Well Job Hunting Could Be Better
This might be a hot-take but looking for a job is less than enjoyable right now. The market is over-saturated and AI has made it messy in more ways than one.
Having just been through a layoff and a rapid job hunt, I thought I'd share my little slice of experience. Hopefully this helps someone else out there going through the same thing or at the very least serves as a time-capsule for how things are right now.
What Happened
My previous job officially ended on September 19th, 2025. I loved my time there and it was simply because of unfortunate company performance that I was laid off. This triggered a rather interesting and exciting clock, a financial clock, in fact. I received advice, researched options, updated my resume, and contacted recruiters.
What I Did
I revived a "brand" site I'd started a few months before and started writing content (the makethingswork.dev brand, actually) and worked hard to stay focused, organized, and level. I started a spreadsheet, only applied to jobs I thought I'd like and that I'd be a good fit for, and took relatively good care of myself. I wrote tailored cover-letters for all the jobs that required them and even did some sleuthing and contacted hiring managers directly. I signed up for multiple job sites and tailored my alerts accordingly.
The Results
None of the things from the previous section mattered in the end except the job sites. I didn't quite get my brand site done, none of the cover-letter positions even interviewed me, and my attempt at covert networking resulted in silence. I ended up with perhaps 2 intro interview and a bunch of auto-rejection emails.
What worked? Sheer luck and good timing (and a bit of forethought). I put out over 20 applications and utilized sites like welcometothejungle.com and jobright.ai to help surface job postings. JobRight did not gain my confidence as it uses "ai" to "match" you to "perfect" "jobs". Too many quotes, sorry, got carried away, no going back now.
JobRight showed me many 90+ percent matches that were in no way good matches. WelcomeToTheJungle has a MUCH better algorithm and showed me some excellent postings with a wealth of information. In the end though, it was a JobRight alert that saved the day by letting me know about what it considered to be a 71% match that was posted on LinkedIn a mere 30 minutes prior. I looked at it and the description matched my resume perfectly. Within a week I had a job offer.
The Forethought
The only thing I think that gave me an advantage in the current market was how long I've been doing this and one little tweak I made earlier this year. At my previous company I had begun working on quite a few AI initiatives and asked them to change my title to AI Engineer as 1) it matched better with the work I was doing and 2) I felt like it would serve me well if I happened to lose my job in the near future. It was a risky pivot as the AI market is volatile and ever-changing but with my background I felt like I had enough cushion to fall back on if things go south. The company I applied for was looking for someone to come work on their AI initiatives.
The Takeaways
The world is a random and rather unfair place. I am incredibly thankful for how lucky I've been but I don't think this experience really left me any wiser. I think I'll have less anxiety about it if it happens again but I don't think I have any pearls of wisdom to share other than: play to your strengths and don't be afraid to change things up a bit. Oh, and don't ignore a job just because it says "Hybrid Only" as companies that can support hybrid roles clearly have the infrastructure in place to support remote employees and may make exceptions for good candidates.
Best of luck out there, I'm rooting for you.
-- Rick