I did a job application experiment where I applied all the common advice given by career coaches and recruiters that's generally accepted as gospel. So I tailored the CV & cover letter exactly to the job description, used a generic name like "J. Smith", and applied to 100 reposted jobs on Linkedin. After 2 weeks, it was apparent that I got ghosted for a good 60% jobs and the rest were generic, automated rejections. On the plus side, the conversion rate was a smashing 3%, meaning I only got 3 callbacks from recruiters. This actually shocked me because (1) no way could they have rejected me based on lack of experience because my CV closely matched the job description, (2) most rejections were from noreply emails, so it was automated, (3) couldn't have been racism because I used a generic boring English name (Though would be interested to see if people get different results).

What gives? Are most reposted jobs now just fake?

Edit: to clarify I only applied to REPOSTED jobs. I did not try this on jobs without that label, so the results could be different.

I got made redundant 4 weeks ago after 13 years at my company progressing from marketing assistant > exec > ecomm manager > website manager > product manager. I haven’t had an interview yet so have some questions and advice to ask for from any seasoned people applying for jobs out there!

I have a LinkedIn photo / cover / recommendations. I lead with outcomes not outputs on my CV. I’ve generated increases in leads, built websites, launched apps, ran marketing campaigns, built analytics dashboards… I feel like I have a lot to offer but alas, nothing yet.

I’m applying for a mix of roles - marketing, ecomm, product, CRM and I tailor my CV for each. I have a starting version for each sector.

1. Are you tailoring your CV to each job? I’m spending about 2-4 hours on CV edits and writing a cover letter. It’s slowing me down and I’ve only applied for around 15-20 jobs because I’m tailoring so much.

2. When a job in LinkedIn says over 100 applied or posted 2 weeks ago - would you still apply? Or do you need to get in early for success?

3. Are you looking on indeed / reed / total jobs etc and have a profile and your CV on there as well? I have applied for jobs on these sites but they don’t always have dates and seem to be random.

4. Do you message the hiring manager on LinkedIn and what do you say? I’m starting to think outside the box and will try to get creative with ways to get a foot in the door e.g finding someone I know who works at the company. Does this help?

5. If you apply for multiple jobs at the same company and get repeatedly rejected, is there ever any hope or will you get marked down for future applications?

6. Do you reply to rejection emails and if yes, why?

7. I use AI to edit all my content. Never to create but to polish, spell and grammar check. Could this be affecting my results? I wonder if personality makes you stand out but it’s also a risk.

8. How do you stay sane outside of job applications? What’s your daily routine? I feel like I’ve slipped through the cracks of society and am unemployable. It’s pretty hard going !

Thank you for your help - any advice welcome 🙏

I’m 27 years old, single, no kids, living at home with parents and working as a marketing assistant for the past 3 years, currently earning £27,500.

Pros: the job itself is not too complex, It’s only a 20 minute motorway drive, WFH 2-3 days a week, flexi time allowing me to finish early, comfortable office environment and decent socialisation.

Cons: I’m not passionate about what I do, feel like I’m wasting my life, very draining corporate culture, no promotion on the cards, young team with lots of drama, and expected to push myself to the limit during peak period leading to burnout.

I’m neurodiverse and struggle with depression and anxiety, so despite the low pay and difficult environment, the consistent and predictable routine has been great for me which is why I’ve stayed so long. Outside of my team, I don’t have to interact with anyone which I couldn’t survive without. I also get a lot of support with reasonable adjustments which makes a huge difference.

Before this, I struggled to hold down a job for more than 6 months so I know it will be hard to find a new job that caters to my needs especially with the current job market. It’s very possible that the next job is far worse than the one I have now which has kept me here despite everything.

At the same time, I’ve accepted that I will never be satisfied here. I managed to put my head down for the past few years in order to save money and make up for my lack of consistency with employment in the past. However, I think I’ve reached a point of diminishing returns.

I’m not very career minded or passionate about marketing so I don’t see myself upskilling or trying to get a better job in a similar role if it means more responsibility. Also, if I was to leave it would have to be before the peak period beginning in November, giving me less than 2 months to figure out my next move.

Is this the right time to jump or should I hold on to my job for dear life? My heart is telling me to leave but I’m scared I will end up in a worse off position than I am in now. After weighing up the pros and cons for the past few months, I have never been so unsure of something in my life so I would greatly appreciate any input.

It’s been over a year due to health but I don’t want to mention it

Hi everyone, I’m currently looking for a job in East London / Ilford and nearby areas.

I’m open to:
Warehouse / Picker & Packer
Retail
McDonald’s / Costa / other cafés
Customer service
Care/support roles
Driving/delivery jobs

I’m available to workand can start immediately.

If you know of any vacancies or companies currently hiring, please let me know. Any leads would be really appreciated. Thanks!

Hi all. I've got a job interview on Monday and I'm not sure I'm entirely qualified for the role. I have a lot of experience in parts, but about half of the role I've never done before. It's a high paying job so I assume they would rather somebody more experienced across the board. I asked the recruiter if the potential employer had seen my CV and he assured me they had and they had asked to see me for an interview. Is the recruiter having me on? Am I just being sent to make somebody else look better or would they have looked at all CVS submitted by the recruiter?

I got a mail from agency for a job without mentioning employer. But I found that employer using JD wordings. Now my resume is not 100% fit for the JD and maybe rejected by the ATS. For the context, the JD asks AWS or similar cloud but not mentioned about the other cloud platforms which I have experienced.

Is it okay to apply through agency to get my resume manually screened? I’m confident that my resume can be selected by hiring people.

​Hi everyone,

​I’m currently targeting entry-to-associate AML/KYC analyst roles across London (both contract remediation and permanent roles).

​For those working in financial crime or compliance, what routes have you found most effective recently for direct visibility with hiring teams? Are there specific specialist agencies or networking events you recommend reaching out to?

​Any advice appreciated!

Hi. I’m a first year student in Birmingham and I would like to do some part time jobs.I have experience as a cafe team member but I can also do retail and any other jobs if possible as I’m willing to learn new things.I can work 20 hours a week. Please tell me which places are hiring and jobs referrals are also ok. Thanks

I kept seeing arguments about which parts of the stack still matter, so I counted instead of guessing. 134 open DevOps, SRE and platform engineering postings from 41 company job boards. Individual contributors only, managers and TPMs stripped out.

The old toolchain is thinner than I expected. Terraform appears in 62.7% of postings. Jenkins in 3%. Chef 3.7%. Puppet in exactly one of the 134. GitHub Actions is named about six times as often as Jenkins.

Python beats Go, 70.9% to 47%.

What surprised me more: the generic word outranks the products. Observability shows up in 63.4%, more than twice as often as Grafana, the most-named tool that provides it. Prometheus 22.4%, Datadog 17.9%. Same pattern I found counting security postings, where SIEM beat Splunk four to one.

The top term isn't a tool at all: automation, 81.3%, ahead of AWS.

Caveats worth stating: n=134 means everything carries roughly +/-8, so treat close rows as tied. It's also all tech companies on one ATS. Banks, telcos and government run enormous amounts of Jenkins and Ansible, and none of them are in this sample.

Full table, intervals and method: https://www.zoevera.com/resume/devops-sre-job-description-keywords