I was laid off as part of a layoff large enough to trigger the WARN act, so I was put on garden leave for 60 days.. I was fortunate to find a new job and start it exactly as the garden leave expired.
It was my first job search in the post-COVID era, aka the era of remote work, and wow was it different. Traditionally, I'd see a handful of jobs that looked interesting each week, and would be one of a handful of applicants. Now that geography isn't really a barrier, there were far more options, but far more applicants. I'd see 20+ roles per week that were a good fit, but each would have 40-200+ applicants, even for the senior (Director/VP) level roles I was looking for.
I've got over 20 years experience from startup to massive tech companies, and applied to 58 jobs. 12 of those led to an initial discussiopn with a recruiter, and 3 of those led to a full interview loop and 1 job offer.
Since accepting the job offer, I've heard from 4 more of the companies I applied to and they were interested in going forward with the process. For each, it was at least 5 weeks since my initial application.
It was pretty much 99% LinkedIn, but with the huge caveat that the job I accepted was one I found on Indeed. That said, I gave up on Indeed pretty quickly because it mostly showed irrelevant jobs (not software engineering, far too junior, etc).
Sifting through the noise was tough. I resorted to a daily alert for each job title, since that kept the number to process each day down to a manageable level, and I made strong use of the "hide this job" function of LinkedIn to keep ones that didn't feel like a good fit from popping up again.
I know a huge part of it is the numbers gain. Since those were all remote roles, they probably had > 200 applicants each. I did develop an appreciation for the companies that at least replied at some point to say they weren't interested vs. just disappearing.
It was my first job search in the post-COVID era, aka the era of remote work, and wow was it different. Traditionally, I'd see a handful of jobs that looked interesting each week, and would be one of a handful of applicants. Now that geography isn't really a barrier, there were far more options, but far more applicants. I'd see 20+ roles per week that were a good fit, but each would have 40-200+ applicants, even for the senior (Director/VP) level roles I was looking for.
I've got over 20 years experience from startup to massive tech companies, and applied to 58 jobs. 12 of those led to an initial discussiopn with a recruiter, and 3 of those led to a full interview loop and 1 job offer.
Since accepting the job offer, I've heard from 4 more of the companies I applied to and they were interested in going forward with the process. For each, it was at least 5 weeks since my initial application.