uniformly randomly distributed in the job descriptions. Are you going to pick the right 200 when you make your resume? Your chance is much worse than 1 in a million.