Applying feels like progress, so candidates keep applying long after applications stop working. The signal to stop is clear: many applications, no interviews. At that point the bottleneck is preparation, not volume. More applications repeat the same failure with new companies. A week spent preparing beats a month spent applying badly.
Recognising the switch point
- Count responses, not applications. Zero interviews after sustained applying means the application itself needs work.
- Ask a knowledgeable person to review your resume honestly, and act on what they say.
- Practise the most common interview questions for your target roles until answers come smoothly.
- Return to applying only after changing something concrete: the resume, the targeting, or the preparation.
Applying and preparing are both work, but they solve different problems. Doing the wrong one harder never fixes the other.