You finally feel confident in your skills, you’re prepared to sit interviews, you’ve sent out a bunch of résumés, and… nothing! It hurts, I know. And while this can be a touchy subject, it’s worth reflecting upon why you aren’t landing these interviews.

This is a numbers game: have you sent out enough applications?

The first issue I want to call attention to is the fact that the job application process is a numbers game. If you’ve only sent out one, two, or even ten applications, that’s not nearly enough! Even the most experienced engineers won’t hear back after sending out so few applications.

It’s not necessarily that these companies don’t think you’re qualified, but rather a lot of different things can happen:

• These few companies have already filled the position but the job posting is still up
• They selected the candidate the day you sent your application in
• The résumé reviewer didn’t understand your experience and passed on you
• The résumé reviewer isn’t qualified to evaluate software engineering candidates
• Something about your résumé didn’t appeal to the résumé reviewer
• Many of the above

You should apply to many jobs because all of these bullet points are pretty likely to happen. If you send out 50+ applications and don’t hear back, then perhaps you can start thinking there’s something else afoot. Until then: keep applying!

You don’t stand out quickly on paper

This is a numbers game from the perspective of the companies as well. They might be getting hundreds of applications for a single position.

What about your application/résumé helps you stand out?

If you’re hoping they’ll look at your Github projects and think you’ve done some cool work—forget it. The reality is most résumé reviewers don’t have time to check out an applicant’s Github account. They’ll make a decision within one or two minutes of reading a résumé about whether to move on to the next applicant or not.

There are a few different ways an application can stand out:

• A job in big tech or at a one of the FAANG companies (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google)
• Past job experience relevant to the position
• Something unique that the candidate has done on the side to demonstrate passion
• A relevant degree (helpful when you have no work experience)

Do you check any of these boxes? If not, it might be pretty challenging for your résumé to stand out.

If this is the case, don’t be too discouraged—you can take steps to stand out more!

Standing out

There’s not much you can do about never having had a big tech job or not having a degree. Therefore, it makes sense that you’d try to do something on the side that demonstrates passion. Here are a few ideas:

• Contribute to one or multiple open source projects. Add it to your résumé and make your headline something like “Software engineer and open source contributor.”
• Start a blog or website about a software engineering topic. Put it in your résumé.
• Publish a library/package for a language you know.
• Make video tutorials and link your channel on your résumé.
• Deploy an app/website and list it on your résumé.

All of these ideas are more than just projects in Github. They demonstrate an “above and beyond” interest in software engineering, which may be just what you need to stand out in the crowd.

Don’t stop applying

Whatever steps you might think you need to take to increase your chances of being noticed by résumé reviewers, it’s important to not stop applying. Even if you’re in the middle of trying to improve your résumé attractiveness, you should still be applying—it’s a numbers game. Good luck!