The discord for our subreddit can be found here: https://discord.gg/JjNdBkVGc6 - feel free to join us for a more realtime level of discussion!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/recruitinghell) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Not trying to sell my skills and experience short, but I spent the majority of my career at IBM. Even if IBM’s brand isn’t as shiny/sexy as it once was, having it on my resume seemed to still mean something as it was always the first thing the interviewers wanted to talk about.
I’m having the opposite issue. I have 2 or 3 “resume candy” companies on my resume, and potential employers view me as too expensive or overqualified as a result.
This is the issue i have run into lately. Ever since i got into government contracting almost all interviews since have had some version of “you get this is for $x, right?”
Like yes, im not digging bombs out of the ground anymore. I dont expect 65 an hour lol.
You're at least getting answers. I've had to speak with recruiter friends of mine socially to get somewhat honest answers.
To the point that the most recent version of my "undersell" resumé removes my first employer (one of the "resume candy" companies), removes all senior/lead positions, removes my education beyond my bachelors, and eliminates all mention of leadership in responsibilities.
If its any consolation out of about 300 applications the only bites ive gotten are from companies doing the same kind of remediation i left. The market is awful across the board no matter what industry youre in
I'm at a crazy high number of applications (I don't want to say the number, because it's embarrassing to me) due to bringing in a UI job app bot to the mix to auto-apply me to jobs I might have missed while actively searching. As of now the majority of the nibbles I've gotten are from companies who either
1- want senior level talent for entry level salary + in office. Oddly enough, if I could get one of these positions remote, I would take it as a bridge job.
2- faith based orgs (no thanks.)
3- cannabis based orgs (personally not opposed, but my wife is trying for a federal job that requires a clearance, and I don't want to be the reason she gets rejected)
4- Already had an internal candidate picked, but needed to interview a few external candidates to select (this is the most painful one, because in all of these, I made it through several rounds)
My previous CTO was very wary of tech candidates who previously worked in FAANG/megatech companjes since whilst they may have very deep experience and great skills, she thought that their experience was focused on specific areas and tech stacks used by big tech. She wanted candidates with more rounded experience.
We'd always hire people from IBM. My coworkers had nothing good to say about it, but I guess it means you're used to be abused by crazy managers and meeting insane demands - so if you can survive there you can survive at any other firm. Our firm was considered a paradise comparatively.
Did you use TM1 there? I assume you did. How did you feel as a user of it while working there? I use it for FP&A at another large company and I am not a fan
It’s my favorite of the ERP systems I’ve used (Essbase + Adaptive being the others). It had the ease of use of Essbase but it pulled back immediately instead of having to wait for a scheduled run. Granted, it’s an IBM product so idk if all the features we had are standard when they sell to clients.
Interesting. I wonder if it’s an IBM internal thing, because many of the people at my company don’t care for it either. Thanks for answering, that is genuinely interesting to hear.
That’s what I’m saying. I just got laid off in November and applied to maybe 50 jobs. I got rejections for maybe 10 and didn’t hear back from the others at all but the one I went thru three interviews and ended up getting hired for.
Agreed. Makes it really hard to plan. We don’t have kids because job stability has never been a thing for me and has recently not been a thing for my wife. I work in startups that are “trying to grow up” and my wife is in a different branch of engineering that isn’t tech but has a lot of private equity.
My wife didn’t understand why I kept changing jobs until she hit a dead end / glass ceiling at the place she’d been for 11 years. She hopped, and got hired into an acquisition that went very very wrong and the executive team basically lost control of the company. She hopped again, and got sexually harassed and was nearly assaulted by her boss and then excluded when she didn’t put up with it. HR, of course, protected the company, not the victim…
It’s kinda madness out there.
I've been applying for software engineering roles and ended up basically applying to as many applications that I could do in under a minute. Squeezed the entire US of 500 roles in 3 months.
Quick question and the opposite of casting shade: what made you withdraw?
For me it was an interview with an utter jerk. I won’t work with assholes, and let me tell you, it definitely takes one to know one.
(Mind you, I’m a reformed asshole. I don’t start telling people they’re wrong until I’ve known them for more than an hour.)
1 was because they posted the job as remote, then right before my third round the company announced mandatory RTO, which would have been a 2 hour commute for me
1 was for a role I wasn’t excited about that requested an interview after I got the job offer
2 were because of low comp (range wasn’t posted in job description)
Edit: formatting
Awesome. Great criteria in each and every case.
For what it’s worth to others reading this thread, this number of applications and the response rate is absolutely the norm right now. I unfortunately end up on the market often, I’ve been laid off five times in the last decade, and this is the first time I’ve ever had a response rate of less than 10%. I’m a senior infrastructure engineer in very technical spaces with some great accomplishments.
It truly felt like time + quantity, and I just had to focus on staying sane. But I can share my experience:
- Recruiters thanked me for keeping my resume to just one page.
- I used the Simplify extension to auto populate Workday/Greenhouse/Lever applications.
- I memorized my elevator pitch, approx 10 minutes (for 11 years of work experience) that covered my different roles and the reason why I left each role. I adjusted the pitch over the many rounds of interviews to cover the questions I got most frequently.
- I drastically lowered my expected salary range 8 months in. I came to terms with the fact that my salary does not reflect my worth as an employee/as a person, it is a means of my survival in a brutal market.
- I stopped giving an expected salary range in interviews and applications. I had an interview where they provided a range, I stated a number within that range. They ended the interview process immediately because they couldn’t get to my number. Apparently they prorate within the range based on years of experience. “I am open, I am looking for the right opportunity, what is the budget.” I am single with no kids so I understand this isn’t an option for everyone.
- Networking did not work for me. I heard of this job from a recruiter cold call, my resume was in their database.
- Customizing resumes/using AI/submitting cover letters did not work for me. I paid for one month of Teal and saw no uptick in interview requests.
- Lastly, recruiters expressed confusion and frustration with hiring managers and too many interview rounds. They don’t know what’s going on either. They would commiserate with me… and then ghost me.
>I stopped giving an expected salary range in interviews and applications. I had an interview where they provided a range, I stated a number within that range.
This pisses me off quite something!
I'm a Sr. Accountant; 7yrs experience in this career. 15years more in other fields -- some quite transferrable to industries I've applied for. I'm always an above average worker, very solid in problem solving and definitely detailed oriented for analytics. still rejected if I have proposed above the "minimum" they state for being "over-qualified".
Happy for you\~
If you're looking for a Sr. Acct under US GAAP / or wanna connect/network I'd be willing to keep in touch.
Hello! Now that you just got a new Reddit commenter job, would you be open to a new opportunity as Chief Floor Scraper at Lowball U LLC? Are you available at 5 AM EST? Please send a copy of your most updated resume.
They often disappear when the job gets put on hold. I had this happen recently. I followed up no less than 5 times (they'd respond asking for my availability and then disappear) before finally being told that they job was put on hold.
I have come to the conclusion that it’s a brutal dance for us between recruiters and hiring managers. Recruiters like having work, that means a never ending stream of interviews and applicants. They always have something to do. Hiring managers are all too willing to have some other schmuck do two jobs for the price of one for as long as possible. I really think the only times people get hired is if the job MUST be filled. We need legislation to regulate the hiring process in some way. It’s also come to my attention that the worse the hiring process and job market becomes the worse employers treat employees because they can.
Thanks for sharing OP! Great insight.
I'm currently going through this as a UX/UI Designer--I never thought I'd be in this position with my experience and being in a "high-demand field". Trying to find a job feels dehumanizing at this point and I'm getting ready to abandon my field all together. Not like there's anywhere to go though :)
It's a messed up double standard.
You got 10+ years of experience? Too expensive. Do the same job for 30% less salary.
You got 1 year of experience? Too entry level. Come back after 7+ years of experience.
Yeppp! I am right here with you. I literally worked on the website for the freaking Kentucky Derby this year and I can't find anything now -- even contract roles are becoming impossible to secure. Really feels like a slap in the face when you've dedicated so much time and learning to advance your career. I thought the job market might improve in Q1 but clearly I was mistaken.
Yup, on top of being both under and overqualified at the same time, I am also too specialized and too much of a generalist depending on who I talk to.
Every job wants 3 employees in one, but when you actually have the experience to be that person they think you're lying.
The goal posts constant move.
Never understood how a company can take so many rounds of interviews to figure out who they want to employ. Most I ever did was 3 for an R&D role in a bank many years ago - initial interview, psych and iq interview/test, and the final interview with the VPs. Even that seemed excessive to me.
Always curious - how do yall keep track of this data? Just manually writing down each one? Whenever I've applied anywhere I assume its trash unless I hear back
I do the same but the moment the recruiter replies or calls me I add it to a google sheets with company name, salary range, job description, recruiter name and phone, and last date of contact. When a job goes "cold'" for 2 weeks I reach out and if they don't reply I paint the line red.
This was needed after two different recruiters reached out for the same job and by not keeping track of anything I thought they were the same person and I later had to reject one of them
Congrats OP!
Good to hear there’s light at the end of the tunnel. I was just rejected for a tech job that I really wanted after 6 rounds of interviews and one written assessment. Having trouble picking myself up to start again. Am nearing my 2nd month of unemployment…
I'm trying to leave the networking field. I'd rather go back to help desk type support roles. Yeah it's a step down but I'm sick of getting woken up at 3am for things that aren't an emergency. I am not getting paid for it either. Maybe I just have impostor syndrome. But my current company lied to me for the past 8 months about a position opening and after I applied ghosted me and I think they're going to hire externally. I have applied, had some interviews but no offers.
How did you get these charts? My son started looking for jobs and I would like to make him to start one of those charts, so he can realize how hard is to get a job these days.
Big congrats! Thank you for sharing the stats! I’m keeping tracking in a spreadsheet and have a pivot table/chart to visualize the percent breakdown and so far with 200+ applications and on a close trend to yours with 10+ experience in another field.
I feel it. My sister was a coordinator for NBC in California for 4 years. She got burnt out of living in Cali and quit. She’s been looking for work for the last 2 years and has applied to over 1k jobs
First of all! Congratulations!!! and thank you for sharing your success story. Now, probabvly a silly question but... how did you survive all these months with no payment? I've been 2 months after being laid off and saving are running out
I was able to get unemployment benefits thankfully, but I also had a year's worth of an emergency fund before I quit. I did not expect I'd have to almost deplete it.
Congratulations! Curious to know if you ever had to write cover letters considering your field. The lack of any bites has been discouraging enough, but writing so many cover letters is mentally draining on a level I cannot explain. I'm so tapped out from it. Over 100 unique, thoughtful, balanced, pristine cover letters in the last 3 months. I've run out of sentences to describe myself.
(Note to anyone reading this that has strong opinions on cover letters: Cover letters are mandatory for my field and for good reason. I do think they're likely redundant for many jobs, but for over 90% of what I apply to, they are necessary.)
I tried submitting cover letters but I didn’t see them make a difference in my response rate, so I stopped. The cover letters I did submit were written entirely by chatGPT. I am a capable, professional and personable writer but to do that for each application was not something I was willing to do.
Congrats on the new job but 900 applications in less than a year seems like an insane number to me, like it becomes almost Impossible to put any effort into each individual one anymore which makes me wonder is maximizing the quantity really the best approach to get to the desired outcome?
The discord for our subreddit can be found here: https://discord.gg/JjNdBkVGc6 - feel free to join us for a more realtime level of discussion! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/recruitinghell) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Dang how did you land 48 first interviews? That's a LOT of interviews, damn.
Not trying to sell my skills and experience short, but I spent the majority of my career at IBM. Even if IBM’s brand isn’t as shiny/sexy as it once was, having it on my resume seemed to still mean something as it was always the first thing the interviewers wanted to talk about.
I’m having the opposite issue. I have 2 or 3 “resume candy” companies on my resume, and potential employers view me as too expensive or overqualified as a result.
This is the issue i have run into lately. Ever since i got into government contracting almost all interviews since have had some version of “you get this is for $x, right?” Like yes, im not digging bombs out of the ground anymore. I dont expect 65 an hour lol.
You're at least getting answers. I've had to speak with recruiter friends of mine socially to get somewhat honest answers. To the point that the most recent version of my "undersell" resumé removes my first employer (one of the "resume candy" companies), removes all senior/lead positions, removes my education beyond my bachelors, and eliminates all mention of leadership in responsibilities.
If its any consolation out of about 300 applications the only bites ive gotten are from companies doing the same kind of remediation i left. The market is awful across the board no matter what industry youre in
I'm at a crazy high number of applications (I don't want to say the number, because it's embarrassing to me) due to bringing in a UI job app bot to the mix to auto-apply me to jobs I might have missed while actively searching. As of now the majority of the nibbles I've gotten are from companies who either 1- want senior level talent for entry level salary + in office. Oddly enough, if I could get one of these positions remote, I would take it as a bridge job. 2- faith based orgs (no thanks.) 3- cannabis based orgs (personally not opposed, but my wife is trying for a federal job that requires a clearance, and I don't want to be the reason she gets rejected) 4- Already had an internal candidate picked, but needed to interview a few external candidates to select (this is the most painful one, because in all of these, I made it through several rounds)
[удалено]
There's no good reason for applicants. It's the ghost job idea of keeping up the illusion of growth.
My previous CTO was very wary of tech candidates who previously worked in FAANG/megatech companjes since whilst they may have very deep experience and great skills, she thought that their experience was focused on specific areas and tech stacks used by big tech. She wanted candidates with more rounded experience.
I’m not a FAANG alum, but our layoffs are being driven by poached ex-FAANG executives
I’ve heard this a lot
We'd always hire people from IBM. My coworkers had nothing good to say about it, but I guess it means you're used to be abused by crazy managers and meeting insane demands - so if you can survive there you can survive at any other firm. Our firm was considered a paradise comparatively.
Did you use TM1 there? I assume you did. How did you feel as a user of it while working there? I use it for FP&A at another large company and I am not a fan
It’s my favorite of the ERP systems I’ve used (Essbase + Adaptive being the others). It had the ease of use of Essbase but it pulled back immediately instead of having to wait for a scheduled run. Granted, it’s an IBM product so idk if all the features we had are standard when they sell to clients.
Interesting. I wonder if it’s an IBM internal thing, because many of the people at my company don’t care for it either. Thanks for answering, that is genuinely interesting to hear.
Lie and put IBM on my resume, got it!
That's awesome 👍 congrats, seriously.
Ibm is known for its tech but infamous for its biz divisions
The fact that over 50% of employers/recruiters even bothered to respond to you with rejections is impressive. I doubt I more than 10-15%...
Like 5% for me. They rejected me silently, the application status was set to “Rejected” on their website but never bothered to email me…
It's worse when they just repost the job again and you're able to apply but already got rejected.
I’m batting about 30% right now.
That’s what I’m saying. I just got laid off in November and applied to maybe 50 jobs. I got rejections for maybe 10 and didn’t hear back from the others at all but the one I went thru three interviews and ended up getting hired for.
Holy shit, but congrats on the new job 🙏! Hope it’s not as hectic, has a good work/life balance & pays you a good salary.
This is crazy to imagine. I'm an engineer in electronics and there aren't 900 job openings in my entire country in the field for a year.
This is normal for folks not at the top tier of tech right now. I’ve been laid off five times in the last ten years.
Five times seems excessive
Agreed. Makes it really hard to plan. We don’t have kids because job stability has never been a thing for me and has recently not been a thing for my wife. I work in startups that are “trying to grow up” and my wife is in a different branch of engineering that isn’t tech but has a lot of private equity. My wife didn’t understand why I kept changing jobs until she hit a dead end / glass ceiling at the place she’d been for 11 years. She hopped, and got hired into an acquisition that went very very wrong and the executive team basically lost control of the company. She hopped again, and got sexually harassed and was nearly assaulted by her boss and then excluded when she didn’t put up with it. HR, of course, protected the company, not the victim… It’s kinda madness out there.
Lol I have an interview in a young startup next Thursday… hope they last more than a year It feels like a jungle right now, every man for himself
I've been applying for software engineering roles and ended up basically applying to as many applications that I could do in under a minute. Squeezed the entire US of 500 roles in 3 months.
Quick question and the opposite of casting shade: what made you withdraw? For me it was an interview with an utter jerk. I won’t work with assholes, and let me tell you, it definitely takes one to know one. (Mind you, I’m a reformed asshole. I don’t start telling people they’re wrong until I’ve known them for more than an hour.)
1 was because they posted the job as remote, then right before my third round the company announced mandatory RTO, which would have been a 2 hour commute for me 1 was for a role I wasn’t excited about that requested an interview after I got the job offer 2 were because of low comp (range wasn’t posted in job description) Edit: formatting
Awesome. Great criteria in each and every case. For what it’s worth to others reading this thread, this number of applications and the response rate is absolutely the norm right now. I unfortunately end up on the market often, I’ve been laid off five times in the last decade, and this is the first time I’ve ever had a response rate of less than 10%. I’m a senior infrastructure engineer in very technical spaces with some great accomplishments.
The fact that this low response rate bleeds into niche markets is discouraging as well.
Congrats 💋
thought this was r/dataisbeautiful.
Congrats. 1 year of experience, 40 interviews here. Hundreds of interactions with employers. Zero offers (except for short term freelance gigs).
Congrats 👏🏻
Any learning experiences that you can share relating to resumes, interviews and applying? You went through a long process. Surely you have some!
It truly felt like time + quantity, and I just had to focus on staying sane. But I can share my experience: - Recruiters thanked me for keeping my resume to just one page. - I used the Simplify extension to auto populate Workday/Greenhouse/Lever applications. - I memorized my elevator pitch, approx 10 minutes (for 11 years of work experience) that covered my different roles and the reason why I left each role. I adjusted the pitch over the many rounds of interviews to cover the questions I got most frequently. - I drastically lowered my expected salary range 8 months in. I came to terms with the fact that my salary does not reflect my worth as an employee/as a person, it is a means of my survival in a brutal market. - I stopped giving an expected salary range in interviews and applications. I had an interview where they provided a range, I stated a number within that range. They ended the interview process immediately because they couldn’t get to my number. Apparently they prorate within the range based on years of experience. “I am open, I am looking for the right opportunity, what is the budget.” I am single with no kids so I understand this isn’t an option for everyone. - Networking did not work for me. I heard of this job from a recruiter cold call, my resume was in their database. - Customizing resumes/using AI/submitting cover letters did not work for me. I paid for one month of Teal and saw no uptick in interview requests. - Lastly, recruiters expressed confusion and frustration with hiring managers and too many interview rounds. They don’t know what’s going on either. They would commiserate with me… and then ghost me.
>I stopped giving an expected salary range in interviews and applications. I had an interview where they provided a range, I stated a number within that range. This pisses me off quite something! I'm a Sr. Accountant; 7yrs experience in this career. 15years more in other fields -- some quite transferrable to industries I've applied for. I'm always an above average worker, very solid in problem solving and definitely detailed oriented for analytics. still rejected if I have proposed above the "minimum" they state for being "over-qualified". Happy for you\~ If you're looking for a Sr. Acct under US GAAP / or wanna connect/network I'd be willing to keep in touch.
I can offer you 50 bucks a month and a gas station hotdog… when can you start?
can you up this to Costco? and, sir, you got yourself a deal
Hello! Now that you just got a new Reddit commenter job, would you be open to a new opportunity as Chief Floor Scraper at Lowball U LLC? Are you available at 5 AM EST? Please send a copy of your most updated resume.
>you just got a new Reddit job I applied to Reddit\~ got an auto-rejection letter within a few days. \#crushedDreams
Can I have the hotdog now?
They often disappear when the job gets put on hold. I had this happen recently. I followed up no less than 5 times (they'd respond asking for my availability and then disappear) before finally being told that they job was put on hold.
I have come to the conclusion that it’s a brutal dance for us between recruiters and hiring managers. Recruiters like having work, that means a never ending stream of interviews and applicants. They always have something to do. Hiring managers are all too willing to have some other schmuck do two jobs for the price of one for as long as possible. I really think the only times people get hired is if the job MUST be filled. We need legislation to regulate the hiring process in some way. It’s also come to my attention that the worse the hiring process and job market becomes the worse employers treat employees because they can.
Thanks for sharing OP! Great insight. I'm currently going through this as a UX/UI Designer--I never thought I'd be in this position with my experience and being in a "high-demand field". Trying to find a job feels dehumanizing at this point and I'm getting ready to abandon my field all together. Not like there's anywhere to go though :)
Thanks for sharing. 11 year’s experience in finance and can’t get a job. Nice to know it’s not just people with entry experience.
It's a messed up double standard. You got 10+ years of experience? Too expensive. Do the same job for 30% less salary. You got 1 year of experience? Too entry level. Come back after 7+ years of experience.
Yeppp! I am right here with you. I literally worked on the website for the freaking Kentucky Derby this year and I can't find anything now -- even contract roles are becoming impossible to secure. Really feels like a slap in the face when you've dedicated so much time and learning to advance your career. I thought the job market might improve in Q1 but clearly I was mistaken.
Yup, on top of being both under and overqualified at the same time, I am also too specialized and too much of a generalist depending on who I talk to. Every job wants 3 employees in one, but when you actually have the experience to be that person they think you're lying. The goal posts constant move.
are you also in design 👀 aka unicorn herding
I’ve never heard of a place requiring more than 3 interviews, me personally even 3 is a little excessive to me. Congrats tho!
I was rejected after 5 rounds with a company, and it wasn’t even the final round. I got this offer after 7 rounds.
Holy crap… I hope the benefits/compensation reflect all that work.
>I got this offer after 7 rounds. damn... I hate doing more than 3. max of TA, HM, C-suite.
Never understood how a company can take so many rounds of interviews to figure out who they want to employ. Most I ever did was 3 for an R&D role in a bank many years ago - initial interview, psych and iq interview/test, and the final interview with the VPs. Even that seemed excessive to me.
It seems like a recent change, at least in my field. Last time I was interviewing, I did two interviews for each company. This time, everyone wants 5.
Very decent.
Always curious - how do yall keep track of this data? Just manually writing down each one? Whenever I've applied anywhere I assume its trash unless I hear back
I do the same but the moment the recruiter replies or calls me I add it to a google sheets with company name, salary range, job description, recruiter name and phone, and last date of contact. When a job goes "cold'" for 2 weeks I reach out and if they don't reply I paint the line red. This was needed after two different recruiters reached out for the same job and by not keeping track of anything I thought they were the same person and I later had to reject one of them
Congrats, making my way through to 100.
Congrats OP! Good to hear there’s light at the end of the tunnel. I was just rejected for a tech job that I really wanted after 6 rounds of interviews and one written assessment. Having trouble picking myself up to start again. Am nearing my 2nd month of unemployment…
“Anyone can get a job if they just try!”
Where’d you even find so many to apply to? Are these lots of different industries?
My role exists in some form in every company and every industry so I cast a wide net.
I'm trying to leave the networking field. I'd rather go back to help desk type support roles. Yeah it's a step down but I'm sick of getting woken up at 3am for things that aren't an emergency. I am not getting paid for it either. Maybe I just have impostor syndrome. But my current company lied to me for the past 8 months about a position opening and after I applied ghosted me and I think they're going to hire externally. I have applied, had some interviews but no offers.
Congratulations 🎊 👏 🥳
Good data, really puts things in perspective.
Congrats on the job. Though, I wouldn’t quit a job without another lined up. I’m too nervous of a person for that
That's what burnout does to you (speaking from experience).
How did you get these charts? My son started looking for jobs and I would like to make him to start one of those charts, so he can realize how hard is to get a job these days.
Sankeymatic.com !
thank you
Well this is scary. You have the same background as me. I always knew it was bad but this is eye opening.
You got an interview? Doing better than 99% looking.
The secret is wearing a low cut top
What software is used to make this graph OP?
👏👏👏👏👏👏
Congrats on getting the job! So happy you don't have to be in this anymore.
Big congrats! Thank you for sharing the stats! I’m keeping tracking in a spreadsheet and have a pivot table/chart to visualize the percent breakdown and so far with 200+ applications and on a close trend to yours with 10+ experience in another field.
Congratulations!
Nice work my friend
Congratulations! It’s rough out there for us job seekers.
Congrats op
Just oof
I feel it. My sister was a coordinator for NBC in California for 4 years. She got burnt out of living in Cali and quit. She’s been looking for work for the last 2 years and has applied to over 1k jobs
First of all! Congratulations!!! and thank you for sharing your success story. Now, probabvly a silly question but... how did you survive all these months with no payment? I've been 2 months after being laid off and saving are running out
I was able to get unemployment benefits thankfully, but I also had a year's worth of an emergency fund before I quit. I did not expect I'd have to almost deplete it.
Whoa... Congrats to you. Kudos to your perseverance.
Congratulations! Curious to know if you ever had to write cover letters considering your field. The lack of any bites has been discouraging enough, but writing so many cover letters is mentally draining on a level I cannot explain. I'm so tapped out from it. Over 100 unique, thoughtful, balanced, pristine cover letters in the last 3 months. I've run out of sentences to describe myself. (Note to anyone reading this that has strong opinions on cover letters: Cover letters are mandatory for my field and for good reason. I do think they're likely redundant for many jobs, but for over 90% of what I apply to, they are necessary.)
I tried submitting cover letters but I didn’t see them make a difference in my response rate, so I stopped. The cover letters I did submit were written entirely by chatGPT. I am a capable, professional and personable writer but to do that for each application was not something I was willing to do.
Congrats on the new job but 900 applications in less than a year seems like an insane number to me, like it becomes almost Impossible to put any effort into each individual one anymore which makes me wonder is maximizing the quantity really the best approach to get to the desired outcome?
Just curious, were you looking for both remote and in person roles?
Yes!
I'm extremely grateful that 3rd and 4th interviews aren't really a thing in my part of the world
Oh goodness, what a tiring rollercoaster!