I started my current job in 2023 after a 1.5 year job hunt (Sep 21 to Apr 23). My family and I were trying to move away from our current city, but I wanted a firm job offer before making the move. That offer came, but it wasn't enough to support our needs in the new city, so I accepted an offer from my current job in the same city.
After 2.5 years, I wanted to try to move again because my kid graduates high school in 2026. My partner suggested I start my job search early due to the previous extended job search.
I started my current search in Sep 25. The attached graphic, made using SankeyMatic.com, shows the number of applications submitted, the number of first interviews, the number of second interviews, and the number of offers.
The accepted offer is in a city about 2 hours away, so it's far enough away to require relocation, but not far enough that we can't visit family often. It's with a company that I've been tracking since college (about 12 years now), and it's a great offer with lots of mobility! Needless to say, I'm freaking stoked!
I think I got more interviews over the last 2 months than I did over the entire 1.5 year period of my last job hunt (I didn't track applications back then).
It's been a fast pace this go around, but I think stripping my resume down to only spaces and bolding (bare bones, no italics, no difference in text height, NO BULLETS OR DASHES) is what really allowed it to break through the parsing software. I rarely had to tweak the applications prefilled from my resume.
Also, I've learned that big corporations screen resumes for different types of employment (e.g. I got no traction having only federal government experience, but unexpected attention with non-profit university research center experience). That's the only thing I can see that differentiated this search from the last.
Tracking my applications and doing more research on prospective employers really helped me to see that perspective. Anyway, that's my story. I hope it helps someone! Thanks for reading.
by Critical_Lie1841
4 Comments
Made at SankeyMatic.com using my job application tracking notes
I’m just glad to see a version of this where the number of applications is less than three digits
What is the name of this type of graph? I’m so old, these didn’t exist.
I’m fucking dying in the hunt, what do you mean by this:
> It’s been a fast pace this go around, but I think stripping my resume down to only spaces and bolding (bare bones, no italics, no difference in text height, NO BULLETS OR DASHES) is what really allowed it to break through the parsing software. I rarely had to tweak the applications prefilled from my resume.
I’m at the point where I’ll give any tweak a try.