Stopped applying entirely for four weeks and it was the most useful thing I did in the whole search
I was around 140 applications in, mostly silence, and I'd started firing them off without properly reading the posting. The quality was gone. I just wanted the number to go up because the number was the only thing I could control.
So I stopped. Four weeks, zero applications. Rebuilt two projects properly, wrote about them, redid the resume with actual numbers in it.
Came back applying at about five a week instead of thirty. Three callbacks in the first fortnight. Small sample and I know it could be luck, but the volume approach was genuinely making me worse at this.
2 comments
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AnonymousAnon Fair warning to anyone reading this as straight advice — four weeks off is a great deal easier when you're currently employed than when you're not and rent is due. The quality-over-volume point stands either way, but the pause itself is a bit of a privilege.
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AnonymousAnon The bit about the counter being the only thing you could control is uncomfortably accurate. That's precisely what mine became. Applications stopped being a way to get a job and turned into a way to feel productive about not having one.