Applying for a job sucks. Here are some tips to make it not suck so much.
Why the 2026 job market is so brutal
The average job opening now gets 242 applications. In 2021, it was closer to 50. One in four online listings is a ghost job, posted with no intent to fill. Nearly 70% of employers use AI to screen and reject candidates before a human ever opens the file. Meta cut 8,000 employees in April 2026. Microsoft laid off 5,000 in July. And most of the advice out there? Written by people who last applied for a job in 2019.
In this guide
I’ll cover what actually gets past an ATS, why cover letters are a waste of time, how to find jobs before LinkedIn shows them to anyone, and what to do after you land the interview.
Don’t apply for jobs all day
No seriously, don’t do it. Block time for applications and put a hard limit.
You’ve heard it and I’ve probably said it out loud at some point too, “Job hunting is a full-time job”. In my opinion, tenacity & will power can only get you so far in a tough job market, burnout will eventually win from the constant application rejections and ghostings.
To help prevent burnout, I would personally capped my job applications to only 2 hours total during the week day. One hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon.
I didn’t find it useful to apply for jobs all day, there are only so many relevant applications I could apply for anyway. Applying for anything completely outside the scope of my skill set was just a waste of time.
How to find hidden jobs before everyone else
After 241 applications, 12 interviews, and 156 ghostings, three strategies actually moved the needle.
The 24-Hour Window
The sooner you can apply after a job has been posted, the better your chances. Most recruiters screen in batches and review the first wave of applications long before the listing closes. Miss the first 24-48 hours and your resume is buried under hundreds of others before anyone opens it.
Applying for month-old jobs is usually a waste of time.
I set a few hard rules for myself:
Freshly posted within 24 hours (if remote)Jobs that are a few days old to one week if local to my city / state / in-office
How fast your odds decay
Remote roles decay fastest. Hundreds of applicants can hit a posting within the first day.
Yes, you can sort results on Google.
How to find jobs before LinkedIn shows them
Boolean search and x-ray searching into specific ATS platforms. These are the backend systems that power thousands of company job boards. They’re all indexed by Google.
If you’re not familiar with boolean searches, here’s a simple example:
"Product designer" site:jobs.ashbyhq.com united states remote
You can add different operators (AND / OR) in your search term. Here are some that worked well for me:
"Product designer" OR "UX designer" site:jobs.lever.co remote"UX researcher" site:boards.greenhouse.io ("remote" OR "united states")
These ATS platforms power the backend of thousands of companies:
site:jobs.ashbyhq.com(Ashby, solid application UX)site:jobs.lever.co(Lever, widely used by tech companies)site:boards.greenhouse.io(Greenhouse, popular with mid-to-large companies)site:myworkdayjobs.com(Workday, enterprise, clunky but everywhere)
I often found open positions through boolean searching, usually two or three days before LinkedIn even recommended them to me. By then, hundreds of people had already clicked the link.
Don’t want to write these by hand? I built a free boolean search generator that builds the LinkedIn, Indeed, and Google X-ray strings for you from a job title and location.
A note on AI tools for your search. AI can be genuinely useful: extracting keywords from a job description into a checklist, turning rough bullet points into a first-draft resume line, generating practice interview questions. What it’s terrible at: writing your application end-to-end. AI-identical prose reads as lazy, and lazy gets skipped when you’re up against a hundred other applicants. Use it as a starting point. Then rewrite everything in your own voice. Voice-to-text dictation is an underrated trick if you struggle with sounding natural.
The 60-70% Rule
Job requirements are largely arbitrary. Statistically speaking, women and minorities are less likely to apply for a job where they don’t meet 100% of the listed requirements. If you hit 60-70% of what’s listed, send it.
That does not mean apply for a 10+ YOE role when you have 2. Use common sense.
Networking for Jobs (When Your Network Is Also Job Hunting)
Your network can be a great asset if they are hiring, but not when they are also looking for jobs in a tough market. With that said, domain knowledge and expertise within your network are still extremely valuable.
I leaned very heavily on my peers for portfolio and interview advice. I made sure I wasn’t making decisions about my portfolio in a vacuum. I took several people’s advice and iterated over my case studies and presentations where it made sense to make the changes.
Getting referrals without being annoying. I’ve never been hired for a job where at least some part of my network wasn’t in the mix. But asking someone to refer you cold? Awkward for everyone. The move is to reach out before you apply. A quick message to someone at the company: “Hey, I saw this role and it looks like a fit. Would you be open to a quick chat about what the team culture is like?” Don’t ask for the referral in the first message. Build the connection first. If the conversation goes well, most people will offer to submit you.
What your LinkedIn profile is actually for. As a recruiter, I spent hours searching LinkedIn for candidates who had relevant experience. You know what I searched for? Keywords. specific skills. job titles. Your headline is searchable text. It shouldn’t just be your current job title. It should communicate what you do and what you’re looking for. Mine said something like “Product Designer | UX/UI | Healthcare | Open to new opportunities.” Make your profile public. Fill out your skills section (it directly affects where you show up in recruiter searches). Post occasionally so you look alive. Not the “I’m thrilled to announce” stuff, just share what you’re learning.
My take on custom resumes & cover letters, as a recruiter
Allow me to put on my technical recruiter “hat” for this one.
I’ve found that targeted, custom resumes and cover letters are largely useless. Too many tools that promise more interviews if you just subscribe. The noise around resumes has gotten out of control.
When I was a design/developer recruiter, I did look for certain “keywords” in candidates’ resumes for the positions I was hiring for. Most advice gets this wrong: you don’t need to stuff your resume with keywords or pay for a “premium ATS-optimized” anything. But you do need to speak the same language as the job description.
If the posting says “cross-functional stakeholder management” and your resume says “worked with multiple departments,” the ATS may not match them. It means matching the words the company actually uses, not stuffing your resume with keywords.
In my experience as a recruiter, the best approach is to simply present your actual skill set and current experience. As long as you meet most of the job requirements, you’re fine.
A few things that actually matter for getting past the ATS:
- Single-column layout. No tables, text boxes, graphics, or weird fonts. I’ve seen beautiful resumes get shredded by parsing errors.
- One font. I don’t care which one. Just pick one that’s easy to read by humans and machines.
- Lead with numbers, not responsibilities. “Increased revenue 34% in 12 months” stops the scroll. “Responsible for growing sales” gets skipped. Every time.
- Have 2-3 base versions, not one per application. One for each role type you’re targeting. Swap in the right keywords. Then move on.
You’re competing against mediocre AI tools that can simply morph someone else’s resume to fit the job description. Don’t play their game.
As for cover letters, I only ever crafted and customized one, for a designer position that a colleague had referred me to. And I only did it because someone was vouching for me. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have bothered with a cover letter at all. Unsurprisingly, I ended up getting rejected for that role.
So my advice as a recruiter is to skip the cover letters entirely. Honestly, I never really read them when I was recruiting. There are tools out there that can automatically generate cover letters for you, but when it only takes a single click to produce one, it kind of defeats the whole purpose and makes the cover letter meaningless.
My job application numbers
Let’s get down to the brass tacks, that’s right, a Sankey Chart.
As a former recruiter, I’m appalled by these numbers. As a current Product Designer, I’m appalled at the user experience of applying for jobs.
There’s a part of me that wants to design an applicant tracking system that doesn’t actually suck.
It’s almost like companies want as much friction in their job application process. There are exceptions though, as Ashby and Lever seem to be great.
The most glaring number from the chart is the fact that 156 companies couldn’t even be bothered to tell me to f**k off.
One last note about the 241 applications, I could have easily doubled that number, I just didn’t see the point in applying for jobs well beyond my YOE or skill set even though the role title was what I was looking for.
Why those 156 ghostings aren’t about you
156 applications got no response. Not even an automated rejection.
Companies are drowning in volume. A single remote product design posting can pull 500-800 applications in a week. No recruiting team is reading all of them. Most never get opened. Your application wasn’t rejected. It was never seen.
The 12 companies that did screen me were the ones where I was either in the first wave of applicants or had a referral. That’s not a coincidence. The system is broken, not your resume.
Track everything or you’ll lose the thread
At 10-15 active applications, sometimes, you might end up juggling too many threads with different companies, recruiters, follow-up dates, and resume versions. You will lose track. I used a simple spreadsheet: company, role, date applied, status, recruiter name, follow-up date.
If you haven’t heard back after 5-7 business days, send one polite email. Reference the role, something specific about why the company interests you, and ask if they need anything else. Then leave it alone. More than once reads as desperate. Less than once and you’re invisible. This is not a high priority action. If you have the time, send a quick e-mail, if not, it’ll be totally fine.
How long this actually takes. The median job search in 2026 runs about 108 days. Most people panic and change their strategy after three weeks, often before a single batch of applications has even been reviewed. That’s anxiety. Your strategy is fine. Give your approach enough runway. I wrote about what happens when the search drags on in my guide to job search burnout.
Treat each interview as a learning tool
I’ve read a handful of posts on social media about candidates sending out 800-1,000 job applications without any success. Firstly, I’m shocked that there are even 1,000 positions worth applying to?
I think at some point, you have to start thinking about maybe the problem isn’t with the ATS or recruiters, maybe it’s your resume?
If you’re not getting any screens after 50 submissions, change the format a bit. My interview rate (recruiter screen only) for the Product Designer roles I applied to was around 5%. I made sure to make every single recruiter screen count.
There are many variables completely out of my control in recruiter screens, and an important one is how well a recruiter can convey my skill set to the hiring manager. I worked hard on the clarity of my language during those interviews.
Here are problem / solutions for each stage of the job application process:
| If you’re stuck here… | Try this |
|---|---|
| Not getting recruiter screens | Adjust your resume format / content |
| Not getting past recruiter screening | Rework how you deliver your design experience |
| Not getting past Hiring Manager screening | Frame how your design skills solve user problems |
| Not getting past Panel Interviews | Learn to tell a story with your case study presentation |
Prep your proof stories before the interview. Pick two concrete outcomes from your career that map to what the role needs. Write them down. Practice saying them out loud until they sound natural, like something you’d actually say. The same two stories become your resume bullets, your LinkedIn summary, and your interview answers. One set of stories, used everywhere.
Lastly, be kind to yourself
The job market for tech has been incredibly tough over the last few years. Take care of your mental health and make sure to touch grass as often as you can. Getting rejected for a position after going through rounds of interviews can be tough, but it’s not a reflection of your self worth.
kthxbai.
Sources
- The Average Job Opening Now Gets 242 Applications (Business Insider/Novorésumé, Feb 2026)
- Ghost Job Statistics 2026: 18-27% of Listings Are Fake (Greenhouse, ResumeBuilder, Clarify Capital, 2024-2025)
- 65% of Employers Will Use AI to Reject Candidates in 2025 (Resume Builder, Forbes, Oct 2024)
- Meta Lays Off 8,000 Employees as AI Casualties Mount (NYT, May 2026)
- Microsoft Lays Off Nearly 5,000 Employees (TechCrunch, Jul 2026)
