I was looking for a job earlier this year, luckily I found a great position and have been there for a few months.
I left my previous job and took some time off before looking for a new one. The search ended up taking me four months start to finish, once I got serious about looking. It was certainly longer than I expected, but it sounds like the job search is taking longer for most people.

Start of Job Search:
I started with the usual ways: contacting a recruiter and asking around my network. However, no one I knew was looking for a database developer, so I had to pursue other avenues. Almost every job I had ever got was through someone I knew, and the one where I didn’t know anyone was through a recruiter. So this was new territory for me.

LinkedIn:
First, I turned to LinkedIn. A lot of people debate whether to turn on the ‘Open To Work’ banner for their profile. I decided it was worth a try. I did receive a lot of messages over the first 2 days, but most were from ‘coaches’ or other people trying to sell you services, no job leads at first. Some recruiters reached out, but few offers were for the type of work I wanted. I talked to a few people, but did not get any interviews out of that.

You can also apply to jobs through LinkedIn. I probably applied to 50 or so jobs through LinkedIn, I heard back from two recruiters. I didn’t get an interview from either one, but they were both nice, helpful people. Almost all of the LinkedIn application processes were pretty quick, usually uploading a resume and maybe 2-3 questions. I imagine these got a lot of applicants, since it was so easy to apply.

Jobright:
One of the LinkedIn messages I got when I first started looking for work was from the founder of a site Jobright. You upload your resume to the site, and it finds job listings that match your experience. A lot of the listings were at company sites, some were to LinkedIn or recruiters. You can also specify your expected salary range, contract and/or full time, and other similar variables. You can also specifically exclude certain types of jobs (I kept getting Salesforce related listings, since I had that on my resume). The site was free when I used it (Spring/Summer 2024).

Titles:
Most of my jobs have been as a database developer, so I certainly applied for those roles, when I found them. I also applied for Data Engineer and Data Architect jobs. I’ve never had those titles, but I’ve done that type of work before. Not sure if not having had those titles before hurt me, or if those were especially competitive jobs, but I didn’t get too far in the process with those applications. I’ve always had kind of general ‘Developer’ job titles even though I did a wide range of things, so not sure if that worked against me.

AI:
I did try to use ChatGPT when updating my resume, but I didn’t end up using anything it gave me. Everything it returned seemed a little too much like bragging, and sometimes not that accurate. Perhaps I needed to be a little more aggressive in wording my resume, but it didn’t feel right to me.
I did try a service that claimed to find positions for you, and apply to them for you as well. I wasn’t too pleased with the results (I won’t name this service). Some of the positions were way off, it applied for a diesel mechanic job for me, despite my only background being in database development. Worse, the service would answer application questions for me, like volunteering me to be able to relocate, when that’s not something it asked me about, or that I was willing to do. I quickly cancelled that service, it wasn’t ready for real use.

Number Of Applications:
I tracked everywhere I applied to, I ended up submitting over 200 applications. Looking back, I should have concentrated more on fewer applications, but working to make those applications stronger. But it’s easy to become concerned when you don’t hear back from places, so you cast a wider net. But a lot of that turned out to be wasted effort.

Take-Aways – Positive:
When I posted on LinkedIn about looking for work, I was surprised how many people in my network responded. People re-posted my message, wrote recommendations, and asked around about jobs for me. I was amazed with how many people really wanted to help out. Because of that, I’ve tried to be a little more active with actions like this for other people, even little things make an impression.

A few of the jobs had coding challenges, mostly using SQL. I actually enjoyed doing those, plus I think I got an interview with any company I did a test for. I guess a more involved application process will result in a lower number of applicants, and a better chance of hearing something.

I found the Jobright site very useful. It did a lot better job of returning jobs listings that were relevant to me than other job search sites.

Take-Aways – Negative:
I was amazed how many people and companies I had contact with, and just never heard back from them. I can understand a bit about applying and never hearing anything, I’m sure positions have hundreds of applicants. But after having them reach out to you, and interviewing me in some cases, it seems like a quick message back for a rejection isn’t that much to ask for. It’s been a while since I’ve looked for a job, so this was new to me.

End of Job Search:
I ended up accepting a job that I applied to using the Jobright site. The job is off to a great start, I work with a lot of smart people that I really get along with.
Good luck to anyone currently looking for a job.

Disclaimer:
I haven’t been paid or otherwise compensated for any of the services that I’ve mentioned in this post.