After 300+ applications, I finally got a job. Sharing the stats & my process

I’ve been job searching for a couple of months and my savings were starting to run dry. This was having a big impact on my mental health.

Posts on here helped me get perspective and stay motivated, so I thought I’d share my process and experience as well.

Stats:
– 311 applications (4 referrals)
– 162 rejections
– 140 no responses
– 9 interviews (3 of which referrals)
– 3 ghosted in the process
– 2 offers (one of which rejected me after an interview but surprisingly took my feedback on board and moved me through the process)

Process:
– Found relevant jobs via Otta & LinkedIn but applied directly on company websites. To save time and (in my view) avoid giving potential reasons to reject me, I only filled in the minimum required fields.
– I selected 3 roles and created a tailored CV for each. Used ChatGPT to optimise wording & keywords.
– Wrote very few cover letters (only if required / I thought I was perfect for the role / my experience was not directly relevant but transferable) and used Claude for this instead of ChatGPT.
– First month in, 0 interviews, just generic rejection after rejection. Very disheartening. I’d send batches of 50 and, if no traction, I would make some tweaks to the CV.
– Second month, started getting a couple of screening interviews for a role. I doubled down on that one and started sending more applications every day. I also focused on key industries I have experience in, which led to more interviews.
– I hadn’t interviewed in years so was a bit rusty. First two, didn’t go past the 2nd stage but I learned a lot by taking notes of each discussion – questions asked, reactions to my responses, etc. Followed up insistently for feedback.
– I practiced Q&A with ChatGPT and developed a bank of stories, which helped me get to mid / late stages with other companies.
– Same with case studies / assessments, ChatGPT is a good resource to simulate potential exercises and get those reps in.
– I also extensively researched the companies (and people) I was interviewing with, and had a list of thoughtful questions to ask & turn the interview more into a discussion rather than interrogation.
– I was fortunate enough to be consistent in my performance with a couple of companies and impress the right people, which led to the offers.

Lessons:
– It’s a stamina and numbers game. Commit to sending out X applications/day and keep pushing. Eventually things will start to move. Just because you get a couple of interviews doesn’t mean you should stop applying. Keep that pipeline in motion so you have backups. Once you stop, it’s harder to start again.
– Have a process. Keep track of roles, companies, dates, CV versions you send out, status of each application, last contact dates, etc. Otherwise it’s easy to get lost in the volume and despair.
– Try to be one of the first applicants for a job. ~40% of rejections were because the role was filled.
– Try to hit as many boxes as possible. Big difference for me between applying for the same role in industries where I do vs. don’t have any experience. There are a lot of qualified people out there happy to take a pay cut so the competition is fierce.
– Referrals are the best way to get your CV in front of someone and at least get a first interview.
– Agency recruiters were completely useless for me. Thought this might be a good channel but the vast majority never responded to my messages / ghosted after a first chat. I suspect they also have a lot of people reaching out to help them find jobs. – Researching the people / companies and showing up consistently with high energy (even if faked at first) and good questions is what I think got me the job. Also consistent follow-ups with thank you notes add to the overall impression you are building of how you would be like to work with.
– A lot of recruiters / managers I spoke with were genuinely nice people looking to find the best person for the job. Make it easy for them by showing your best side and try to demonstrate at each stage that you know what you’re applying for & they can trust you to do the job well.

Overall, this whole experience was a rollercoaster of emotions and a test of grit and perseverance. Most days I’d think I’m worthless. At times, I would feel ecstatic after a good interview or just simply getting one scheduled (only to be rejected / ghosted shortly after). One way of managing this was to trust the process I built for myself and stay physically active. I don’t particularly enjoy going to the gym but I went almost every day, which was huge in managing my mental health and blowing out some steam.

Hope someone finds something useful here. It’s hard out there but I went from being wildly desperate to relatively hopeful to generally confident because:

1. I had a process I stuck with, which eventually got me the interviews
2. I was taking care of my mental health to make sure I perform well & don’t sabotage myself.

Good luck out there.