Has anyone here successfully landed a tech job without any personal connections or referrals at all, purely from cold applications? If so, what do you think made your application stand out enough to actually get noticed among all the competition?

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When a employer needs a 'body in the chair' to get paid by the client, the process to get hired is quick & they will often want me onsite within 3 days.
When the company is window shopping, they will waist time relisting the same job every month thru 3-10 recruiting companies that get paid nothing if the employer does not hire anyone. There is no fine or penalty for an employer that keep relisting the same job, so we must same them including: TCS, Humana, Whipro, M Power, & many more.

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I just responded to a recruiter's email....I wasn't even searching for a job. My boss told me after I got hired that he got the sense from the interview that I was driven and independen....thinking from a customer's perspective.

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I've interviewed at Microsoft, Google, and soon with Oracle, all by cold applying to their website. A recruiter found me on LinkedIn for my role at IBM, though that was well before the current tech craziness.

I haven't landed a role yet, but getting to interview at these companies does at least indicate my value in the market. There is nothing special about my resume, nor have I used AI to tailor to the job description. I literally used the same resume for all three applications mentioned above. I did work at Microsoft before IBM, sp perhaps having those names on my CV is what is garnering attention.

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I’ve been looking since Oct and the only interviews I’ve had have been with companies where I was referred.

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This is the way….

Lucky if you apply and get asked to proceed, let alone make it all the way to the offer.

I’ve gotten two offers through recruiters in the last 3months.

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I haven’t changed employer for 15 years, but it was just via a recruiter sending me a role while I was looking. Job before that was just directly responding to a job advert from a small business.

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Got a hand full of interviews via cold applying and interviews 100% of the time via referral; however, no offers. It's an employer's market and they're luxuriously looking for unicorns if the work is remote. If the mandate is come into the office they'll take the winning show horse over the unicorn as butts in seats is sometimes more important than over-the-top qualifications. My challenge is being either over qualified or there is someone else who edged me out on one qualification. There's just SO much competition. Literally thousands of people per job.

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My 1st "IT" job was with Sharp Electronics on their consumer support hot line. I got that job through a staffing company, like Manpower or something.

Every position since then has built on that experience. I have never gotten a position because I knew someone.

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I moved overseas and moved back in 2009… I found a position via a recruiter. Since then, every single move has been via a contact or referral. At one point when I was looking about 8 years ago, I did get a couple of interviews based on submitted resumes. The only thing I can think of is tailor the content and the cover letter.

However, I expect that was prior to a lot of AI résumé screening, etc. so I think it might be very different now

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In 2023, I landed a role with a company because I had specific experience with some software that was causing them some headaches. Ironically, the type of integration that they had was completely different, but at the very least, the knowledge of the software was enough for them to be interested in me.

I know the market is very different now, but in some circumstances, familiarity with certain types of software that are causing pain for a team might get you a callback on an unreffered position

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Jobs are so specific today this seems to be the best way to get in. It’s a very weird job market. Never used to be like that. Very niche job descriptions.

I can't even get a job when being referred by multiple people, but I'm a white female and I'm in my 40's.

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Age discrimination is RAMPANT. It’s been around for so long it’s sad. I hope you find something.

Yes and it's completely random

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Are you doing same(project Hunting)? 😂

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Hi Members,

If anyone have a good referralls for IT organization for Quality Analyst of experience 3+ yrs with Below skills please do refer

Skills
Manual Testing
Functional Testing
Non Functional Testing
Agile Methodology
Api Testing
Webservice Testing
Postman
Jira
TFS
Test Manager
Test Cases
Test Plans
Regression Testing
Retesting
Selenium Java automation

Notice Period 60 days
Thnxs in advance

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likeuplifting

I have been a software developer (professionally) for about 7 years now, but I’ve decided to move out from that job and do something else (still in tech).
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Tbh, I am scared. But I have set myself one year to learn something new.
I also want to go for a job that pays more (55k€ currently). I live in Paris, France, and software developers are not well paid.
Any suggestion for a career transition?

likeuplifting

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