7 years ago, I emailed my resume to a company and received a call within the next 5 minutes. My interview was set for two days later, and I was hired on the spot. This was in 2017, the interest rates were low, there were not enough CS graduates and AI wasn’t mainstream.
Everything has changed today. Interest rates are at an all-time high, there are many CS graduates and AI has already taken over a few jobs.
How we apply also need to change. There are thousands of applicants and many many more tools that can help us build a better application than there were in 2017.
After spending 5 years in PHP, I wanted to change something, I wanted to go into a cutting edge technology. AI seemed a lot expensive (this was before ChatGPT API). The only viable option was to move to blockchain. But there was a problem. Who would hire me to do the same work as a freshie but for the pay of a 5 years experienced developer. A few interviews gave me the answer, no one.
I had to build a portfolio to land a job and needed a job to build a portfolio. I decided documenting my learning. I made a daily streak of Github commits to a Readme file, I would learn new thing daily and document it. After 4 months, I was hired in Tkxel. The team size was 85, and I was the only blockchain developer among them. I had a big responsibility and the next year was as much challenging as it was fulfilling. Jamal, CEO of that project, later told me that he had interviewed 19-20 people and I was the least experienced but most motivated.
This made me realize that having a hunger to learn and showing that hunger would help my chances of getting a gig.
After a year, the project was ended and I was transferred to the biggest project of Tkxel, as a NodeJS developer. I had no experience with the NodeJs but that wasn’t a problem after a year in blockchain. The past year had given me confidence that I could perform well in unknown territories and the next one confirmed that I was not wrong.
During this time, a lot of recruiters reached out to me in my Linkedin dms and after many interviews, I had a couple of offers in my hand. I was not able to decide which one to pursue, so thought to get help in deciding. I called my former manager and asked her for her advice. She asked if I would be willing to work with her in her new company. I sent my resume over, had a few rounds of interviews and was offered a position which I accepted. Having a recommendation made me bypass all those ATS tools (resume scanners).
A former colleague is an expert in finding remote jobs. I asked him to share his secrets and he told me that all I do is mention their mission and vision in my cover letter. Moral of the story is that personalizing has a better chance of standing out from the crowd.
But it does come with a cost. You would dedicate a few hours daily to apply to a handful of jobs (because personalizing takes time) only to receive automated rejections. In the defence of the recruiters, they are receiving far more applications than they used to. The key is to not be let down. Job applications are a form of sales and sales are a numbers game and good salespersons are not bothered by rejections and even mean replies. They just move on to the next lead.
tldr;
Just Apply
Build a portfolio yourself if you don’t have any
Talk to former colleagues
Personalize each application
Don’t give up too soon