I'm genuinely super curious because I hear this a lot, but the deepest I ever got was... 5 apps? Do you have some kind of like generic cover letter/resume you fire off 3 times a day? What is your process?
The first ~3 months I wrote specific cover letters and modified my resume according to what I was applying. Then I gave up and just blindly applied to everything without bothering to read anything other than the title and specific qualifications using a generic (but detailed and well-structured) resume.
from your response it is not clear whether you are still searching or if you found a job. i can understand getting tired, i feel the same, but i worry that taking less effort reduces my chances.
what are your thoughts on that?
(what is a well structured resume in your opinion? did you get any feedback if it is well perceived? i'd like to think that mine is detailed and well-structured too, but i don't feel certain that it is good)
I sold my house and fucked off to Europe. Hopefully will outlast whatever thing is happening, but I'm not that hopeful, so I'm searching for new passions. I still look for work once in a while and blindly apply to what a carefully crafted search query yields (searching job application sites (not job boards!) + position and/or skills). I decided after 3 months to go for quantity over quality. It hasn't been much more successful, but at least I don't get frustrated spending 2h researching a company, crafting a cover letter and creating a resume to get a refusal the next day.
Any time you'll ask for feedback someone will tell you to do things differently and it will never end. I've been hiring tech folks for 15 years, with 25 years total experience, so I know what I want to see when I look to fill a role, that's how I build my resume. I want it to show at a glance where I've worked and what I did there, no more no less.
If efforts are made and you see a difference, then don't stop. If you see no difference (eg uptick in responses or interviews), as is my case, I've got nothing to say that will help you. Sell your house and fuck off to Europe maybe.
I've been hiring tech folks for 15 years, with 25 years total experience, so I know what I want to see when I look to fill a role, that's how I build my resume
maybe you could share some insights here?
my CV starts with a few paragraphs highlighting what i think are my biggest accomplishments and showing off how broad my experience is. followed by a list of tools and languages i have worked with, then a list of projects and the employment history. for jobs where it seems relevant i also have a list of talks and workshops i have given. the whole thing is quite long though. 5 pages for the short version and 8 pages for the long one.
searching job application sites (not job boards!)
what's the difference here? do you mean the career/job lists on company websites?
I definitely don't want to read 5 pages especially if it's all redundant information. Mine is two pages, I don't dig in gigs past 10 years, they can ask if they want my origin story.
I don't care about the languages you know, I care about the languages you know and how recently you used them and your level of proficiency. Without that trifecta the information is useless (well, I'd have to ask). Was it a school project or did you blow someone's mind professionally?
I wouldn't do more than a sentence if you're going to summarize (eg 25 years of experience in building and leading technical teams), I can make my own unbiased summary.
As for application sites, I mean something like jobs.lever.co or boards.greenhouse.io.
I care about the languages you know and how recently you used them and your level of proficiency. Without that trifecta the information is useless
this is not a question just for you, but i wonder what others think about this too.
i get that the number of years of using a language is a useful indicator, but the age? is my experience from 10 years ago no longer valid? also, proficiency in one language does translate to overall proficiency in any language. not 100% obviously, but the more programming experience i have the better i can learn new languages, and the faster i can get productive. same goes for any other tools. old experience is not forgotten. so even the years i have worked with any particular tool is missleading. and if i only list my work from the last 10 years then i'd look like all i have ever done is javascript, and that would limit my options very much.
i have been able to work on python and php projects as a mid-level developer without any formal prior experience in those languages. in the python case the employer knew about it and was still comfortable to hire me. in the php case i was able to cite some php work (which i had done) and i was still producing better results than any of the junior developers on my team. only the team lead was clearly more experienced then me.
how am i going to make that point if i don't list all of the projects i have worked on, no matter how long ago?
That's a great point. Either have a ton of money saved up or just start applying to jobs elsewhere immediately. The latter is what I assume most would want to shoot for.
It's not a stretch. The job market is terrible and has been for some time. I was 400-500 applications into my job hunt when I *finally* found something and that was at the end of 2022. It has gotten worse since then.
