u/BeautifulAntelope349 — reddlx

Looking for honest feedback on something i've been building

hey,

couple months into building this and i'm at the stage where i honestly don't know if i'm onto something or just stuck in my own bubble.

the whole thing started during my last job hunt. i kept noticing that the actual hard part wasn't writing the resume or doing the interview prep, those were the visible chunks of work, it was the constant decision of whether a role was even worth applying to, and then the tedious tailoring once i decided yes. and i was making both decisions badly. applying to too many wrong roles, tailoring lazily because there was no time, and quietly burning out somewhere around app 60.

what i ended up making (working title: hirely ) is basically the answer to "should i apply, and if yes, what would the tailored version of my application look like". paste a JD, it tells you honestly whether to even bother, and if it's worth your time it does the keyword tailoring and the cover letter for you. nothing groundbreaking, just trying to compress the 20 minutes of monkey-work per application into 3.

still pretty raw and i've been showing it to a small handful of people. some of them love it, some are politely confused, and i'm trying to figure out which group is closer to the broader truth.

if you were job hunting right now, would having an "apply / stretch / skip" verdict before you start tailoring actually save you time, or is that a call you'd rather just make in your head?

u/BeautifulAntelope349 — 3 days ago

▲ 36 r/ResumeTips

i was hitting basically zero on cold applications a few months ago, so i started tracking everything in a spreadsheet date the job was posted, day i applied, response time, keyword overlap %, cover letter type. 240 company's in, the data started telling a really clear story. sharing what i found and what i changed.

#1 timing was the single biggest lever

applied within 24 hrs of the job posting: ~18% response rate
applied 2-7 days after posting: ~6%
applied 7+ days after posting: ~2%

recruiters close their shortlist by around day 5. linkedin's "last 24 hours" filter is now permanently turned on for me.

#2 keyword match with the JD has a clear sweet spot

i scored each resume's keyword overlap against the JD (job description) before submitting:

<40% match: ~3% response
40-65% match: ~9%
65-85% match: ~16%
>85% match: dropped slightly too dense reads as spammy/keyword-stuffed

aim for 65-85%. below, ATS filters you out. above, humans see right through it.

#3 bullet ORDER inside each role matters more than i expected

ran two versions on similar roles:

A: bullets in original chronological order
B: same bullets, but the ones matching the JD pulled to the top of each role

~40% higher response rate on B, identical content. recruiters skim the top 2-3 bullets per role and decide whether to keep reading. moving the relevant ones up changes everything.

#4 cover letters aren't dead, but generic ones may as well not exist

generic cover letter: ~6% response
no cover letter at all: ~7% (basically the same)
short cover letter (3 lines) referencing something specific from the JD or company: ~14%

the lesson: write a real one or skip it entirely. half-effort cover letters get ignored.

#5 warm intros outperformed everything by a wide margin

for 20 company's i actually researched someone at the company on linkedin and sent: "I applied for X role recently, would you be open to a 15-min chat about the team?"

5 of 20 (25%) led to a referral or warm intro
3 of those 5 ended in actual interviews

nothing else came close. but it costs ~10 min per role of research + outreach, so it's not a volume play.

what i actually do every day now:(tldr)

only apply to jobs <48 hrs old (linkedin "last 24 hours" filter on)
each company: tailor the resume (keywords + bullet reorder) + 3-line cover letter referencing one specific thing
top ~30% of roles i actually want do the warm intro hunt
log everything in the tracking sheet

tool note (full disclosure):

somewhere around company 80, the manual tailoring + bullet reorder for 25 min per app made me want to launch my laptop into the sun. so i ended up building (hirely.me) to handle it paste a JD, get a tailored resume + 3-line cover letter back in ~3 min. (full disclosure: it's mine, built it for my own job hunt and kept it running.)

for folks reading this on this sub: comment/DM "reddit" below and i'll comp you a free month first 10 from this sub only.

happy to answer questions on any of the data above.

reddit.com

u/BeautifulAntelope349 — 12 days ago

▲ 118 r/critiquemyresume+6 crossposts

It started because I watched people around me (and myself) apply to 50+ jobs and get nothing back. Not rejections but just silence.

I went deep into researching why. Turns out over 75% of resumes never reach a human. They're killed by ATS ; automated systems that score your resume against the job description. Wrong keywords = filtered out, regardless of how qualified you are

So I built hirely.me an AI job application assistant that actually fights this

Here's what it does:

→ Paste any job description
→ It rewrites your resume to match exactly what that ATS is scanning for
→ Gives you an ATS compatibility score so you know your odds before you apply
→ Generates a cover letter tailored specifically to that role

There are 3 ways to use it depending on how much you want to automate:

Get the ATS score + resume rewrite, then apply manually yourself
Use the rewritten resume + cover letter as a complete application kit, ready to paste anywhere
Let it handle the full rewrite across multiple applications in one session

The goal is simple: stop letting an algorithm decide you're unqualified before a human ever reads your name

would love to hear what you think

u/BeautifulAntelope349 — 7 days ago