Agreed. I'd push "work your network" a few steps further and advise people to shamelessly leverage your network.

If you’ve found a job that interests you or even simply a company that appeals to you, get on LinkedIn and see if you have any connections at all at the company. Regardless of how strong or tenuous the connection, reach out to them and ask them if they have any insight into the position. Even if they know nothing about the role, ask them if they can introduce you to someone that does. The worst that will happen is they will simply ignore you so you’re no worse off than if you hadn’t reached out in the first place.

This was recommended to me too. It's more sniper and less shotgun.

Job boards really obscure the fact that so many jobs, as in so much of life, is who you know.

Value your time as a job applicant as much as you value your time as an employee. Don't make yourself just another row in a database. Be a high priority email thread.

Employee referrals is the real job network.

Additionally, attend meetups, present things you are doing as a beginner, let it strike conversations, and let the ensuing experience about talking about something work like be the feeling you leave each other with. In time you'll find something you can bring up with them, or they can bring up with you. Build your network months or years before you ever need anything from it.

I’ve had a handful of referrals go nowhere in the past few months since a layoff, but the worst by far was one where I talked with the former coworker in January shortly after the role was posted, clicked through his referral link to apply, mentioned him in the cover letter, and then waited…

I checked back with him after a few weeks, with no updates. Finally, I checked in with him again just last week – and learned through him that the role had now been filled, all without the company so much as sending me a rejection email.

In an already-demoralizing job search, it was a real gut punch, and despite 10 years of experience, has me really starting to question whether I still have a future in tech.

Sorry to hear your job search has been rough :( the lack of transparency in the interview process is a real problem (i.e getting ghosted by companies) .

I'm working on a product to make the transition from happily employed -> actively looking as easy as possible for candidates by creating a personalized job board of companies interested in you while you aren't looking. Once you are actively looking, I'm trying to address the transparency issues via communication SLAs and automation.

It's in the super early stages, but you can check it out here: https://sharedrecruiting.co/

Let me know if this resonates/what you think!

This resonates. It's a numbers game right now even with experience and referrals. Right now you need like 12-16 referrals, to get 8 recruiter conversations, to get 6 interviews, to get 1-2 offers (if you interview well). These numbers multiply if you interview poorly.

This is the first time I've ever really studied for interviews since college because the effort required to get the interview opportunity is high enough I don't want to wing it and risk getting rejected over something stupid like whether I can implement a dynamic programming solution.

>In an already-demoralizing job search, it was a real gut punch, and despite 10 years of experience, has me really starting to question whether I still have a future in tech.

Wait till you have about 30 years experience, it gets worse.