[Dfiesl]

1200 applications over a period of 18 months is over 2 applications a day for 18 months solid. If thats the case there's no way you're putting in the time needed to A) find jobs that actually excite you; B) reflect on where you can improve after each rejection; C) write really effective cover letters.

[Dylan16807]

Most jobs are giving no feedback on B, and you can only stare at a wall and meditate on your own failings for so many hours before you run out of insights. Maybe one in 20 jobs you find something you can spend several hours on. You could always do showoff projects as a completely separate activity, but I don't file that under improving your application skills.

For C, I figure by the time you've written 50 proper and sincere cover letters you can do them in under an hour. What could you be doing that takes a very long time and still counts as a cover letter?

[ta12653421]

>projects as a completely separate activity, but I don't file that under improving your application skills. <

Absolutely NOT my experience!!! In my case, being able to put "sideprojects" on the tabe, which were somehow adjacent to the role, it always made huge plus.

Currently I'm interviewing for a role for which they rejected a second interview after the first one, when i showed them something i've developed during my recent sabbatical - instead they asked just for completing a 2-slide-ppt and will hire me without having ever met (the corp office is 3 miles away from me)

[Dylan16807]

I'll rephrase.

It's something that can help you get a job, but it's not "how do I get better at writing a resume?"

There's unlimited time you can put into side projects. But that's very different from figuring out what you did wrong when applying and trying to fix it.

And the time you put into side projects isn't based on how many job applications you're filling out.

[johnnyanmac]

It varies. Side projects are nice, until you have professional experience. Real experience will trump hobbyist ones 99.9% of the time.

Of course when the market gets rough, now they want both.

[ta12653421]

Very strong disagree: Showing interest for a distinct thing always helped me jump to the next adjacent square.

[johnnyanmac]

The modern job market disagrees with you, sadly.

[Dfiesl]

I defo agree that unless you get to interview you're unlikely to get any feedback, but showing your application to others in the industry (or university tutors as in this girls case) and getting their feedback can be super helpful.

With C, I think it always helps to demonstrate some knowledge of what the company gets up to so if your application does get a second glance then it seems like you actually care about the company, and that does take time.

[slyall]

The "jobs that really excite you" are the ones you apply for in the first week and never hear back from.

[charlie0]

That's funny because it's the exact opposite in my case. I want to warm up first and save the more exciting companies for a week or 2 later.

[xboxnolifes]

Companies are frequently closing job applications less than 48 hours after posting them right now.

[johnnyanmac]

I've seen posts a few hours old close as I fill out the application. We are in very bad times right now.

[out-of-ideas]

> and never hear back from

i would not be surprised if that was the case for a lot of them

[actsasbuffoon]

I prefer to go for companies that win me over rather than ones where I start out excited about them.

That’s how it was with my current company. The description from the recruiter had me questioning if I even wanted to talk to this company because they wanted me 2 to 3 days-per-week in an office 3 hours away.

I spoke to the SVP of engineering and it was immediately clear that we got along really well and had similar values and priorities. He told me that they would knock the in-office requirement down to once per week because I seemed like such a good fit. They moved from a definite-no to a maybe.

I spoke to a lead engineer and he was one of the smartest, most thoughtful people I’ve ever met. He really impressed me with his answers to my questions. I spoke to the senior director of engineering and once again, really good connection. Impressive guy who cared about the same things that I do. They moved from a maybe to kinda-exciting.

I spoke to the CEO, and I have to be honest; I’ve had some bad run-ins with executives. I find a lot of them to be terrifyingly clueless. This guy really got it, though. I think he understands exactly how to make this company successful. They had officially become exciting.

They made a great offer that was an upgrade on both title and pay, thus becaming the most exciting out of the bunch.

After visiting the office twice they told me that my commute was insane, and I should only come in once per month. With that, my only real concern with the company basically became moot.

I’m building some really exciting stuff and the entire company is constantly freaking out about my work. I love what I’m doing. I can’t imagine any of the other companies would have been this much fun.

And to think, when the recruiter told me about them, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to talk to them!

Keep an open mind and get to know the company before you decide who is or isn’t exciting.

[johnnyanmac]

If you're not hyper-specialized to the point of being the best in an important niche, you won't get this behavior c. 2023 or so. Even direct referrals these days don't guarantee leading to an interview.

[johnnyanmac]

A) a job is a job sometimes. Few people get to mix passion with vocation.

B) Most jobs don't even respond back. Most that respond back just give a generic rejection.There nothing to reflect on. I have a pretty good resume in my industry but had a much harder time then as a new grad in 2017. The only reflection is that the market right now is rough.

C) cover letters came up in 3 of m roles I got hired for. They all said they never read them. Granted, one was a referral but I'm not very confident cover letters are being read, let alone is the factor determining job prospects.

[locopati]

That's so strange about C. When I was a hiring manager, resumes told me nothing because they're so generic and samey and often padded with bs. A cover letter was a place for differentiation. Also, I had so many applicants that having a cover letter was my first screen... no letter and I was done.

Oddly, once, I had a series of applications from different people with the exact same cover letter. I had to triple take to realize that I wasn't looking at the same person multiple times.

[johnnyanmac]

If I had to guess, it was a mix of culture and process. For job #1, I'm not surprised, since it was clear they were mostly looking for bodies.

The other two werre 5-6 stages of interviews, so the resume was the screen while the cultural parts of the interview werre built into all the people I had to talk to. I even distinctly remember the last part of one interview was the a director who came in, and as a twist, he asked no questions. It was all about me asking about him, the project the company, etc.

I'm sure by the end they had a good feel of who I was and if I'd mesh, so there wasn't a need to read what I wrote. It's interesting, but exhausting. I would much prefer a 2-3 stage process and crafting a proper cover letter if I had the choice.

[mandeepj]

> write really effective cover letters

If a resume can't convince them to hire you, what made you think a cover letter can? Also, no recruiter spends over a few seconds glancing at your resume? So, throw another doc at them?

[Dfiesl]

I think every job I've ever applied to has asked for both a resume/CV and a cover letter. A recruiter may glance at first but if they like what they see or they can only put through 10 applicants to interview then they're likely to properly read through.

[trod1234]

The job market labor supply for IT right now is supersaturated to the point that extremely competent people with the experience have been looking for several years and are now cutting bait and leaving the field for retraining.

Quite a lot of professional networks died in the great layoffs due to AI. Right now about 70% of my professional network is still out of work, and many of them start at a decade of experience in principal engineer/SRE/SA roles. There's a 1200:1 ratio for applications to cold call interviews, and ghost jobs have made finding legitimate roles to apply to impossible (above the shannon limit for noisy channels).

When there is no work in a specialized area, you go where the work is to put food on the table whatever work that may be. There isn't a lot of work elsewhere either, and many places discriminate against those who are overqualified to the point where they aren't really hiring those people despite them being more productive than some of the younger people they hire instead.

On the bright side, you have some fast food positions making more than some of the IT jobs available in this area (MSP) right now. CCNA cert with experience seem to be running about 42-50k now depending on the area you are working in.There's also been ~25% inflation in aggregate over the last 5 years so your effectively making 31.5-37k gross in purchasing power today at those rates. Computer Science degrees have one of the highest unemployment, and underemployment of most degrees except aerospace engineering.

This is just a preview of what is happening to all white-collar work. AI makes the environment outdated before you can do anything, and thinking its just the same environment as 10-20 years ago is a mistake.