There is nothing I want more in the world than a full time 9-5 desk job. Fuck me, I need to be more grateful. I have to admit that my current 9 - 5 desk job because I didn't give a shit about where I was applying to and what position I applied for. The one I currently have came from a complete joke (admittedly, it helped that I was insane at the time). I applied for a Front End Developer position with a resume that listed the skills I didn't have as "things I would learn in a coding bootcamp" (i think someone here is a frontender and just threw up in their mouth), and they obviously rejected me. But then they called me for another position that they had a month later, I tried it out and failed that. Then they called me in a 3rd time and now I have my current job that I just complained about that I'm probably going to be fired from last week but whatever- I fit into the world somehow. I promise I'll respect my job more. Fuck that food service job, man. Pissed me off reading about it. Your resume sounds impressive as hell. I have an Ivy friend who said he applied to 200 financial places to get to the job he has, and his resume is the most impressive one I've seen in my life. I can't tell if he's lying about how many applications, but it did kind of insert the idea in my mind that there is a numbers game involved. I applied to 10 places, but in a city I've lived in my whole life. I also read an article a week ago about how someone made a bot that applied him to (500?) places. kleinbl00s 2nd point is something I will corroborate on, I did not realize the power of THE PEOPLE YOU'RE A LITTLE ACQUAINTED WITH but it is underrated, should be the stat that I wish people told me to focus on in Life RPG.
When I had to get my 2nd job out of college I sent out probably six resumes a week for five months. That's what? 120 resumes? I believe I got four interviews. The job I eventually landed was at a company advertising in the paper (dating myself there hard) but it was for a position they didn't know they needed until they met me. When I needed out of that job I made calls to people I knew, got two offers, got turned down for two others, and ended up in a new position four days after I talked to the right rep. It is FAR easier to make a move when you have a network. This was all - shit - eleven years ago. In 2009, when things were slim, I actually applied for something on Craigslist. It was a highly specialized job; it was also exactly what I had been doing from 2000-2007 so I was eminently qualified. I was also (in my estimation) one of maybe two dozen people west of the Mississippi who had any business applying for that job. I got the interview, got to look over the position, and long story short it was about eight times too much work for about one third as much money as it deserved and it was temp contract to boot so within about two minutes of sitting down the "interview" went from "tell us why you're qualified for this job" to "lemme tell ya just how fucked you are because I can tell you need Seal Team Six, you're paying McDonald's and you're recruiting like Labor Ready." It was abundantly clear I wouldn't take the job if they offered it to me, so they said I was the most qualified person they'd met so far. Curious, I asked how many people they'd interviewed. "About twenty five." (jaw drops) "How many are you interviewing?" "We've got another fifty today." (long pause) "How many resumes did you get?" "About five hundred." _________________________________________________ Moral of the story: the more people that see the job, the more people will apply. That does not mean that more qualified people will apply but it does mean that when you're part of a wide net cast, you better be able to distinguish yourself early and often.