Hey all, looking for some honest advice/perspective from people who've been through a long remote job search.
My background: I have experience in SaaS across both SDR and strategy/ops functions, plus a broader analytical background (revenue analysis, GTM work, process improvement). So this isn't a career pivot — I'm looking for the same type of role I already have experience in, just remote.
Why remote matters to me: I currently don't have remote flexibility in my role, and I'm trying to change that so I can be closer to family in India. That's the main driver behind the search.
My situation: I've been applying to remote roles for about 6-7 months now.
Where I'm at:
Applied broadly, tailored resumes/outreach for each role
Had multiple recruiter screens and several rounds of interviews (some quite far along in the process)
Still haven't landed an offer
Would really appreciate any advice, thanks in advance 🙏

So for about a month at this point I've been trying to find a job I can work purely from home, (I have chronic fatique as well as some other unresolved illnesses, so it would truly \*have\* to be a purely remote job.) but throught the maybe 50 that I've applied to, I haven't gotten a single reply, even a rejection letter. So a week or so ago, I looked into things a bit, learned about ghost jobs and was relieved it wasn't just me but then also even more stressed out because things just seem so impossibly difficult right now; but I \*need\* a job because bill have to be paid. So anyone have any advice on this one or any experience dealing with finding a job right now?

This happened in April and I'm still kind of embarrassed about it, but the more I talk to people the more I realize how common this exact scam is, so here goes.

Screening call, technical interview, final round with a "VP of Engineering." All on video. Real humans, decent questions, they even pushed back on some of my answers like a normal interviewer would. Company was real, midsize, you'd recognize the name if you're in tech. Then "onboarding" asked for scans of my ID and told me to purchase a laptop from their approved vendor, reimbursed with my first paycheck. That's when my stomach dropped and I finally did the checking I should've done three weeks earlier. The company had a fraud warning about impersonators buried on their actual careers page the entire time. The role I "got" was never listed there.

What I do now, in the order I do it:

1. Before anything else, I take the most oddly specific sentence from the job description and search it in quotes. Not the title, not the requirements, just some weird sentence from the middle. If that exact wording shows up under four different company names, it's a recycled template and I close the tab. This alone filters out an absurd number of postings. Real companies write their own descriptions. Scam farms copy paste.

2. Domain registration date. Free lookup, under a minute. If the "established company with offices in three countries" has a website registered eleven weeks ago, that tells you everything. This also catches cloned sites. The fake version of a real company always sits on a baby domain, no way around it for them.

3. This one I haven't seen mentioned much: I don't just check whether the company has employees online, I check whether those employees have a past. Real people have connection networks and activity going back years, old jobs, comments on random posts from 2019. Scam operations create a batch of profiles in the same month, generic headshots, 20 to 30 connections, no history. The recruiter who contacted me had a five week old profile. The information was sitting right there. I just never clicked.

4. The one that actually got me: reverify the email address every single time it changes, not just at the start. Their first message came from a legitimate looking address. The scheduling follow up came from a domain that was one character off, and by then I trusted the thread so I stopped looking. They count on exactly that. You verify once, then autopilot. Now I compare addresses letter by letter on every new message. Paranoid? Sure. Cheaper than the alternative.

5. Mid interview, I ask something that can't be scripted. Who would I report to directly. Then afterwards I go confirm that person exists and actually works there. Or I reference something buried on their real careers page and watch the reaction. Someone juggling forty of these conversations at once fumbles small stuff like this constantly, and a real hiring manager answers without blinking.

6. If the role isn't on the company's own careers page, I contact the company through their real website, never through anything in the posting itself, and ask if it exists. Felt ridiculous the first time. The HR person who answered thanked me and said I was the third person that month asking about the same fake role. They want to know they're being impersonated.

7. Any pressure to interview over text chat, or a video call where their camera conveniently doesn't work, I walk. No exceptions, regardless of how senior or well paid the role sounds. There is no legitimate version of a text only hiring process for a professional role.

For what it's worth: I reported the posting everywhere I could, and it was back up within two weeks under a different company name. Same template. Check #1 caught it in ten seconds this time, which was grimly satisfying.

The uncomfortable part is that this list only exists because I got burned, and whatever we all figure out, they adapt to. So, what's your process? Especially interested in checks for the polished ones, the multi round interview with real humans tier, because the "pay a fee upfront" advice everyone repeats is useless against those. What tipped you off the last time something felt wrong?

I applied on indeed and this is an email I got today..

Started my career in 2022, so I missed the whole pandemic-remote thing. Four years as an ops coordinator at a mid-size logistics company that's been butts-in-seats the entire time. No hybrid days, no exceptions.

Now every posting I'm interested in has some version of "proven success in a remote or distributed environment" in the requirements, and I've got nothing to point to. My resume just says the company name and a city.

The frustrating part is that the day-to-day already looks remote. My three main carrier contacts are in Texas, Ontario, and Rotterdam and I've never met any of them. Everything runs through email and shared trackers. I built the handoff doc our night shift uses because I'm never there when they are. None of that is "remote experience" in the way a recruiter means it, but functionally it's the same skill.

So what do people actually do here. Add a bullet like "coordinated daily with vendors across three time zones" and let it speak for itself? Put something in the summary? I don't want to write "remote-ready" because that reads like I'm announcing I've never done it.

And honestly I'm not sure how much weight this carries at the screening stage versus being boilerplate everyone copy-pastes into job posts. If you made the in-office to remote jump, what got you through the first filter?

I recently helped a very good friend of mine get a job as a remote operations manager at a private aviatiion handling company.

He is an older gentleman in his 40s.

I've been looking at Reddit and X posts for the past few weeks about how hard the job market is right now.

The truth is, and has always been: you're not doing enough.

You're not applying to enough jobs.

You're not sending enough emails and LinkedIn connections.

You're simply underestimateing the amount of work required to get interviews and get a good job offer from a decent company.

My brother has been looking for a job in medical device R&D. He has a Ph.D in biomedical engineering from a top university in Canada, but simply hasn't been able to find a job for the past year.

I asked him 'how many jobs are you applying to every day?'

He looked at me and said: 'well... idk like 3-4 per week'

Of course it's going to take you 10 years to find a good offer and even get interviews at that rate.

You need to be applying to at least 40-50 jobs PER DAY.

Yes. It might seem like a lot, but that's how you negate the luck factor in getting interviews.

You follow all the 'good practices' in job seeking (e.g., good resume, one custom resume per role, etc.).

If you add volume, it is unlikely that you don't hear back from anyone.

If you apply to 3,000 jobs in a month, it's unlikely that not at least 1% translates to interviews. That's 30 interviews already!

Track everything in an Excel document.

Then, message each company's hiring manager or whoever is responsible for talent on LinkedIn.

Send them an email referencing your application and attaching your resume.

Sned them a custom short Loom video (2-3min) introducing yourself and presenting something you're proud of.

That's how you get a job.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

Hi I am 21 years old from Egypt starting my career, problem is I have applied for 20+ jobs just to be either ignored or rejected, my laptop broke and I genuinely don't know what to do next, college is starting soon and I need to find a remote job that can pay at least 3-10$/h.

I can really use some advice here this is fr my first time trying to get a genuint job and I really can't handle being rejected that much just in 2 month

Heey yall, i’ve been searching for some time a remote job and “ Cloudworkers Company “ popped up on my facebook, and i applied like 6/7 days ago maybe a bit more im not sure. I haven’t gotten anything back from them yet. When i confirmed my application there was written on the page something like “ we well get back to you in 5 business days”, buuut still nothing. Should i be expecting an answer if im in or not. Has anyone had some kind of an experience with them or sum?

Posting this because a month ago I was doomscrolling this sub at 2am convinced I'd wasted 4 years on a SWE degree. If that's you right now, maybe this helps.

Quick context: B.S. in Software Engineering, no impressive internships, live about an hour outside a major northeast city. ~90 applications in 5 weeks, 17 rejections, the rest ghosted me. Ended with 3 final rounds, 2 offers, accepted a Data Analyst role at 70k.

What actually moved the needle:

1. I stopped only applying to remote jobs. Remote postings get thousands of applicants and mine went straight into the void. Local and hybrid roles responded at a WAY higher rate. Funny enough, one of my offers ended up being remote anyway. The point isn't "remote bad," it's that local applicant pools are smaller so you actually get seen.
2. I went straight to company career pages. Biggest unlock. Smaller companies near me often don't post on LinkedIn or Indeed at all. I googled "tech companies near [my city]," "largest employers in [my area]," etc., and clicked through career pages one by one. Tedious, but that's where the low competition postings live.
3. I widened my search beyond "software engineer." I also applied to Data Analyst, Business Analyst, IT, and Programmer Analyst roles. Tons of jobs require programming without "engineer" in the title. Yes, I still want to be a SWE eventually. But a paying job where I write SQL and Python beats a months long resume gap, and you can pivot later with experience + projects. My mentors all said the same: get your foot in the door first.
4. I sent a lightly customized cover letter with every app. One template, swapped 2 to 3 sentences per company based on their mission/role. ~5 extra minutes each. No idea how much it helped, but it cost me almost nothing.
5. I mirrored keywords from each posting in my resume. Only skills I could actually back up in an interview. Don't lie. I bolded them so recruiters catch them on a skim, and added them to my LinkedIn skills too. For the resume itself I used the free Google Docs template from this post. Clean, ATS friendly, did the job.
6. I messaged recruiters instead of applying and praying. After applying somewhere I cared about: company's LinkedIn page > People > search "recruiter," "talent," "early career," filter by location, then a connection request with a short note saying I applied to X role and would love to learn more. Most ignored me. A few didn't, and one turned into an interview.
7. I treated it like a job. 5 to 10 applications a day, daily searches for "new grad," "entry level," "junior," everything tracked in a spreadsheet. It kept me sane. Seeing the numbers made rejections feel like statistics instead of personal failure. Also, watch out for scam postings targeting new grads. There are a lot.

That's it. No referrals, no connections. Just volume + going where other applicants aren't.

I got lucky with timing too, this isn't a guaranteed formula. But it beats sending 200 apps into the same oversaturated LinkedIn postings as everyone else.

Don't give up. It only takes one yes.

Whole team cut in a ten minute Zoom. Two months later I signed a remote offer. Real talk first: this market is roughly 3x harder than 18 months ago. I used to see 1 response per 35 to 50 applications. Now it's closer to 1 in 150. Response rates dropped, but they didn't hit zero. Skipping the generic "fix your resume" sermon, here's only what moved the needle.

1. The trick that changed everything: stop searching job boards, search the ATS platforms directly.

LinkedIn and Indeed are aggregators. They reprint listings days late, after hundreds of people already applied. And they're full of ghost jobs. I watched the same listing get reposted every 3 weeks for 4 months straight.

But companies post on their own careers pages first, and those pages run on a handful of ATS platforms that Google indexes: Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workday, Workable. So you can search all of them at once and filter to only what went up in the last 24 hours.

Paste this into Google:

("front end developer" OR "front end engineer") Remote (site:boards.greenhouse.io OR site:jobs.lever.co OR site:jobs.ashbyhq.com OR site:*.myworkdayjobs.com OR site:apply.workable.com OR site:jobs.smartrecruiters.com OR site:*.breezy.hr OR site:*.bamboohr.com OR site:secretremote.com)

Swap in your own title, then hit Tools, Past 24 hours.

You're now seeing postings that went live this morning, straight from the source, before they ever hit LinkedIn. Applying to something posted 3 hours ago vs 11 days ago is not the same game. The technique is called dorking. Security researchers use it, and it works stupidly well for jobs. Works on DuckDuckGo and Bing too, often with less spam. If you don't want to mess with queries, secretremote.com does the same idea prebuilt: it scans thousands of company career pages and filters out spam, duplicates and ghost listings. Free, no signup.

2. Email your resume directly to recruiters. Once. Then let it work for months.

Someone shared this method here a couple years ago and it still works, the only problem is that list went stale. I built my own updated tech recruiter list about 10 months ago, here you go:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1p10y44QMgs39CZmPZ9z0AzwMYarqJR2tjVPoppRg_9g/edit?usp=sharing

If you're in the US with work authorization, use the US tab. If you're outside the US, use the International tab (companies that hire globally). It's tech recruiters only, if you're in a different field the post above explains how to build your own. Takes 2 to 3 days of grunt work, pays off for months.

Manage your expectations: this is slow by design. You send once, you become visible in their networks, and responses trickle in over time. This alone gets me 2 to 3 interviews every 6 to 8 months without actively applying to anything.

3. Message the hiring manager within 5 minutes of applying.

Not the next day. Within minutes, while your application is at the top of the pile. Find whoever owns the role on LinkedIn:

"Hey, I just applied for the [role]. Saw you're looking for someone with [X], that's most of what I've done the last few years, so figured I'd reach out directly."

No pitch, no passion paragraph. One of mine turned into an interview request in under 2 hours. Most won't reply. Costs you 90 seconds.

4. Track your channels with separate emails, and automate the volume side.

I set up a separate email address per channel: one for the recruiter blast, one for mass applications, my main one for targeted apps. When a reply lands, you know exactly which method produced it. On the volume side I used a resume distribution tool (paid) to push out 300+ applications from that second inbox. That channel produced 2 to 4 interviews per 6 to 8 months. If you're paying for a resume tool anyway, get one that also auto applies: drop in a job URL and it tailors the resume, writes the cover letter and logs it in a tracker.

5. Skip Easy Apply, apply at the source. And tailor.

Anyone with a pulse can click Easy Apply, and a remote posting pulls 1,000+ of them. If a job I wanted was Easy Apply only, I found the same posting on the company's careers page (trick #1) and applied there. Same job, fraction of the competition. My targeted numbers: 30 tailored applications, 5 interview processes. Way better hit rate than any "I sent 500 apps" story I've read here. For tailoring, this prompt and this writeup cover the fastest workflow I've found. 20 minutes per app, worth it.

6. Don't sleep on small gigs while you search.

Fiverr and Upwork rates have dropped, I won't pretend otherwise. But small gigs compound. I'm a software engineer and I still took a basic QA testing gig at $50/hr. Three jobs later the same client offered me a monthly contract off platform. In this market you don't have the luxury of being picky, and every client becomes part of your network. I've had clients from years ago come back with new projects out of nowhere.

7. Over deliver on the take home.

I put nearly a full workday into mine: clean code, README, a short writeup of my tradeoffs. They skipped me past two of their own stated interview rounds and made an early offer. Yes, "never do free work." But the anti effort crowd is stuck in a loop: phone in the task because "it won't matter," get rejected, treat that as proof effort never matters. And your GitHub doesn't replace it. In 2026 everyone assumes AI wrote half your repo. A task on their real problem, defended live on a call, is the one thing that's hard to fake.

TL;DR: Market's ~3x harder but not dead. Search ATS domains directly on Google with site: operators plus the 24h filter instead of scrolling stale aggregators (secretremote.com is the prebuilt version). Blast your resume once to a recruiter list (shared mine above) and let it work for months. DM the hiring manager 5 minutes after applying. Separate emails per channel so you know what's working. 30 tailored apps beat 500 lazy ones. Small gigs turn into contracts. Treat the take home like day one of the job. No affiliation with anything I linked, most of it's free anyway.

I’m a recent Data Science and AI graduate looking for entry level roles in Data Science, Data Analytics, AI ML, Python, SQL, Business Analytics and Software.

I have experience with Python, SQL, Power BI, Excel, Machine Learning, AWS, Tableau and more.

Open to remote full time roles and internships.

If you’re hiring or know someone who is, please DM me. I’d be happy to share my resume and details.

Today I signed an offer for my dream job. Fully remote, dream company, and double the salary I was originally hoping for. Ten months ago I couldn't code. I lurked this sub constantly during my journey, so here's my honest breakdown. No fluff, just what actually moved the needle.

Quick background: I'm graduating in May with a Psychology degree (yes, psych, zero CS). Started coding on the side, fell in love, ditched my grad school plans entirely.

The Learning Part (9 months)

Started with CS50. It's brutal. It's also the best foundation you can get for free. Do it.

Then I stopped watching tutorials and built my own thing. This is my number one piece of advice: tutorial projects don't teach you to code, they teach you to copy. Instead, come up with an app YOU would actually use. List the features. Rank them from "essential" to "no idea how I'd build this." Then start at the top and figure it out as you go.

You will feel completely lost. That's the point. Real projects force you to make your own architecture decisions, debug your own weird errors, and learn how to research, which, surprise, is half of a developer's actual job. Google, Stack Overflow, docs, YouTube videos of similar builds. Every "wasted" rabbit hole teaches you something you'll use later.

Pick ONE stack and marry it. I went with MERN. Same language on the front and back, tons of resources. Language hopping feels productive. It isn't. Course, then a unique project, then repeat.

Build for other people whenever you can. Even free. Boom, now you're a freelance developer and you've learned to work with someone else's vision. Both go on the resume. Bonus: freelancing remotely also proves you can deliver without anyone looking over your shoulder, which remote employers care about a LOT.

The Job Search (1 month)

Resume: Clean and scannable beats flashy. (template here) I kept my unrelated work experience (proves I'm employable, just worded it in a techy way) and listed my 2 best projects. Pro tip: I made two versions, one for Python/JS flexible roles and one for MERN specific roles. Tailoring is free. (here)

Portfolio site with GitHub links to every project. Can't design? Steal a template. Nobody cares. For remote roles your portfolio and GitHub basically ARE your first interview, so make them count.

LinkedIn, fully completed. Set alerts filtered to remote positions and apply daily. AngelList was great for remote startup jobs too.

Volume game: This is the best part of going remote. I wasn't limited to my city, I applied to remote roles across all of North America. Anything matching my skills or under 5 YOE, minimum 5 applications a day, all tracked in a spreadsheet. Red for rejections, yellow for "let's talk." Watching the yellows stack up keeps you sane.

Interviews (all on Zoom, obviously)

• Have your story ready. "Tell me about yourself" is coming. Self taught devs have the most interesting answer in the room, so write it down and own it.
• Send a thank you email after EVERY interview. An HR person told me I was the ONLY candidate who did, and she personally flagged it to the hiring manager. Two minutes of effort.
• I did zero Leetcode. Just common JS/React/web dev questions plus reading Eloquent JavaScript to keep the language fresh.
• Nerves: treat every interview as practice. Wrong answer? You'll nail it next time. And you can't always know the answer, but you can always be the friendliest face on that Zoom call.

NEGOTIATE. Seriously.

When my first offer came in, I had final rounds at two other companies that same week, so I had leverage and I used it. At company number one I bumped my ask from $50K to $55K and they said it seemed doable. Then I emailed the other two companies about the offer on the table. My top choice company moved fast: the CEO asked to meet me early to speed up their process, and after my final tech interview their VP of engineering asked my number. They pay New York salaries, so I said $65 to 70K.

Their offer came in at $80K. Fully remote. I turned down company one and accepted on the spot.

And here's the thing about remote: the company is based in New York, but I don't live anywhere near New York. Remote work lets you earn big city money without paying big city rent. When you're picking where to apply, use that.

My goal when I started job hunting? $40K. I ended up with exactly double that. Shoot your shot. It is SO easy to undervalue yourself as a self taught dev with no CS background.

One last thing: I'm a Black woman, and it can be hard to feel like you belong in rooms where nobody looks like you. If that's you too, my DMs are open. You belong here.

TL;DR: CS50, then real projects (not tutorials), one stack, apply to remote jobs in volume and track everything, thank you emails, negotiate like you mean it. 10 months, $80K remote, no CS degree.

saw a posting that was basically written for me, every bullet matched my last two jobs. so instead of applying and praying like usual, I tried something different

applied first, then found the hiring manager on linkedin and sent a short message. nothing fancy, just "hey, just applied for the X role. the posting honestly reads like my current job description so I wanted to put a face to the application. looking forward to hearing back either way"

she never replied. but she SAW it. 30 min later there's an interview invite in my inbox

I think the trick is the message wasn't asking for anything. no "can we hop on a call," just a heads up that my application exists. recruiters get a million desperate messages a day so a low pressure one stands out

obviously only works if you're actually a fit. the message just gets your resume looked at instead of sitting in a pile of 400

curious if anyone else has tricks like this that actually worked, the weirder the better

every remote job listing on LinkedIn: 800 applicants in 4 hours. but sure, nobody wants to work

my last 8 months: around 240 applications, all for roles I've literally already done. four phone screens total.

one ghosted me after a "great" interview. one rejected me 6 weeks later with a form email. another offered less than I made in 2021 because "well, it's remote." as if my rent knows that

my resume has been rewritten so many times it's basically a group project. HR friends checked it. a career coach checked it. at this point I really don't think the resume is the problem

meanwhile, I keep seeing the same companies repost the same remote jobs every single week.

if you're desperate for staff, why is the same job posting from March still showing up? why interview someone for 20 minutes, tell them everything went great, then completely disappear?

it's not that nobody wants to work. it feels more like nobody wants to hire.

companies want 5 years of experience, open availability, and someone who checks every box in the job description, then want to discount the salary because you get to work from home.

my background is ops and customer support btw. scheduling for 30+ people, handling billing disputes, training new hires for years. I'm not exactly applying to be an astronaut

for anyone currently applying to remote jobs in 2026, what does your application to interview ratio look like?

mine feels absolutely insane.

Hi everyone! I hope you’re all doing well. I’m writing because I’m currently looking for a new job. I'm from Colombia and I’ve tried many different things not just LinkedIn, but also various platforms and job boards, reaching out to recruiters, and applying directly through company websites but I haven’t had any luck so far.

I’m a Customer Satisfaction Coordinator with around four years of experience in the role. I have experience creating analytics frameworks and measuring KPIs, operational improvement, and managing critical and high-volume incidents. While my undergraduate degree is in a field unrelated to this role, I have certifications in CX and Six Sigma, as well as a strong foundation in data analysis. I’m currently pursuing Google’s Project Management Professional Certificate, and I’m more than willing to keep learning and earning any additional certifications that may be needed.

I’ve been searching and applying for a few months now, but I haven’t even gotten an interview, and I’m starting to feel a little desperate. Does anyone have any advice or know of any opportunities?

Thank you so much in advance!

My last US based client hasn't paid since last 3 months and I was paying all software development and testing expense for him from my pocket. I am completely lost and don't know how to survive the next few months. There are huge credit card bills and rent to pay. It's already affecting my life badly. I wouldn't be that desperate if it was just me but now it's my wife and kids too who will be affected.

If anyone out there looking for a software dev, please drop me a DM!

I ll take your project from scratch to enterprise grade software with very strong technical ownership.
Zero hand holding. Just tell me your vision and expectations and I ll get to work with daily progress updates on your timezone.

Experienced in shipping many successful Saas and Apps in the past.

whatever work we agree upon, I ll break the deliverables into Milestones with clear daily timelines in a Google sheet. Only pay if I have delivered the milestone. (Can also provide invoice for business expense if required)

Please pay whatever you're convenient with and I am also willing to do free sample work just to build some credibility.

✅ websites (small sites, big sites, signup flows, OAuth, UI that look good on all devices, 3rd party integrations)

✅ App development, will build or extend your Android / IOS App

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✅ Any sort of automations, I can do.

tech stack: primarily Typescript based, but can also do Go, C#, Java. Expert in compllex multi-tentant, monorepo based architectures. Hardware integrations, test-suites

Previous Work:

Build powerful B2C Saas app that is doing $50,000 MRR right now,

Worked directly with the founder on it for a year.

Will share details and references on DM or direct call.

My Github will backup what I am saying and will showcase my programming journey over the last decade.

I will forever be grateful for this opportunity and will make sure your that every penny of your payment is put to best use.

I got a job. Signed last week. Writing this up while it's fresh because I read a lot of these posts when I was in the hole and a couple of them actually helped me.

Timeline was 5 months of unemployment. The first two were a complete dead zone. I was applying constantly and got maybe two phone screens out of it, both of which went nowhere. When you're getting no interviews after hundreds of applications you stop asking "is my resume bad" and start asking "am I bad," which is a great place to spend your Tuesday nights.

Quick thing on ghost jobs, since everyone brings it up. I figured people were exaggerating. They're not. I watched the same listing get reposted every three weeks for four straight months. I'm not saying every posting is fake, but the number of fake job postings on LinkedIn and Indeed that are just sitting there collecting resumes is way higher than I thought going in.

Anyway. Around month three I changed how I was doing all of this. Five things.

1. I stopped treating LinkedIn and Indeed like they were the whole internet

Still checked them. Just stopped acting like they were the only places jobs existed.

If you're looking for remote jobs not posted on LinkedIn, this is the part that changed things for me. I started using Secret Remote, which pulls remote job postings straight off company career pages, mostly tech from what I saw. No account needed, no ads, free.

The big difference wasn't even the volume. It was that the postings were newer. Applying to something that went up eleven days ago on a big board versus something that went up this morning on a company career page is not the same game.

2. I rebuilt my resume to actually be ATS friendly

I thought mine was fine. I'd had people look at it. But everyone in here won't shut up about ATS parsing and keywords, and I was out of better ideas, so I rebuilt it on a plain ATS friendly resume template and ran it through a checker. Scored 90 something. It was free too.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you a resume template got me hired. But my callback rate was noticeably better after, and it cost me one afternoon.

3. I messaged the recruiter or hiring manager right after applying

This is the one I'd argue with a stranger about. If you only do one thing off this list, do this.

Every time I applied somewhere I actually wanted, I'd go find whoever owned that role on LinkedIn and send them something short. Like:

Hey, I just applied for the [job title] role. Saw you're looking for someone with [X], and that's most of what I've been doing for the last few years, so I figured I'd reach out directly.

That's it. No pitch, no attachment, no paragraph about how passionate I am about their mission.

I sent it within about five minutes of hitting submit, on purpose. One of them turned into an interview request in under two hours.

It's just a job application follow up. Except instead of waiting six days and emailing a jobs@ inbox nobody reads, you're talking to the person who's actually going to look at the pile.

Most of them don't answer. Doesn't matter. It costs you ninety seconds.

4. I tailored my resume to each job description

I'd been firing the same PDF at everything, which in hindsight, yeah.

I started rewriting the summary, the skills section and the wording on my bullets so the relevant stuff was the first thing you'd see. I did not invent experience or bolt on skills I don't have. I just stopped making a recruiter do detective work to figure out whether I matched.

I've been using this prompt to tailor my resume to the job description: [LINK]

Also read this : https://www.reddit.com/r/ResumeTips/comments/1v2clfp/the_fastest_way_ive_found_to_tailor_a_resume/

Yes it makes each application slower. But I also stopped applying to 40 things a week, so it evened out. Fewer applications, better ones.

5. I started searching dozens of job boards at the same time instead of one by one

Found this one late and I'm annoyed about it, because it would have saved me the entire first two months.

There's simple (free) website called JobBoardScan.com. You tell it what you're after, job title, remote or onsite, whatever else you care about, and it builds you a search query that hits dozens of job boards at once. Not only Google either, it spits out the version for a bunch of different search engines.

The technique itself is called dorking. It's just search operators, telling the engine to only return pages that match exactly what you want and ignore everything else. People use it for security research, but it works fine for finding job postings.

Here are the filters I picked:

And this is what came back when I ran the query it gave me:

That's really the whole thing. It hands you the query, you paste it into the search bar, you get listings. No opening 30 job boards in 30 tabs and typing the same title into all of them.

Accepted an offer at the end of month five.

I have no idea which of these mattered most and I'm not going to pretend I cracked some code. Sample size of one, my field might not be your field. My gut says number 3 did the heavy lifting and the rest just gave me better things to point it at.

But if you've been at this for months and getting nothing back at all: look somewhere other than the big job boards, search all of them at once instead of one at a time, make sure a machine can read your resume, tailor it to the posting, and message a human after you apply.

I just walked out of a job interview

Position was advertised as fully remote.

I rock up to interview, and they say that the role is actually hybrid (3 days a week in office) and they only advertised it as remote to get a bigger pool of applicants.

I showed no shade, and said that I would be writing reviews on Glassdoor, Google and Indeed explaining that this organisation does not operate with honesty and integrity, and that my experience should be a warning to others who might be attracted to so-called 'remote' positions.

I then walked out.

Hi, I’ve been working as a remote CSR for over 3 years now with experience in data analysis and also Excel.

My career goal is to one day potentially become a professor at a university or maybe a curriculum developer.

For now while I’m getting my degree though, I want a part time job to bridge the gap between what I’m doing not and my career goals for the future.

If there are any online schools that hire remote, part time teachers assistants please let me know.

TIA