I am not a recruiter. But my experience, backed up by _plenty_ of anecdata here and on Reddit, is that applying for jobs on LinkedIn and other job listing sites is GIGANTIC waste of time unless you already have a connection in the company you are applying for.
I myself spent the better part of my free time in 2023 scouring LinkedIn for potential jobs. I was careful not to overreach, I only applied to jobs where I was sure I had the skills they were looking for. The whole year, I got ZERO responses. Until I noticed that one of the companies I was applying for looked familiar. A few minutes of digging revealed that an old co-worker of mine had moved to that company a few months prior. I called him up, we chatted about the company, he agreed to refer me. Long story short, I got the job.
If you are serious about finding a job, you HAVE to rely on your network. It's how I have landed 100% of my civilian jobs over the past 20-something years. If you don't have a network, the second best time to plant a tree is now.
(I suppose you could also work with an independent recruiter, but a lot of companies won't work with them because they charge the hiring company a fee. I don't have any experience with recruiters.)
> that applying for jobs on LinkedIn and other job listing sites is GIGANTIC waste of time unless you already have a connection in the company you are applying for.
In my experience, that's not my case. I found my last 2 jobs by applying to a post in linkedin... but I also contacted the recruiter that posted the job ad via DM. In my whole career (+10 years) I've never relied on my "network" to get a job (mainly because I don't have one).
> rely on your network
This has been conventional wisdom for my entire (half century now) life, but every job I've been referred into has ended up being a nightmare. The best jobs I've ever gotten were the "cold approach" ones... hopefully those aren't going away forever.
A better approach is probably to figure out what recruiter the company is using and contact them directly, indicating that you're looking for a job.
Even if they can't get you in there, they can link you up with other openings they have available.
I’ve worked in recruiting and with countless career coaches.
This is the best advice for anyone looking for a job. Thanks for sharing.
My friend Sarah’s company has some free resources that can help you get started if networking for a job feels uncomfortable: https://www.briefcasecoach.com/
Keep in mind two things:
1. The number of applications reported by LinkedIn is often wrong. If the "apply" link goes to the company's own HR/application page, then every time that link is clicked, LinkedIn counts it as an application. The number LI reports can far exceed the number of actual applications.
2. Many applicants are often wholly unqualified. We're talking entry-level people applying for senior+ level positions or even people with zero tech skills/experience applying for tech jobs.
So if LI says 100 people have applied, likely your competition is closer to 10-20.
Ignore anybody who says the only way to get a job is through networking with people you already know. Only 1 of the 4 tech jobs I've had were via someone I knew, and even that 1 was an internal transfer inside the company.
And even my current job was gotten through LinkedIn's Easy Apply, so ignore anybody who says that's worthless.
Sounds like you might need to redo your resume. When i started emphasizing my cloud experience, it got me way more responses(from recruiters on linkedin)
Also word on the street is that a lot of recruiters are using LLMs to scan resumes. So including lots of key words in there, especially ones that show up in the actual job ad might be necessary to get beyond that filter
…Unless one of the recruiter’s prompts has something about keyword stuffing being a negative signal.
It's possible to talk yourself out of anything. Just be straightforward.
By now you should assume that they are collecting as much personal information as possible, so you will never get an honest answer to this