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For anyone currently stuck in the grind of endlessly applying for jobs, I completely understand your frustration. I’ve been job hunting for the past three month

For anyone currently stuck in the grind of endlessly applying for jobs, I completely understand your frustration. I’ve been job hunting for the past three months, and it’s been painfully repetitive and time-consuming. Applying via LinkedIn often feels like throwing your resume into a sea of 1,000+ other applicants, even with daily alerts turned on. What worked better for me was following founders, recruiters, and other key connections. I’d wait for them to post about roles in their network and apply directly. This strategy landed me a few interviews. To make this process less manual, I built a tracker that highlights posts from people sharing roles with their private networks. It’s free, so feel free to check it out if you’re in the job market. I’m also testing video-based applications, which let you track who’s viewing your resume and profile. This feature is paid to help cover server cost. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated and hopefully this helps you land a role!

verdverm 2y ago
Having a project you are trying to turn into a business is often a red flag. A company considering hiring you wonders if you will jump ship as soon as you have the opportunity to go full time on your own project
- Dallas_B 2y ago
  Thanks, not really trying to do that, more built it out of frustration. I've heard this can be an advantage in an interview to essentially sell 'look what I built in my down time' etc - Who knows.
  - verdverm 2y ago
    Totally, it's good to have projects or a portfolio, it's not so much to have marketing & payment pages or look like it's an early startup
    - rgbrgb 2y ago
      it cuts both ways! it is hard to find engineers who are self-motivated to think about product, customers, and conversion. this project gives the candidate strong credibility there. I have also been burnt with employees leaving to start their own thing, but that's more the exception compared to engineers who don't deliver much value because they're not actually interested in building stuff or only interested in the programming part of building stuff.
      - verdverm 2y ago
        We programmers certainly come in a lot of varieties!
sunjieming 2y ago
We're seeing a flood of fake AI generated job applications basically DDOSing our hiring funnel. Not sure how widespread it is but it has become enormously frustrating to sift the complete garbage from the good resumes. I'm sure a lot of good people have been accidentally filtered out It's rough out there right now. Also, not even sure what the benefit or angle is for spamming fake job applications. State actors trying to sabotage? Edit: We can tell that some of the applications are fake because we have people fail background screenings and often the attached LinkedIn profile is using AI generated images and job histories that don't add up.
- Dallas_B 2y ago
  Its crazy at the moment, you can use bots to just automatically apply. Also the ease of Quick Apply on LinkedIn makes it so simple to just apply and not really consider if your right for the role. I suppose it feels like your making progress but your right it is spamming, I was 100% guilty of this for the first few weeks thinking it would be easy and quick to land a few interviews and offers!
- sz4kerto 2y ago
  Exactly. LLMs make it worse for both the employers and the job seekers. Receiving hundreds of applications per day is extremely difficult to handle for a small company, especially that it's extremely apparent that around 1% reads the job description at all.
- surfingdino 2y ago
  The reason you are getting spammed is because a) agencies are trying to secure an interview before they have a candidate; b) they are trying to convince you to use their offshore teams. Ask around inside your company if any offers from offshore providers have been submitted/talks are being conducted. DDoS-ing hiring funnels is a way to convince you that "no good people are available".
  - hyperadvanced 2y ago
    Clever tactic, info overload them, then sell the solution
WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
> I’ve been job hunting for the past three months, and it’s been painfully repetitive and time-consuming. With full recognition of the challenge you're having, I'll append that the difficulty level ratchets up from there. The first thing my kids learned after high school is that ~100% of job portals silently discard applications from 1st-time job applicants. And from that point, the difficultly levels ratchets upward further for the most minor of criminal records. Past that there are any number of hidden, algorithmic blackmarks against applicants, from wrong zip codes to sub-stellar credit reports. Finally, there's one nearly unhireable class, people who interview poorly (ex:freeze up).
- Dallas_B 2y ago
  Thanks for the heads up - Feels like I'm in for the long haul despite having some solid experience and half decent network behind me!
- crtified 2y ago
  If tech companies get systemically hostile toward socially awkward people then that's a horrific own-goal.
upghost 2y ago
What kind of dystopian nightmare do we live in than LinkedIn is now basically required to get a job? We built this nightmare too. Darn it.
codalan 2y ago
Should this be under Show HN? https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html

verdverm 2y ago

Having a project you are trying to turn into a business is often a red flag. A company considering hiring you wonders if you will jump ship as soon as you have the opportunity to go full time on your own project

Dallas_B 2y ago
Thanks, not really trying to do that, more built it out of frustration. I've heard this can be an advantage in an interview to essentially sell 'look what I built in my down time' etc - Who knows.
- verdverm 2y ago
  Totally, it's good to have projects or a portfolio, it's not so much to have marketing & payment pages or look like it's an early startup
  - rgbrgb 2y ago
    it cuts both ways! it is hard to find engineers who are self-motivated to think about product, customers, and conversion. this project gives the candidate strong credibility there. I have also been burnt with employees leaving to start their own thing, but that's more the exception compared to engineers who don't deliver much value because they're not actually interested in building stuff or only interested in the programming part of building stuff.
    - verdverm 2y ago
      We programmers certainly come in a lot of varieties!

sunjieming 2y ago

We're seeing a flood of fake AI generated job applications basically DDOSing our hiring funnel. Not sure how widespread it is but it has become enormously frustrating to sift the complete garbage from the good resumes. I'm sure a lot of good people have been accidentally filtered out It's rough out there right now. Also, not even sure what the benefit or angle is for spamming fake job applications. State actors trying to sabotage? Edit: We can tell that some of the applications are fake because we have people fail background screenings and often the attached LinkedIn profile is using AI generated images and job histories that don't add up.

Dallas_B 2y ago
Its crazy at the moment, you can use bots to just automatically apply. Also the ease of Quick Apply on LinkedIn makes it so simple to just apply and not really consider if your right for the role. I suppose it feels like your making progress but your right it is spamming, I was 100% guilty of this for the first few weeks thinking it would be easy and quick to land a few interviews and offers!
sz4kerto 2y ago
Exactly. LLMs make it worse for both the employers and the job seekers. Receiving hundreds of applications per day is extremely difficult to handle for a small company, especially that it's extremely apparent that around 1% reads the job description at all.
surfingdino 2y ago
The reason you are getting spammed is because a) agencies are trying to secure an interview before they have a candidate; b) they are trying to convince you to use their offshore teams. Ask around inside your company if any offers from offshore providers have been submitted/talks are being conducted. DDoS-ing hiring funnels is a way to convince you that "no good people are available".
- hyperadvanced 2y ago
  Clever tactic, info overload them, then sell the solution

WarOnPrivacy 2y ago

> I’ve been job hunting for the past three months, and it’s been painfully repetitive and time-consuming. With full recognition of the challenge you're having, I'll append that the difficulty level ratchets up from there. The first thing my kids learned after high school is that ~100% of job portals silently discard applications from 1st-time job applicants. And from that point, the difficultly levels ratchets upward further for the most minor of criminal records. Past that there are any number of hidden, algorithmic blackmarks against applicants, from wrong zip codes to sub-stellar credit reports. Finally, there's one nearly unhireable class, people who interview poorly (ex:freeze up).

Dallas_B 2y ago
Thanks for the heads up - Feels like I'm in for the long haul despite having some solid experience and half decent network behind me!
crtified 2y ago
If tech companies get systemically hostile toward socially awkward people then that's a horrific own-goal.

upghost 2y ago

What kind of dystopian nightmare do we live in than LinkedIn is now basically required to get a job? We built this nightmare too. Darn it.

codalan 2y ago

Should this be under Show HN? https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html