I'm probably somewhat older than most here. What OP is describing is what used to be normal and should still be!

In the past it was normal to write a CV (resume) and a covering letter that was mildly tailored to each target firm, either in response to a job advert or on spec. I'm not talking quill pens here - you'd do a mail merge and buy a really large book of stamps.

Linked In is possibly the worst thing that ever happened to HR but it was inevitable and someone else would do it instead if they did not.

The whole point is ... show interest, actual interest in an employer you are interested in and whatever they are doing. Find a way in. If they only use LLM based 'bots and can't be arsed with a 'phone call then fuck 'em!

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zahrevsky an hour ago | parent | next [-]

The craziest part is that this tailored approach is now a red flag, because HR just assumes your covering letter is LLM-generated.

“Damn kids, they're all alike” vibes.

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kevin_thibedeau 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I abandoned cover letters when I showed up to an interview and the interviewer complained that my resume was too thin. That was on purpose because a lot of the meat was in the cover letter that he never received. I just merged them and gave up on customization when ATSs started being used to cull 99% of applicants.

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tayo42 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I feel like companies that are genuinely interesting are pretty rare.

Then you'll still get two rounds of leet code and system design.

	▲	gerdesj 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Well my little company has at least three employees that came back again after leaving. Two of them are still here. We are not particularly interesting ... What I'm advocating for here is trying out new (old) methods of waving your CV/resume at an employer. I graduated as a civil engineering technician (BTEC HND) in the UK in 1990. I did a "sabbatical" ... cough rag (basically pissed up for a year for charity is a fair description of that). The building industry in the UK collapsed in 1991 along with a rather nasty recession. Obviously I ended up in IT! It took a while but I completely reskilled and to cut a very long story short in 2000 me and a couple of other chaps formed a little company that is still running. Enough of me. Getting hired is hard but I would suggest that you don't simply rely on Linked In.