u/HerbertBay

In January this year, I had to shut down my startup and suddenly found myself applying for jobs again.

I sent out 100+ applications with a solid resume… and got mostly ghosted.

At first I thought:

• maybe my experience isn’t relevant
• maybe the market is just bad

But after looking closer, the issue was simpler:

My resume was too generic for each role.

I tried:

• tweaking bullet points
• using AI resume tools
• different templates

Everything looked polished, but still didn’t lead to responses.

What actually made a difference was this:

Instead of treating my resume as one document, I started tailoring it to each job:

• matching keywords from the job description
• emphasizing only relevant experience
• rewriting bullet points to show clear outcomes

Doing this manually was slow, so I built a small tool to help me with it.

After that, I started getting:

• more replies
• more interview invites
• more relevant conversations

Ended up with multiple offers and just started a new job this month.

Big takeaway:

A good resume isn’t enough anymore, it has to be aligned with the specific job.