Especially with the rise of “ghost postings” so quantity over quality is greater than ever these days
In biology, the top one is called K-strategy and the bottom one R-strategy.
Both are valid strategies.But generally, K is better suited for highly developed, intelligent, cooperative and social animals.
R is better suited for animals that live alone in a hostile environment full of predators.There’s a message about the modern job market in here somewhere I guess.
This sorta applies to the way I typically do it (maybe). I spray-and-pray on 9+ out of 10, because most are mass-posted bullshit. I’m not redoing a cover letter for every bullshit posting.
But if it is clear an actual person is involved (e.g. there is a person’s e-mail listed as a direct point-of-contact or it’s on a small company’s website among only a handful of positions) and/or it is for a job I think I’d really like, I spend more time tailoring everything.
Best of both worlds (potentially).
Yeah, that’s the approach I use too. Eventually I’ll have 2-3 versions of my resume/CV, and a file of typical paragraphs to put in a cover letter. Ideally I’ll have some kind of connection to the company, like: “in a conversation with (Name) at (conference), I learned of your work in (whatever)” or “I am familiar with (product/process) from applying it to my work on (previous work).” Whenever I’m hiring, that sort of cover letter tells me that at least they’ve taken the time to learn about the company, so it’s less likely a waste of time to interview them.
LPT for all of you job seekers.
One Lemmy gold for you, thank you kind stranger!
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Never have done a cover letter. Just seems like pandering pretentious tripe
Same. They already have my resume and application for the job, I’m not writing a whole page groveling and begging them to hire me.
Maybe it’s the shit market that I’m applying to, but when I apply for a retail job, they want a fully filled out application (that auto fill always Borks, so I have to type everything in manually) as well as a cover sheet and some places want you to take a personality quiz that you have to pass for hr to even see your application. I couldn’t imagine applying to 4 jobs a day, let alone 40.
I imagine we are talking about corporate postings where you just paste a link to LinkedIn and that does most of the work?
Yeah all of the lower end jobs are like this unfortunately, anything that gets pasted more than 3 times a year on indeed or any job site. Middle/management side it’s like that but with 3-6 interviews instead and no guarantee of a job. Trade jobs seem to be the outlier, but harder to actually find who all is looking and for them to “legitimately” (insurance/taxes) employ you. High end is 80% networking so a lot of the ground work is already done (but still a total time/energy sink that I can’t be bothered for).
if indeed doesn’t allow me to quick apply, it’s gotta be a dream job to even want to go to their site and do even more work.
I still don’t know what a cover letter even is. never used one and don’t plan on starting. no one’s reading that crap anyway
It’s the thing that gets fed into an LLM to opaquely grade you before your resume gets looked at by a human
Neither approach is good if you are looking for work in the tech sector without an existing referral network.
I suggest that you;
- Ditch the cover letter
- Have a bulleted summary of your skill set that lists every skill and every technology you are comfortable with right on the first page
- In your experience, when listing your past jobs and positions, include list of every technology you worked with during your time there
- Customize your resume for every position by simply highlighting or emboldening every instance of the key technologies they are looking for in your resume
Note: Sometimes, when highlighting skills you might notice that your resume undersells your experience with that particular technology. Go ahead and edit it. This happens a lot and it is ok to view your resume as a living document that is constantly being revised. Don’t just set it and forget it.
Plot twist: make a one size fits all resume, but have AI tailor it and transmit it everywhere.
Double twist:
Just go work for the AI
You rang?
AI works just like intended,
Soon we’ll work for it instead.
I mean the attention economy is essentially that considering an algorithm is the middle man
Stop putting cover letters on your resume. Recruiters spend 7 seconds or less on 1 resume. A cover page essentially is a skip button because we don’t see any pertinent information and move on.
Resumes should be 1 page with a layout that attracts attention but isn’t distracting. Sentences should be structured like bullet points, short, sweet, and to the point.
I mean you say that, but I got my last amazing job because I mentioned pertinent info in my cover letter that resonated with the recruiter. I wouldn’t have got it if I just sent my resume.
I know it’s just anecdotal but hey
Is the bottom one not what we’ve all been doing for the past 10 years? If you haven’t worked more than 5 or so places it should also look like that right?
Also fuck cover letters. Never making one, I don’t care who they send
Seems nobody sent the memo to all those career advisers, coaches, job seeking assistance places etc. because I still see it as “recommended practice” LMAO
Generating BS cover letters is one of the few good uses I’ve found for chat gpt
That might get you in the door but a poor resume built by AI with key phrases to fool the algorithm will be an insta delete by a human.
Spray and pray baby. Getting the recruiter or HR department to like you only gets you in the door. You can’t shortcut actual connections with your actual coworkers.
I stan bottom sentiment.
Had one guy apply for a job in my field saying “My experiences in different field> will help me as <job title>.”
There is very little overlap in hard skills (soft ones obviously do help). Not like that matters a whole lot - their actual list of past jobs and skills would have landed them an interview at least, because we already expect it to be a learn-as-you-go type of deal. Bro would have been better off leaving it out and I would have just assumed they’re trying to strike out in a different direction.
(I told HR to invite them for an interview anyway, because fuck cover letters - I’m not gonna hold anyone to a higher standard there than I’d like to be held to)
Tried both, tried a normal resume and a resume with an ATS-focused layout, tried AI-based tools meant to help you improve your resume, and a few other things, and after more than forty applications in six months, what finally got me an interview and then very quickly an offer was an internal referral from a friend/ex-coworker. For context, I am a software engineer.
Fun fact: the average response time after submitting an application was 48 days.
and after more than forty applications in six months
That’s not “spray and pray”
I just started a job search yesterday and I’m already at about 40 applications. My job search before this one I went from search start to offer in ~2 weeks w/ ~200 applications in, all manual. Though my industry is IT, so I do have a bit of flexibility as far as roles go, but still 6 applications/month is a bit on the low side IMO
Yeah usually I send like 40 or applications each week. I imagine if you are in a specific field then it’s a lot harder to do the spray and pray method tho
So how is that working out for you? Genuinely curious.
It worked fine for me, I’ve landed three jobs that way. That was a while ago though, the last time was in 2017. My last two jobs I took because I had some connections call out of the blue. I’ve been very fortunate in that regard. I can’t imagine that would happen again, most of my connections are getting close to retirement age at this point.
For my industry, IT, pretty well. A nice upward career trajectory and an average of about a month from search start to offer over the past couple of jobs
none of the positions are real anyway. they just make them appear open because it benefits them financially.
when an employee leaves they just close the position and spread the work across existing employees.
