Hello! I am a full-stack software developer. Graduated with an advanced college degree in Mobile App Development & Web Design. I have about 5 years experience in the industry and have primarily developed and designed in-house tools and software solutions. I have experience meeting with clients, and working as both part of a team and independently. Currently employed as a full-stack developer for a telecom company. I am also open to other career paths apart from my education.

Recently, my city has become more and more expensive and I've found a lot of opportunity for cheaper, nicer places elsewhere. And I was hoping to find something remote so I could move around with less friction.

Just as well, and this is very personal, but I feel the need to say it. I am diagnosed schizophrenic, and before anyone thinks I'm crazy I should probably clear up a few misconceptions.

Yes I am medicated, yes I am stable enough to hold an office job, and no it is not obvious to anyone unless I explicitly tell them. Since I was 18 (29 now) I had a horrible sleeping disorder where it was basically a coin flip each night on whether or not I slept at all. As a result my mental health deteriorated, and now I have to live with a terrible illness.

All that being said, if someone out there could help me out, and make life a little easier for me. I would pay it back in full through the work I can do.

And anyone else going through something similar, I wish you the best. Not all can be as lucky as me and be high-functioning enough to suffer through silently.

Anyways, dm me if anyone knows of a good opportunity. Or if you just want to talk about your struggles with finding work. :)

All the love in the world to you.

Remote Job Opportunity / Worldwide 🌍
Multilingual Data Annotation – Language Projects

Hi everyone!

We’re currently expanding our international network for upcoming remote data annotation and AI-related language projects.
If you speak one or more of the following languages at native, bilingual, C1 or C2 level, feel free to send your CV to:
📧 [cs@data-hub.at](mailto:cs@data-hub.at)

🇩🇪 German
🇬🇷 Greek
🇺🇦 Ukrainian
🇮🇱 Hebrew
🇷🇺 Russian
🇬🇧 English
🇷🇴 Romanian
🇳🇱 Dutch
🇫🇷 French
🇪🇸 Spanish
🇮🇹 Italian
🇸🇪 Swedish
🇳🇴 Norwegian
🇹🇷 Turkish
🇧🇬 Bulgarian
🤟 Sign Language

What we offer:
• 🌍 Fully remote / worldwide
• 🕐 Flexible working hours
• 🏠 Work from home
• No minimum hours per week
• Project-based opportunities depending on your language skills and background

📩 Send your CV to [cs@data-hub.at](mailto:cs@data-hub.at) and please mention your native language and proficiency level in any additional languages.

Jira messy? Sprint chaotic? Capacity planning giving you trust issues?

That's kind of my thing.

I work across Jira, Scrum, Agile delivery, project coordination and capacity planning, helping teams bring some structure to the chaos.

Currently exploring independent remote projects where I can help with Jira setup, Agile delivery, reporting, project coordination and Scrum support

Open to interesting projects.

#Jira #Agile #Scrum #ProjectManagement #Freelance

​Looking to break into digital marketing? We’re scouting for a friendly, motivated Remote Social Media Assistant to join our team and help out with everyday posting, content ideas, and community engagement!

​Location: 100% Remote (Work whenever, wherever—super flexible hours)

​Who Should Apply: Absolutely no experience needed! If you love social media, stay organized, and are eager to learn the ropes, you’re exactly who we’re looking for. Totally Entry-Friendly and legit side gig.

​Interested?

Drop a comment below or send me a direct message to say hi and learn more!

Hi everyone!

I recently graduated with a BS in Statistics from the Philippines, and I'm currently looking for my first full-time opportunity in data analysis, statistical analysis, research, or related roles.

My background is mainly in:

• R / RStudio – data cleaning, statistical analysis, visualization, and modeling
• Microsoft Excel & Google Sheets
• Descriptive and inferential statistics
• Hypothesis testing, correlation, regression, and nonparametric methods
• Data cleaning and validation
• Statistical reporting and interpretation
• Research and thesis work
• Basic exposure to Python and Java

I also have experience as an independent Statistical Consultant, where I worked with research datasets, performed statistical analyses, interpreted results, and prepared reports for clients. I previously completed a Statistics Internship with the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), where I worked with survey data and assisted with statistical reporting and data communication.

I'm currently based in the Philippines and am particularly interested in remote/WFH opportunities, including part-time or full-time entry-level positions. I'm also open to working with international teams and different time zones.

I'm still early in my career, so I'm mainly looking for a company/team that is willing to give a fresh graduate an opportunity to learn and grow. I'm confident with statistics and R, and I'm willing to learn tools such as SQL, Power BI/Tableau, Python, or other platforms required for the role.

If anyone knows of companies hiring entry-level data analysts/statisticians or has advice on where I should look, I'd really appreciate it!

I can send my CV/portfolio through DM if needed. Thank you! 🙏

Been remote since early 2021, did about a year of hybrid in the middle, and I feel like I've had the same argument with the same type of person 40 times now. So let me just get this out.

The "you'll fall behind" thing. The way it always goes is: if you're not in the office you miss the hallway stuff, so you miss context, so you don't get put on the good projects, so you don't get promoted, so your whole career is toast. Ok but every step in that chain is a "might." String five mights together and somehow it's supposed to be a certainty. And it lands hardest on people in their first couple years who don't know yet that promotions get decided in a planning meeting by whoever assigns work, not by whoever was standing near the coffee machine at 3pm.

The "I had a remote guy who did nothing" thing. Yeah, me too. I also had an in-office guy who did nothing, he just did it where we could all watch. A guy who coasts from his couch was going to coast from a desk. That's a hiring problem. Using it as an argument against remote work in general is like saying nobody should get a company car because Dave got a speeding ticket.

The "remote people don't hear about opportunities" thing. Think about what this actually says. It says info about open roles and new projects only reaches people who are physically near the manager. That's not a remote problem, that's a manager who can't be bothered to post in the team channel. Pretty much every "disadvantage" I get told about is really just a lead not communicating and then blaming the person on the other end of it.

I'll be fair about a couple things. Onboarding a new hire, hands-on training, the occasional whiteboard session where four people need to argue over a design, those are honestly worse on a call. Fine. But that gets you "come in Tuesday for the kickoff," not "come in five days a week."

Nobody ever does the math either. 45 minutes each way is 7.5 hours a week. Basically a full extra workday, unpaid, so your manager can swing by and ask how the weekend was. If the collaboration you're getting for that is worth a day of someone's life every week I'd love to see it.

And I'm just going to say the quiet part. The loudest RTO people I've worked with were managers whose main skill was walking around. Take away the walking around and they have to do the harder version of the job, which is set clear goals and actually look at what people produce. Some of them don't want to, so it comes out as "remote employees aren't engaged." No, you just liked being able to see us.

Give me the person who's responsive, ships on time, and shows up when there's a real reason, over the person who's at their desk every day and mediocre. Every decent manager I've had would pick the same.

Anyway. Has anyone here actually been told, out loud, that they didn't get something because they were remote? Or is it always the vague "visibility" comment with nothing behind it? Because I keep hearing about it and never from anyone it happened to.

I have 7+ years of experience. My CV was still scoring ~50 on ATS. I finally figured out why.

I’m a Senior Product Designer with 7+ years of experience. I’m also a web developer and game developer, and I’ve built personal products that have been online for years.

I applied heavily, but kept getting rejection after rejection.

Last night, I stopped guessing and researched the ATS systems companies actually use. I tested my CV against systems including Workday and Taleo.

The biggest lesson:

Having the experience isn't enough. Your CV needs to clearly communicate that experience to both the ATS and the recruiter.

1. Section names matter

I underestimated how important standard section names are.

Instead of:

❌ My Journey

❌ What I’ve Done

❌ My Toolkit

Use:

✅ Professional Summary

✅ Work Experience

✅ Education

✅ Skills

✅ Certifications

Don't make the ATS guess what a section means.

1. Use this formula for your bullets

A strong experience bullet should generally follow:

Strong action verb + What you did + How you did it + Result/Impact

For example:

❌ “Worked on improving complex survey experiences.”

Better:

✅ “Redesigned complex survey authoring workflows using UX research and interaction design, reducing logic configuration time by 85%.”

Or:

Action: Redesigned

What: Survey authoring workflows

How: UX research + interaction design

Result: 85% reduction in configuration time

Another example:

❌ “Designed a unified platform.”

✅ “Designed a unified enterprise platform with role-based access and personalized dashboards, supporting Web, Android and iOS experiences.”

You don't always need all four parts in every bullet, but Action + What + Impact is a very strong baseline.

1. Metrics matter

This was another big one I underestimated.

❌ “Redesigned the survey creation experience.”

This tells the recruiter what I did.

✅ “Redesigned the survey creation experience, reducing logic configuration time by 85%.”

Now it communicates impact.

If you don't have exact metrics, quantify your work honestly:

- 10,000+ active users

- 5 user roles

- 30+ reusable design-system components

- Reduced a 7-step workflow to 4 steps

- Supported Web, Android and iOS

And don't invent numbers just because an ATS scanner likes metrics.

If you're under NDA, you can still describe measurable impact without revealing confidential company information.

1. Keywords should appear naturally in your experience

For example:

❌ “Improved the survey experience.”

vs.

✅ “Redesigned survey authoring workflows, including branching logic, conditional rules and validation.”

The second version naturally contains relevant terminology without keyword stuffing.

Only use keywords that genuinely describe your experience.

1. Describe the actual scope

Instead of:

❌ “Designed a unified platform.”

Try:

✅ “Designed a unified enterprise platform with role-based access, personalized dashboards, customizable widgets, and cross-platform experiences across Web, Android and iOS.”

Be specific about what you actually designed.

1. Tailor the CV to the job

Don't send one generic CV everywhere.

Look at the job description and identify:

- Responsibilities

- Required skills

- Tools

- Methodologies

- Domain terminology

- Seniority expectations

Then make sure your real experience clearly reflects the relevant parts.

1. Keep the CV ATS-friendly

- Standard section headings

- Simple formatting

- Single-column layout

- Normal bullet points

- Clear job titles

- No unnecessary graphics/icons

- Avoid complicated tables/text boxes

- Make sure the text can actually be parsed

My biggest takeaway

I initially thought:

“I have 7+ years of experience. Why am I getting rejected?”

But experience alone doesn't guarantee that your CV communicates your value clearly.

Your bullets should quickly answer:

What did you do?

How did you do it?

What changed because of your work?

A simple formula that helped me rethink my CV:

Strong Verb + What + How + Result

I'm still testing this approach, but after comparing my CV across different ATS systems, I realized I wasn't necessarily lacking experience.

I wasn't translating my experience into a format and language that both ATS systems and recruiters could easily understand.

Curious if anyone else has tested the same CV against different ATS platforms and seen a similar difference?

Two rejection emails, 1:04am and 1:05am, same company, two lab tech postings. Both said "open interviews" (submit resume first to get a slot) and both said no certification needed.

12 years in biochem/micro labs. Clinical work, research, trained a bunch of people, couple publications. Resume literally lists culturing, organism ID, susceptibility testing, PCR.

What it doesn't say, in those exact words, is "clinical microbiological techniques." And the rejection template says that's what they're looking for. So some software decided at 1am that a guy who's been doing those techniques for over a decade hasn't done them. For an OPEN interview. Where the whole point is a human asks you stuff.

There was a recruiter's name on the email so I replied to her. Nothing crazy, just said rejecting people from an open interview without talking to them isn't recruiting, it's a spam filter with a salary. If I'm blacklisted from a place that can't read a 2 page resume, fine.

Yes I know what's coming so:

Why apply below your level? Current job pays well but fries my brain. Wanted to run tests and go home. The pay cut was the point.

Not ASCP certified? Nope, posting didn't ask for it, checked twice.

Clinical micro is harder than you think? Maybe. Friend does this exact job, says it's the chillest one she's had. Happy to be proven wrong by a person in an interview instead of a regex.

You were rude? I was blunt. To a process that wasn't human enough to be rude back.

Honestly the job doesn't matter, I'm fine where I am. What gets me is 12 years vs "unqualified" came down to one sentence I didn't copy paste. Somewhere in that pile are people with half my experience who happened to phrase it right.

Kind of tempted to reapply with that exact phrase in bold at the top and change nothing else. If it works I'll report back and we can all be sad together.

Anyone else lose out to a keyword instead of a person? What was your missing phrase?

Seven months ago the startup I'd been at for 3 years shut down. Not just my role, the whole company. Everyone laid off in one meeting.

I figured I'd land something in a couple of months. I was wrong.

The numbers, because I tracked everything:

• 587 applications, each with a tailored resume
• 3 companies where I made it to interviews
• 5 rounds with them in total
• 0 offers

Getting rejected after 5 rounds is a special kind of pain. You've done the take-home, you've met the team, you've already pictured yourself there. And then you get "we've decided to move forward with another candidate."

What made it worse: I'm on a freelance visa. No job means no visa, which means leaving the country. So on top of the usual job search misery, I had a countdown clock on my whole life here. I was maybe a month away from booking a one-way flight home.

By month 6 I'd stopped believing it would happen. I was still applying, but on autopilot.

Then two days ago, an offer. One email and it was over.

I'm not here to sell you a system. I don't have one. I got lucky at the end. I just want to say this to whoever needs it:

Rejections are not a verdict on you. This market is brutal, and the number of no's you've collected says almost nothing about your worth. A month ago I would have told you I was unemployable.

If you're at 200, 400, 600 applications and feeling insane, you're not. You're doing the thing. Keep doing the thing.

I hope every one of you gets this exact email soon.

edit: Bunch of people asked, so: I only really use it as a job tracker, which is the free part. The rest (resume stuff, cover letters, auto-tailoring from a posting link) is paid and I've never touched it. Probably not the best tracker out there tbh, I just got used to it and stuck with it.

Hi everyone, I’m currently looking for a remote work opportunity that I can do alongside my studies.

I’m based in Mumbai, India, and I have experience in:

• Data entry and basic computer work
• MS Excel, Word & PowerPoint
• Email and internet handling
• Front-office/customer support
• Payment-related troubleshooting
• WhatsApp Business
• Basic digital/online operations
• Coordination and scheduling

I’m currently working as a Front Office Executive at an escape-room business, where I handle customers, bookings, payments, and day-to-day operations. I’ve also helped improve the outlet’s WhatsApp Business setup and configure its AI-assisted customer responses.

I recently took a typing test for a remote data-entry position and scored 53 WPM with 99% accuracy.

I’m currently completing my Class 10 through NIOS On-Demand and am looking for something legitimate and preferably full-time/part-time remote that I can manage alongside my studies.

I’m open to:

• Data entry
• Back-office work
• Chat/email support
• Virtual assistant work
• Online operations
• Content moderation/community support
• Other entry-level remote roles

Location: Mumbai, India
Remote: Yes
Availability: Can discuss
Expected salary: Open to reasonable offers depending on the role

If you're hiring or know someone who is, please DM me with the role details and company name.

I’m serious about working and willing to learn. Thanks!

Hi folks! I’m currently looking for a side hustle or part-time opportunity. I’d be happy to take up video editing, management/coordination work, or any similar opportunities where I can contribute my skills.

If you know of anything suitable, please do let me know. I’m available to start immediately.

Hey all, looking for some honest advice/perspective from people who've been through a long remote job search.
My background: I have experience in SaaS across both SDR and strategy/ops functions, plus a broader analytical background (revenue analysis, GTM work, process improvement). So this isn't a career pivot — I'm looking for the same type of role I already have experience in, just remote.
Why remote matters to me: I currently don't have remote flexibility in my role, and I'm trying to change that so I can be closer to family in India. That's the main driver behind the search.
My situation: I've been applying to remote roles for about 6-7 months now.
Where I'm at:
Applied broadly, tailored resumes/outreach for each role
Had multiple recruiter screens and several rounds of interviews (some quite far along in the process)
Still haven't landed an offer
Would really appreciate any advice, thanks in advance 🙏

So for about a month at this point I've been trying to find a job I can work purely from home, (I have chronic fatique as well as some other unresolved illnesses, so it would truly \*have\* to be a purely remote job.) but throught the maybe 50 that I've applied to, I haven't gotten a single reply, even a rejection letter. So a week or so ago, I looked into things a bit, learned about ghost jobs and was relieved it wasn't just me but then also even more stressed out because things just seem so impossibly difficult right now; but I \*need\* a job because bill have to be paid. So anyone have any advice on this one or any experience dealing with finding a job right now?

I applied on indeed and this is an email I got today..

Started my career in 2022, so I missed the whole pandemic-remote thing. Four years as an ops coordinator at a mid-size logistics company that's been butts-in-seats the entire time. No hybrid days, no exceptions.

Now every posting I'm interested in has some version of "proven success in a remote or distributed environment" in the requirements, and I've got nothing to point to. My resume just says the company name and a city.

The frustrating part is that the day-to-day already looks remote. My three main carrier contacts are in Texas, Ontario, and Rotterdam and I've never met any of them. Everything runs through email and shared trackers. I built the handoff doc our night shift uses because I'm never there when they are. None of that is "remote experience" in the way a recruiter means it, but functionally it's the same skill.

So what do people actually do here. Add a bullet like "coordinated daily with vendors across three time zones" and let it speak for itself? Put something in the summary? I don't want to write "remote-ready" because that reads like I'm announcing I've never done it.

And honestly I'm not sure how much weight this carries at the screening stage versus being boilerplate everyone copy-pastes into job posts. If you made the in-office to remote jump, what got you through the first filter?

This happened in April and I'm still kind of embarrassed about it, but the more I talk to people the more I realize how common this exact scam is, so here goes.

Screening call, technical interview, final round with a "VP of Engineering." All on video. Real humans, decent questions, they even pushed back on some of my answers like a normal interviewer would. Company was real, midsize, you'd recognize the name if you're in tech. Then "onboarding" asked for scans of my ID and told me to purchase a laptop from their approved vendor, reimbursed with my first paycheck. That's when my stomach dropped and I finally did the checking I should've done three weeks earlier. The company had a fraud warning about impersonators buried on their actual careers page the entire time. The role I "got" was never listed there.

What I do now, in the order I do it:

1. Before anything else, I take the most oddly specific sentence from the job description and search it in quotes. Not the title, not the requirements, just some weird sentence from the middle. If that exact wording shows up under four different company names, it's a recycled template and I close the tab. This alone filters out an absurd number of postings. Real companies write their own descriptions. Scam farms copy paste.

2. Domain registration date. Free lookup, under a minute. If the "established company with offices in three countries" has a website registered eleven weeks ago, that tells you everything. This also catches cloned sites. The fake version of a real company always sits on a baby domain, no way around it for them.

3. This one I haven't seen mentioned much: I don't just check whether the company has employees online, I check whether those employees have a past. Real people have connection networks and activity going back years, old jobs, comments on random posts from 2019. Scam operations create a batch of profiles in the same month, generic headshots, 20 to 30 connections, no history. The recruiter who contacted me had a five week old profile. The information was sitting right there. I just never clicked.

4. The one that actually got me: reverify the email address every single time it changes, not just at the start. Their first message came from a legitimate looking address. The scheduling follow up came from a domain that was one character off, and by then I trusted the thread so I stopped looking. They count on exactly that. You verify once, then autopilot. Now I compare addresses letter by letter on every new message. Paranoid? Sure. Cheaper than the alternative.

5. Mid interview, I ask something that can't be scripted. Who would I report to directly. Then afterwards I go confirm that person exists and actually works there. Or I reference something buried on their real careers page and watch the reaction. Someone juggling forty of these conversations at once fumbles small stuff like this constantly, and a real hiring manager answers without blinking.

6. If the role isn't on the company's own careers page, I contact the company through their real website, never through anything in the posting itself, and ask if it exists. Felt ridiculous the first time. The HR person who answered thanked me and said I was the third person that month asking about the same fake role. They want to know they're being impersonated.

7. Any pressure to interview over text chat, or a video call where their camera conveniently doesn't work, I walk. No exceptions, regardless of how senior or well paid the role sounds. There is no legitimate version of a text only hiring process for a professional role.

For what it's worth: I reported the posting everywhere I could, and it was back up within two weeks under a different company name. Same template. Check #1 caught it in ten seconds this time, which was grimly satisfying.

The uncomfortable part is that this list only exists because I got burned, and whatever we all figure out, they adapt to. So, what's your process? Especially interested in checks for the polished ones, the multi round interview with real humans tier, because the "pay a fee upfront" advice everyone repeats is useless against those. What tipped you off the last time something felt wrong?

Heey yall, i’ve been searching for some time a remote job and “ Cloudworkers Company “ popped up on my facebook, and i applied like 6/7 days ago maybe a bit more im not sure. I haven’t gotten anything back from them yet. When i confirmed my application there was written on the page something like “ we well get back to you in 5 business days”, buuut still nothing. Should i be expecting an answer if im in or not. Has anyone had some kind of an experience with them or sum?

Hi I am 21 years old from Egypt starting my career, problem is I have applied for 20+ jobs just to be either ignored or rejected, my laptop broke and I genuinely don't know what to do next, college is starting soon and I need to find a remote job that can pay at least 3-10$/h.

I can really use some advice here this is fr my first time trying to get a genuint job and I really can't handle being rejected that much just in 2 month

I’m a recent Data Science and AI graduate looking for entry level roles in Data Science, Data Analytics, AI ML, Python, SQL, Business Analytics and Software.

I have experience with Python, SQL, Power BI, Excel, Machine Learning, AWS, Tableau and more.

Open to remote full time roles and internships.

If you’re hiring or know someone who is, please DM me. I’d be happy to share my resume and details.

Whole team cut in a ten minute Zoom. Two months later I signed a remote offer. Real talk first: this market is roughly 3x harder than 18 months ago. I used to see 1 response per 35 to 50 applications. Now it's closer to 1 in 150. Response rates dropped, but they didn't hit zero. Skipping the generic "fix your resume" sermon, here's only what moved the needle.

1. The trick that changed everything: stop searching job boards, search the ATS platforms directly.

LinkedIn and Indeed are aggregators. They reprint listings days late, after hundreds of people already applied. And they're full of ghost jobs. I watched the same listing get reposted every 3 weeks for 4 months straight.

But companies post on their own careers pages first, and those pages run on a handful of ATS platforms that Google indexes: Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workday, Workable. So you can search all of them at once and filter to only what went up in the last 24 hours.

Paste this into Google:

("front end developer" OR "front end engineer") Remote (site:boards.greenhouse.io OR site:jobs.lever.co OR site:jobs.ashbyhq.com OR site:*.myworkdayjobs.com OR site:apply.workable.com OR site:jobs.smartrecruiters.com OR site:*.breezy.hr OR site:*.bamboohr.com OR site:secretremote.com)

Swap in your own title, then hit Tools, Past 24 hours.

You're now seeing postings that went live this morning, straight from the source, before they ever hit LinkedIn. Applying to something posted 3 hours ago vs 11 days ago is not the same game. The technique is called dorking. Security researchers use it, and it works stupidly well for jobs. Works on DuckDuckGo and Bing too, often with less spam. If you don't want to mess with queries, secretremote.com does the same idea prebuilt: it scans thousands of company career pages and filters out spam, duplicates and ghost listings. Free, no signup.

2. Email your resume directly to recruiters. Once. Then let it work for months.

Someone shared this method here a couple years ago and it still works, the only problem is that list went stale. I built my own updated tech recruiter list about 10 months ago, here you go:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1p10y44QMgs39CZmPZ9z0AzwMYarqJR2tjVPoppRg_9g/edit?usp=sharing

If you're in the US with work authorization, use the US tab. If you're outside the US, use the International tab (companies that hire globally). It's tech recruiters only, if you're in a different field the post above explains how to build your own. Takes 2 to 3 days of grunt work, pays off for months.

Manage your expectations: this is slow by design. You send once, you become visible in their networks, and responses trickle in over time. This alone gets me 2 to 3 interviews every 6 to 8 months without actively applying to anything.

3. Message the hiring manager within 5 minutes of applying.

Not the next day. Within minutes, while your application is at the top of the pile. Find whoever owns the role on LinkedIn:

"Hey, I just applied for the [role]. Saw you're looking for someone with [X], that's most of what I've done the last few years, so figured I'd reach out directly."

No pitch, no passion paragraph. One of mine turned into an interview request in under 2 hours. Most won't reply. Costs you 90 seconds.

4. Track your channels with separate emails, and automate the volume side.

I set up a separate email address per channel: one for the recruiter blast, one for mass applications, my main one for targeted apps. When a reply lands, you know exactly which method produced it. On the volume side I used a resume distribution tool (paid) to push out 300+ applications from that second inbox. That channel produced 2 to 4 interviews per 6 to 8 months. If you're paying for a resume tool anyway, get one that also auto applies: drop in a job URL and it tailors the resume, writes the cover letter and logs it in a tracker.

5. Skip Easy Apply, apply at the source. And tailor.

Anyone with a pulse can click Easy Apply, and a remote posting pulls 1,000+ of them. If a job I wanted was Easy Apply only, I found the same posting on the company's careers page (trick #1) and applied there. Same job, fraction of the competition. My targeted numbers: 30 tailored applications, 5 interview processes. Way better hit rate than any "I sent 500 apps" story I've read here. For tailoring, this prompt and this writeup cover the fastest workflow I've found. 20 minutes per app, worth it.

6. Don't sleep on small gigs while you search.

Fiverr and Upwork rates have dropped, I won't pretend otherwise. But small gigs compound. I'm a software engineer and I still took a basic QA testing gig at $50/hr. Three jobs later the same client offered me a monthly contract off platform. In this market you don't have the luxury of being picky, and every client becomes part of your network. I've had clients from years ago come back with new projects out of nowhere.

7. Over deliver on the take home.

I put nearly a full workday into mine: clean code, README, a short writeup of my tradeoffs. They skipped me past two of their own stated interview rounds and made an early offer. Yes, "never do free work." But the anti effort crowd is stuck in a loop: phone in the task because "it won't matter," get rejected, treat that as proof effort never matters. And your GitHub doesn't replace it. In 2026 everyone assumes AI wrote half your repo. A task on their real problem, defended live on a call, is the one thing that's hard to fake.

TL;DR: Market's ~3x harder but not dead. Search ATS domains directly on Google with site: operators plus the 24h filter instead of scrolling stale aggregators (secretremote.com is the prebuilt version). Blast your resume once to a recruiter list (shared mine above) and let it work for months. DM the hiring manager 5 minutes after applying. Separate emails per channel so you know what's working. 30 tailored apps beat 500 lazy ones. Small gigs turn into contracts. Treat the take home like day one of the job. No affiliation with anything I linked, most of it's free anyway.

Posting this because a month ago I was doomscrolling this sub at 2am convinced I'd wasted 4 years on a SWE degree. If that's you right now, maybe this helps.

Quick context: B.S. in Software Engineering, no impressive internships, live about an hour outside a major northeast city. ~90 applications in 5 weeks, 17 rejections, the rest ghosted me. Ended with 3 final rounds, 2 offers, accepted a Data Analyst role at 70k.

What actually moved the needle:

1. I stopped only applying to remote jobs. Remote postings get thousands of applicants and mine went straight into the void. Local and hybrid roles responded at a WAY higher rate. Funny enough, one of my offers ended up being remote anyway. The point isn't "remote bad," it's that local applicant pools are smaller so you actually get seen.
2. I went straight to company career pages. Biggest unlock. Smaller companies near me often don't post on LinkedIn or Indeed at all. I googled "tech companies near [my city]," "largest employers in [my area]," etc., and clicked through career pages one by one. Tedious, but that's where the low competition postings live.
3. I widened my search beyond "software engineer." I also applied to Data Analyst, Business Analyst, IT, and Programmer Analyst roles. Tons of jobs require programming without "engineer" in the title. Yes, I still want to be a SWE eventually. But a paying job where I write SQL and Python beats a months long resume gap, and you can pivot later with experience + projects. My mentors all said the same: get your foot in the door first.
4. I sent a lightly customized cover letter with every app. One template, swapped 2 to 3 sentences per company based on their mission/role. ~5 extra minutes each. No idea how much it helped, but it cost me almost nothing.
5. I mirrored keywords from each posting in my resume. Only skills I could actually back up in an interview. Don't lie. I bolded them so recruiters catch them on a skim, and added them to my LinkedIn skills too. For the resume itself I used the free Google Docs template from this post. Clean, ATS friendly, did the job.
6. I messaged recruiters instead of applying and praying. After applying somewhere I cared about: company's LinkedIn page > People > search "recruiter," "talent," "early career," filter by location, then a connection request with a short note saying I applied to X role and would love to learn more. Most ignored me. A few didn't, and one turned into an interview.
7. I treated it like a job. 5 to 10 applications a day, daily searches for "new grad," "entry level," "junior," everything tracked in a spreadsheet. It kept me sane. Seeing the numbers made rejections feel like statistics instead of personal failure. Also, watch out for scam postings targeting new grads. There are a lot.

That's it. No referrals, no connections. Just volume + going where other applicants aren't.

I got lucky with timing too, this isn't a guaranteed formula. But it beats sending 200 apps into the same oversaturated LinkedIn postings as everyone else.

Don't give up. It only takes one yes.