[decafninja]

I've been working 10+ years in the industry, currently at my fifth company. I've sent out countless resumes, interviewed at countless places. Tiny mom and pop shops, small tech startups, boring cludgy enterprises, all the way up to FAANG.

I have not even once gotten anything more than an automated rejection email from all the companies I've applied to online cold.

The only times I've ever gotten to even speak with a human (leading up to phone screen, interview, etc.) was when a recruiter reached out to me first, whether internal or third party.

Even reaching out to recruiters first on LinkedIn always ends up being ignored.

Yes, I've tweaked and tuned my resume countless times, including having it reviewed by reputable people in the industry.

As far as I'm concerned, applying cold is a straight ticket for my resume into a black hole.