Hit 500 applications today and it finally clicked

So I've been job hunting for about 4 months now after getting laid off from a tech company in Austin. I kept a spreadsheet this whole time tracking every job I applied to. Today I hit exactly 500 applications. That number blew my mind because I thought I had only done maybe 200. But looking back, I realized I was just sending out resumes like crazy without tailoring them. The first 300 got me maybe 5 callbacks. The last 200 after I started customizing my resume and writing a short cover letter paragraph got me 18 interviews. Big difference. I actually got an offer yesterday from a place I applied to 6 weeks ago. Anyone else track their numbers and see a pattern after a certain point?

3 comments

3 Comments

bennett.mason21d ago

Man that's a hell of a number. Got a buddy who did the same thing back in 2020 after his factory shut down. He hit around 400 apps before he figured out he was using the same generic resume for everything. Once he started rewriting stuff for each job his callbacks went way up. Landed something at a warehouse supply company after like 5 months of grinding. The spreadsheet thing is smart though. Shows you where you're wasting time.

finleym4321d ago

That's one way to look at it, but honestly the whole resume tailoring thing is a little overblown. You're spending an extra 30 minutes per job just to maybe get a callback from some HR bot that's gonna keyword filter you anyway. 400 apps in, wasting time on a spreadsheet instead of just blasting out applications faster feels backwards. By the time you finish perfecting resume #50, the entry level listings you were applying for are already closed. Seems like your buddy's real win was just luck that a warehouse was hiring, not some resume magic.

gibson.sarah21d ago

400 apps with no callbacks says more about a weak resume than the market.