Let's get the validation out of the way first: if you're job hunting right now and it feels like a doozy, I can confirm: it is a doozy. The market is genuinely, measurably rough.
Layoffs keep coming. Companies are posting "we're pausing all open roles" like it's a personality trait. Entry-level jobs want five years of experience. Senior roles want you to do the work of three people for the salary of one. And somewhere in the middle, a few million perfectly qualified folks are refreshing their inbox waiting for a response that isn't coming.
I'm not going to sugarcoat this. But I am going to give you a plan — because the folks I work with who are landing roles right now aren't doing it by applying harder. They're doing it differently.
Spray and pray is dead
If your current job search strategy is "apply to 50 jobs a week on LinkedIn and hope," we're going to take a different tack. We're going to section off these buckets and use the same tools and tactics companies are to get in the door.
Here's what's working against the bulk-apply fever:
AI is screening you before a person ever sees your resume. More companies than we'd hope use AI-powered applicant tracking systems that filter candidates before a recruiter even opens the folder. These systems are pattern-matching machines, and they're ruthless. If your resume doesn't mirror the language in the job description, you're invisible — no matter how qualified you are.
Volume is up, slots are down. The ratio of applicants to open positions has roughly doubled since 2023 in many industries. When 500 people apply for one role, peak candidates get lost in the noise. Generic applications worked in a talent shortage. It does not work in a talent surplus.
"Culture fit" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. In a tight market, hiring managers can be picky — and they are. They're not just looking at your skills and experience. They're looking for signals that you'll integrate smoothly, require minimal ramp-up, and stick around. This means your application needs to convey more than knowledge. It needs to convey fit, competence, and with-it-ness to boot.
Ghost jobs are real. Some nonzero percentage of posted jobs are not actually being filled. Companies post roles to build pipelines, to satisfy internal policies, or because the listing auto-renewed and nobody thought to take it down. If you're applying to everything with a pulse, a chunk of your effort is literally going nowhere.
None of this is your fault. But knowing it changes how you should spend your time.
Long live spray and pray
I coach folks through job searches every week. Here's what's landing interviews and offers in this specific market — not in theory, but in practice.
In a word, it's not just about "getting the job" — it's also a whole lot about "surviving the slog." That is, put your effort into a smaller number of applications that feel meaningful. But you can still shoot off a metric ton of applications that don't.
Just don't invest much into them. Here's how to think about those distinct buckets:
1. Targeted applications
This is the single biggest shift that separates folks who are getting traction from folks who aren't.
Let's set aside the idea of 50 applications for now. Start by finding fewer than 10 that really engage you. This number can be as low as one, but this bucket of applications needs to feel interesting to you so that the effort gives you some sense of vitality, rather than draining it. For each:
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Read the job description like a detective. Highlight the specific skills, tools, and language they use. Mirror that language in your resume and cover letter — not because you're gaming the system, but because you're showing you actually read the posting. (The ATS will also thank you.)
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Research the company beyond the careers page. Read their recent press releases, their LinkedIn posts, their Glassdoor reviews. When you reference something specific in your cover letter — a product launch, a company value, a challenge they're facing — you stand out from the 499 people who sent the same generic note.
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Find a human connection. Before you apply, search LinkedIn for someone at the company who's in the department or role you're targeting. Send a short, respectful note: "Hey, I'm exploring roles in [area] and saw that [Company] is hiring for [role]. I'd love to learn more about what it's like working there — would you be open to a quick 15-minute conversation?" You'd be surprised how often this works. And when it does, you've got an internal advocate.
Does this take more time per application? Yes. Does it produce dramatically better results? Also yes.
2. Not-targeted applications
TLDR: if companies are going to use AI to screen your application, you can use AI to tailor it to their AI.
For the long tail of applications that could be interesting, but don't spark joy: don't give it 100%. Consider it part of the 80/20 rule — 80% of your effort should go into 20% of your work, and 20% of your effort can go to the remaining 80%. Concretely, that means:
- Use AI to tailor your resume. Cover letter, too! Just make sure to read it before sending — and if you want an extra layer, play the AI off each other: pass one to another and say "how do these edits look given the job description?" Pro tip: you can use this approach for your targeted applications, too. Just give it a more thorough review before hitting send.
Frankly, that's the whole advice — don't burn out applying to literal hundreds of roles. Use your real energy on the ones that make you excited, then soothe the part of you that feels you need to send more out by investing very little, efficiently-spent time on many at once.
3. Rewrite your resume for this market
There are a few key spots where I see folks need to update their resume:
Show that you get it, not just that you did it. A lot of resume advice will tell you to slap numbers on everything — "increased revenue by 23%," "reduced churn by 15%." And look, numbers aren't bad. But here's the thing: anyone can put a number on a resume, and nobody's calling your old company to verify it. What actually stands out to a good hiring manager is evidence that you understand why your work mattered. Not just what you did, but how it fit into what the team was trying to accomplish. "Redesigned the onboarding flow to reduce the handoff friction our support team kept flagging" tells me more about how you think than "reduced churn by 23%" ever will. It shows presence of mind — that you understood the problem, not just the task.
Mirror the job description's language. If the posting says "cross-functional collaboration," don't write "worked with other teams." If it says "data-driven decision making," don't write "used analytics." This isn't about being fake — it's about being legible to both the AI and the human who reads your resume.
Ditch the summary block. A lot of resume advice tells you to write a "professional summary" at the top. As someone who's been a hiring manager: I skipped those every time. I went straight to the job history to see the arc — where you've been, how long you stayed, and whether the trajectory makes sense. Most recruiters do the same. If your summary is three sentences of buzzwords, it's taking up prime real estate for nothing. Use that space for your most recent and relevant role instead. Let your history tell the story.
Show you can learn, not just that you know things. In a market this volatile, companies want people who can handle ambiguity. If you've navigated a reorg, pivoted a project, figured out something nobody taught you — highlight that. Not the credential, but the story of how you figured it out. The ability to learn and adapt is the single most valuable thing on your resume. A great outcome without a reflection of how you got there looks like a fluke. A great outcome with the thinking behind it shows a pattern.
4. Network like your job depends on it (because it does)
"Networking." Yuck! The term and its connotations are unpleasant at best — for our purposes here, let's just say "connecting with other people who just happen to work somewhere you might like," because that is honestly the best way to approach it anyway.
In a tough market, an estimated 70-80% of jobs are filled through connections rather than cold applications. When hundreds of people apply for the same role, the candidate with an internal referral gets looked at first. Period.
So, how do you connect with people when you need a job, without it feeling blegh?
Reconnect before you need something. Reach out to former colleagues, managers, and classmates — not with "Hey, I'm looking for a job," but with "Hey, how's everything going?" Build the relationship before you need the favor. People help people they feel connected to, not people who appear when they need something.
Be a person first. Ask how they're doing. Be curious about what they're working on. This is perhaps the most understated piece: people like to talk about what they're up to. If you don't know someone directly yet, open with a note that you'd like to hear about their experience at X place, or you're interested in the work they're doing — genuine interest and curiosity is hard to come by, so if you got it, use it.
Networking gets a bad reputation because people treat it like a transaction — "I'll share an article so you'll owe me a referral." That's gross. Just be a person who's interested in other people. The relationships that actually help your career are the ones where nobody's keeping score.
Be specific about what you're looking for. "I'm open to anything" is not helpful. "I'm looking for a product operations role at a mid-size SaaS company, ideally in a company that values mentorship" — that's something people can actually work with. When someone knows exactly what you want, they can spot opportunities and make introductions.
Use your alumni network. Your college or grad school alumni association is one of the most underused job search tools in existence. Alumni are disproportionately willing to help other alumni. Find out if your school has a directory, a Slack group, or a mentoring program. Use it.
5. Take care of yourself (seriously)
This one isn't a job search tactic. It's a survival tactic.
Job searching in a bad market is emotionally brutal. The rejection — or worse, the silence — takes a toll. I've seen smart, accomplished people start to internalize the market's dysfunction as a personal failure. It's not. But knowing that intellectually doesn't always help when you're staring at another boilerplate rejection at 11 PM.
A few things that help:
Set a daily time limit on job search activities. Two to three focused hours is more productive than eight scattered hours of anxious scrolling. After your allotted time, close the laptop. Jobs will still be there tomorrow.
Track your inputs, not just your outcomes. You can't control whether you get an interview. You can control how many applications you send, how many people you reach out to, how many informational interviews you schedule. Track those numbers. They're the ones you actually have power over.
Talk to someone. A friend, a coach, a therapist — whoever you trust. Job search isolation is real, and it compounds. Don't let the search become the only thing in your life.
Move your body. I don't care if it's a run, a walk, or aggressive vacuuming — life's as extreme as you want to make it. Physical movement breaks the doom-scroll cycle and resets your nervous system. This is not woo-woo — it's well-documented neuroscience.
6. Consider the non-obvious moves
When the traditional path is jammed, it's worth looking at the side roads:
Contract and freelance work. A 6-month contract at the right company can turn into a full-time role faster than applying from the outside. It also keeps your resume current and your skills sharp while you look for the permanent thing.
Smaller companies. Everyone is applying to the big names. The 50-person company that just raised a Series A? They're hiring and they're getting a fraction of the applications. Smaller companies also tend to move faster in their hiring process — less bureaucracy, fewer rounds, quicker decisions.
Adjacent roles. If your target role is ultra-competitive right now, think about what's adjacent. The product manager who can't land a PM role might find a path through a business operations or strategy role that leads to the same destination with less competition at the front door.
Upskilling with intention. I'm not talking about collecting certifications for the sake of it. I'm talking about filling a specific gap that's showing up in job descriptions you care about. If every role you want mentions a tool or skill you don't have, invest in learning it — then document that you've learned it. One well-chosen course beats five random ones.
A word about "settling"
There's a version of job search advice that frames everything as a quest for the One Perfect Role — and anything less is failure. That's not how careers work.
Careers are circuitous. They surprise you. The job you take to pay the bills for six months might introduce you to a manager who changes how you think about leadership. The "step down" into a smaller company might turn out to be the most interesting work you've ever done. I've seen it happen dozens of times.
So: it's okay to take something that meets your needs right now, even if it's not the dream. That's not settling — that's being practical. You can make another move later. You will make another move later. Almost everyone does.
At the same time, you don't have to lunge at the first offer that lands in your lap just because the market is scary. There's a difference between "this isn't perfect but it's solid and I can grow here" and "I'm taking this because I'm panicking." Trust yourself to know which is which.
Both of these things can be true at once: you can be flexible about what your next role looks like and have standards about how you're treated, who you work for, and whether the environment is one where you can do good work, reasonably.
One more thing: don't compare your timeline to anyone else's. The person who landed a job in two weeks had a different network, a different industry, a different set of circumstances. Your timeline is your timeline.
Pete's blessing
Here's Pete's blessing: you have permission to be angry at the market and still play the game. You can acknowledge that the system is broken — that ghost jobs are disrespectful, that AI screening is dehumanizing, that "we decided to go with another candidate" emails at 2 AM are absurd — and still show up tomorrow with a strategy.
Being frustrated doesn't mean you're failing. It means you're paying attention.
The market will turn. It always does. Your job right now isn't to wait for that — it's to position yourself so that when it does, you're first in line.
If you want help figuring out your next move — whether that's a new job, a career pivot, or just a plan to survive the search — that's what I do.
Let's make work suck less.