I have been wanting to switch from last 2 years now. After contemplating for many months I finally started notice period without any offer in hand due to 90 days. I figured my 90 days is a constraint hence while being on notice should get me more calls and replies from recruiters.

I started applying with tailored resume and cover letter, sometimes it took 3-4 hours for a single application. I reached over 150+ companies across career portal and other job portals but the painstaking process was applying via their career portal.

I was thinking about how many interviews i would be attempting but not a single application got a revert or even a reply from human.

I received rejection email from maybe 2-3 companies for not being shortlisted.

I attempted 4 interviews in last 4 weeks and 3 of them reached out to me because they could find me on the job portal as someone who is on notice period but they eventually ghosted me as well possibly due to weaker role alignment.

I gave 1 interview via referral which today converted to offer. Apparently the interviewer was so impressed with my interview that he aligned me to the most critical department of his span and HR who was crying about giving 50% hike ended up giving 70%.

I am pretty sure most jobs on their career portal are fake or was created for some referred candidate which they already onboarded but didn’t bother to pull down the posting.

Only thing which works is referral, so make sure to socialize with your colleagues as much as you can. The one who referred me was one of the closest friends from work who genuinely cares about me hence he took extra efforts to get me selected.

Job market is so fucked that you will have to do things you are not comfortable with, reaching out to people is the only option available.