It's rough out there right now. Also, not even sure what the benefit or angle is for spamming fake job applications. State actors trying to sabotage?
Edit: We can tell that some of the applications are fake because we have people fail background screenings and often the attached LinkedIn profile is using AI generated images and job histories that don't add up.
Ok, tinfoil hat time. Suppose for a moment that the AI hype is true, and that two years from now everyone will have access to god-like coding ability on the cheap. Even if it's untrue, there are plenty who believe this is the case. Seems to me like there are two ways for that to go:
1. Coding jobs get scarcer and scarcer and the only remaining ones are populated people willing to work unreasonably hard to keep them.
2. Coders being the group with the most on-the-job experience re: driving an AI (acquired back in the days when coding was all it was good for) all quit their jobs to start their own companies--because why bother with the bureaucracy of a large company when you can now do the same work with four employees?
I'm not sure who exactly would want to influence the general vibe towards 1 and away from 2, I guess somebody who believed the hype enough to see 2. as a threat, but not enough to see it as an ideal outcome. Or maybe someone whose product is more valuable against a backdrop of an impossible-to-navigate job market. Whoever they are, DDOSing job applications would be a way to achieve that goal.
With full recognition of the challenge you're having, I'll append that the difficulty level ratchets up from there.
The first thing my kids learned after high school is that ~100% of job portals silently discard applications from 1st-time job applicants.
And from that point, the difficultly levels ratchets upward further for the most minor of criminal records.
Past that there are any number of hidden, algorithmic blackmarks against applicants, from wrong zip codes to sub-stellar credit reports.
Finally, there's one nearly unhireable class, people who interview poorly (ex:freeze up).
I have also been burnt with employees leaving to start their own thing, but that's more the exception compared to engineers who don't deliver much value because they're not actually interested in building stuff or only interested in the programming part of building stuff.
What worked better for me was following founders, recruiters, and other key connections. I’d wait for them to post about roles in their network and apply directly. This strategy landed me a few interviews.
To make this process less manual, I built a tracker that highlights posts from people sharing roles with their private networks. It’s free, so feel free to check it out if you’re in the job market.
I’m also testing video-based applications, which let you track who’s viewing your resume and profile. This feature is paid to help cover server cost. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated and hopefully this helps you land a role!