How to Stand Out in a Competitive Engineering Job Market

I just finished reviewing 300 job applications. Here's how the top 5% stood out: Let's face it - AI has made it easier than ever to apply for jobs. But because of that, It's harder than ever to stand out. Take cover letters. Because of AI, almost all are now cleaner (fewer typos, more polish). But they're also all starting to blur together. So, we chose not to require a cover letter, and empowered applicants to be creative. The result? 95% still sent in the same generic letter. But 5% made videos, or Canva one-pagers, or cover letters written from the future. And they grabbed our attention. Today, most jobs get hundreds - sometimes thousands - of applicants. If you want to stand out, you need a few sharp tricks: 1. Ditch the formal cover letter Ex: Only write a cover letter when required. Otherwise, a video or Canva one-pager will win. 2. Offer free and unsolicited value Ex: "I reviewed your onboarding emails and found 3 small changes to boost conversion." 3. Follow every instruction exactly Ex: If they ask you to send 2 items to an email address, don't send 4 through the job posting site 4. Less is always more Ex: If asked for example work, your 3 A+ pieces will beat 10 A- pieces. 5. Share 3 tailored ideas Ex: "Here's a quick 30-60-90 plan based on your product roadmap and team structure." 6. Show a sample or mock project Ex: Make a 3-slide deck outlining how you'd approach their current top challenge. 7. Customize for the company Ex: "I've followed your CEO's podcast for months - her episode on trust stuck with me." 8. Show proof, not fluff Ex: "Here's a dashboard showing that my campaigns improved demo-to-close rate by 38%." 9. Build a personal landing page Ex: Make a Notion page titled "Why I'm a Fit for X" with video, resume, and links. 10. Start with a bold first line Ex: If you MUST write a cover letter, make it interesting: "It's 2030 - here's what hiring me led to..." 11. Reverse-engineer their goals Ex: "I saw your Q3 goals include retention - I've led two churn reduction turnarounds." 12. Cut the clichés Ex: Instead of "detail-oriented," say "I caught a $200k billing error in a vendor invoice." 13. Make your resume skimmable Ex: Bold results like "Grew revenue 48% in Q2" so they pop during a quick scan. 14. Send a thank-you video Ex: "Thanks again - I recorded this to share one more idea I didn't get to mention." Most applicants try to look qualified. The best ones show how they'll make a difference. These tricks won't guarantee you the job. But they'll get you noticed, while everyone else is blending in. Any other secrets you're willing to share? --- ♻️ Repost to help a job applicant in your network. And follow me George Stern for more career growth content.

This is always a tough pill to swallow, but the best companies to work for are not going to lower their bar or make things easier for applicants because this is a tough job market. When a company is flooded with applications, there's no logical reason to make the application process easier. When a company has a huge volume of highly qualified candidates, there's no logical reason for recruiters to set up calls with stretch candidates. When a company has great candidates that are willing to commit to their interview process, there's no logical reason for them to simplify that interview process. When a company has candidates who know their product and are excited to work there, there's no logical reason for them to consider someone that shows up to the interview and asks what it is they do. This is why my best advice is always: 1. Quality over quantity. Focus on a small number of positions you are genuinely well qualified for and interested in, and put in the effort to stand out in the process. 2. Do your research. Understand what the company is all about AND ask questions to assess whether it's the right fit. Show them you're genuinely looking for a company you can commit to and grow with. 3. Network and engage with the company. Follow them and comment on their posts. Connect with recruiters and people in the department you're interested in. Let people know you applied and why you're excited about the opportunity. 4. Respond positively to rejections. "Thanks so much for the update, while I'm disappointed by the outcome, I continue to be really excited about COMPANY, and will be on the look out for future opportunities. If you have any tips to stand out next time around, I'll take them!" will go a lot further then, "I submitted a perfect application and you're an idiot. Your loss." (This isn't even hyperbole - I get messages like this every few weeks.) 5. Opt out. If a process seems predatory, don't do it. Give them feedback. If companies can't hire the talent they want, they will have to evolve. Will this work every time? No, of course not. It's a tough market with lots of awesome people out there. But I watch my team put out offers every week to people who have applied with us 2, 3, 4+ times. I see candidates deciding between multiple offers regularly. I see people landing interviews who use these strategies. What I pretty much never see? People landing interviews who wrote "NA" on all the application questions. People who berate our team getting interviews. And finally, if you think my advice is bad or out of touch, don't follow it! What I post is just my opinions based on my experiences. It may not be relevant to your industry or context. And if your approaches are working for you, then don't change anything. But if they aren't, maybe these tips will help!

As engineers we are really good at being technical... 👇🏼 Dependency injection, TDD, Clean Code, Reverse Proxies… we are all in. But there’s something simpler but harder we struggle with... And it’s makes you standout when interviewing, and looking to grow as an engineering leader (senior and beyond roles). Taking on challenging, high-impact projects. AND. Quantifying those project wins to business outcomes and wins. 🧠 We are technical superstars, so what often happens internally in conversations, or when interviewing is we go deeeep into the technicalities. “I rebuilt our build system from webpack 1.x to webpack 4.0 and removed the x/y/z security vulnerability, and speed up load times significantly.” Sounds impressive… But for product, business, and hiring leaders, it’s hard to really understand how valuable and impactful that was. What if instead for the same project, you were able to say: “I identified that our build system had several security vulnerabilities. I also discovered it cost our engineers 125 hrs / month waiting for builds to complete. I spearheaded an effort to upgrade this system, and led the team to fix our security issues, and decrease build times by 78%. Combined these measures saved our business approx $150,000 / yr.” Ok now you have their interest… they can’t wait to dive in more and ask follow up questions and learn more about the project. 🔥 But how can you get stories like that? Brag docs. – Keep a daily log of project updates + learnings. – Summarize these into meaningful impact every 2 weeks. – Summarize those wins again every 2-3 months into top wins/learnings. – Quantify them. Talk with engineering, business and product leaders to get the bigger picture and some impact numbers. – Use these wins/learnings in resumes, performance reviews, interviews, etc. Taking on challenging projects is key to your success. Don’t stop there. Quantify and document those wins. ✔️ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - If you liked this post, you’ll probably love my weekly newsletter: https://lnkd.in/e95JH9qH

I've interviewed 47 candidates in the last 3 weeks. Here are 7 things that will help you stand out and land a role: 1. Your alignment to a role comes first. Even if you do everything right and put 110% effort, you won't get an interview if you don't have the must-have skills the JD asks for. 2. Assuming you align with a role, send the hiring manager an EMAIL - not a LinkedIn DM. After posting a job, LinkedIn becomes a flood of notifications. Send a tailored email - something interesting. Example: Someone sent me a one with a subject of "3 reasons you should hire me". That stood out in my inbox and the content backed it up. 3. Connect with the hiring manager on LinkedIn. You want the hiring manager to see you multiple times so you stick in their mind. With the application, email, and connection, that's 3 touch points already. 4. Watch the time in your interview. Whether it's a 5-minute chat or 2-hour chat, make sure you are concise with your answers to fit within the time. You don't want to ramble for 10 minutes, lose your audience, and then the interview is finished. Pause and breath. 5. Turn the interview on them. Ask them questions before they get into interview mode. End your interview answers with follow-up questions. Close with great questions too. This shows interest and makes it more of a conversation than a performance. 6. Relax. Prepare for an interview, yes, but remember it's just two people chatting (especially first interviews). Prepare properly before and then let fate take it's course. Try to mentally convince yourself that you don't really need it. 7. FOLLOW UP! This isn't a debate. Send a thank you email where you add more value to your conversation. You WILL stand out this way. And if you don't do this, someone else will and you'll look worse. The job market - especially for knowledge workers - is TIGHT. If you want to land that dream role, you have to do what others don't.

In the last 2.5 years, I’ve been on each side of the recruiting table, and each one is uniquely challenging - I was a grad student applying to full time roles and got ghosted from most - I looked to hire engineers for Headstarter earlier this year and got 15000+ applicants across 2 roles (see screenshots below), with hundreds following up everyday for a response - I’ve been serving as a recruiter for the past few months trying to get Headstarter Fellows hired at our partner companies, but got feedback that some of the folks we sent over weren’t good enough Being a student, it’s easy to overlook the intricacies of trying to hire engineers. With so many applicants, trying to filter them down becomes extremely challenging. Being a founder now I know how costly a bad hire can be. A bad candidate I send over to a company as a recruiter can also ruin my reputation. With this experience, here are my tips for how to stand out in the recruiting process: - 𝗔𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹, 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗗𝗠 𝗼𝗻 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻. Recruiters’ LinkedIn DMs get flooded with low quality, low signal outreach. My LinkedIn inbox is flooded with AI generated messages meanwhile my email inbox is open - 𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘀𝘀 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗹𝘆. Be intentional with where you want to work. Every single job posting gets thousands if not tens of thousands of applicants. Applying to roles via an aggregated job board means you put yourself in the same pool as 10k-100k+ people. If you want to get into a startup, email the founder(s) directly. If you want to get into big tech, email an engineer working there directly. The candidates who applied to work at Headstarter and emailed me or Yasin directly were able to get interviews. - 𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗾𝘂𝗲. When we were hiring engineers, every person reached out in a similar way “Hi I am a [X year] at [Y school] studying CS. Based on my skills and experiences, I think your company would be a great fit for me..” - If you truly want to stand out, mention any interesting projects you worked on that are relevant to the company, a technical blog you have, and/or your top 3 achievements. If you don’t have past internship experience, this is where having good personal projects comes into play. For my Founders out there, would love to know what made an applicant stand out to you 👇

Dear Job-Seekers, 2024 is just around the corner. While I know the market is in a precarious position, I do believe we will see companies ramp up their hiring a bit more (new budgets usually become available). It definitely won't be like 2021 or 2022, but based on conversations that I have been having, it appears that it'll be better than 2023. However, unlike 2021/22, when there wasn't enough talent to fill the open opportunities, due to layoffs and such, the market has been flooded with a slew of highly talented individuals seeking their next role. Just remember, statistics show that, on average, hiring managers and/or recruiters only give each resume about 6-7 seconds skim. That's it. Pause right now and count to seven. That's how long you have to catch their attention and show them you're someone they should talk to. I know this can be disheartening, but it's good to know what you're working with! So, what can you do to help make yourself stand out? Here are a few tips to help you stand out amongst your competition: 1. Clean up your resume! Have a clean format that succinctly shows the outcomes you've driven. Heavily highlight the KPIs you've owned on your resume, your goals, and how you performed to those goals. The stats I would like to see are (any of these, not necessarily all): - Gross Renewal - Gross $ Retention - Net $ Retention - NPS - TTFV (time to first value) - CSQLs 2. Read the job description and share how you have solved the problems they describe in your cover letter and, if possible, within your resume. 3. Clean up your LinkedIn!! I am someone who always looks at a candidate's LI page. Have you published anything? Do you have recommendations? Do the titles on your LI match what's on your resume? This can give you a big upper hand (if executed well) and give hiring managers a snapshot of who you are. 4. Create a video introducing yourself and what you'd bring to their team! This personalizes you! Makes you more than just a name. 5. Create an online portfolio that showcases some of the work you have completed (anonymized, so you're not sharing previous customer secrets). This could be LinkedIn, a Notion Page, or a personal website. You get the idea. 6. Network, network, network! Get out there and get to know people. Attend meetups, webinars, and conferences. Most of the time, who you know compliments what you know and helps get you in front of the right people. 7. If you find a company that's hiring, and you're interested in pursuing an opportunity, reach out to someone in CS. Ask them what their experience has been so far. What a day in the life is like. Most folks will reply and offer amazing insights. This is also a great way to get an intro to the recruiter of the hiring team. But as with all things, be respectful. If someone doesn't reply, that's okay! What would you add? Let's help prop each other up and share tips that have helped you land interviews/jobs in this market! 

Want to land a software engineer job in the next 3 months? Here is what you need to focus on! I know we have applied to thousands of roles and are still not moving forward to an interview or an offer. Here is a smart strategy to help you stand out. This is how it actually works: 1. Start building strong projects: Create at least one impactful project that showcases your skills. Post your projects on GitHub & LinkedIn to show real-world problem-solving skills. 2. Master data structures & algorithms (but don’t overdo it): Spend 2-3 hours daily on LeetCode or HackerRank. Focus on improving your problem-solving skills & learn to communicate your thought process clearly in interviews. 3. Revamp your resume & LinkedIn profile: Your resume should highlight impact, not just a task list. Add quantifiable achievements, skills, internships, and projects that showcase real skills. Create visibility by optimizing LinkedIn by starting to regularly post about your projects & learnings. 4. Network with purpose: Reach out to alumni and industry professionals for insights and career guidance. Engage in tech communities, virtual meetups, and LinkedIn webinars to build genuine connections. Be thoughtful when requesting referrals, focus on adding value, not just asking for help. 5. Practice mock interviews regularly: Set up weekly coding & system design interviews with peers or mentors. Prepare for behavioral interviews, your communication equally matters as much as your coding skills. Record your practice sessions to improve your responses. Finally, your action plan: Pick one major project to complete within the next 4-6 weeks. Dedicate consistent daily time for coding, mock interviews, networking, and learning. Keep applying strategically while improving your skills. The next 90 days can shape your career!! What is the first step you are taking today? Drop it in the comments! 👇 Follow Lakshmi & Everyone Who Codes (EWC) for daily tech job updates, career insights, and the latest opportunities! Everyone Who Codes (EWC) has a simple mission: to guide engineers to find a job! DM me for any questions or mentoring support! #softwareengineer #softwaredeveloper #jobsearch #jobs #layoff #interview #newgrads #hiring #hiringalert #internship #jobsearch #engineering ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 🙋♀️ I am Lakshmi Marikumar, founder of Everyone Who Codes (EWC), I have guided over 1000+ engineers!

Are you a student or early-career professional struggling to get callbacks after submitting your resume? I’ve been there. During my first year of grad school, I blamed the job market when I didn’t get a single interview for nearly seven months. I started applying for Summer 2024 internships in August 2023, but didn’t receive my first callback until March 2024. Over time, I began refining my resume based on what the industry values and what it takes to stand out. That made all the difference. Here are some of the most important lessons I’ve learned: 1. Keep the Format Simple Avoid horizontal lines, text-heavy formatting, or excessive bolding. They clutter your resume and make it harder to read. Could you stick to one page? If you can’t explain your work clearly and concisely, you’re not ready to present it. 2. Don’t Just List Tools or Describe the Problem, Explain What You Did Many students focus too much on the business problem (“Built a dashboard for retail analytics”) and gloss over the engineering behind it. Even worse, some just list the tools used: “Used Python, Flask, and AWS to build a service that did X.” Instead, go deeper. What did your Flask service do, exactly? What challenges did you face? What decisions did you make? As engineers, we’re expected to show technical depth. If your resume can’t reflect that, you’ll struggle to stand out, especially for technical roles. 3. Be Realistic with Metrics Many resumes include lines like: “Improved model accuracy from 12% to 95%.” This kind of stat, usually influenced by generic advice from career centers or the internet, raises red flags. It often signals that the project wasn’t technically complex to begin with. Instead of inflating numbers, focus on what you improved, how you improved it, and why your work mattered. Strong technical framing > flashy percentages. 4. Clarity > Buzzwords You might write something like: “Leveraged CUDA for token-level optimization of transformer inference under real-time constraints.” It sounds cool, but what does it mean? This happens when people assume the reader will be as familiar with the project as they are. But if someone in your field has to guess what you did, you’ve already lost them. Don’t rely on buzzwords to do the talking; let clarity drive the message. 5. Your Resume Isn’t for You Your resume isn’t meant to impress you. It’s intended to communicate what you’ve done to people who don’t share your background. Most first-round reviewers aren’t ML engineers or CUDA developers. They often rely on keyword checklists and rubrics to decide which resumes move forward. The one thing that matters is: Can you clearly explain what you did and why it mattered? That’s it. Feel free to put your thoughts in the comments. Follow me for more advice!

I've reviewed 100+ CS student profiles who still don't have jobs yet. The pattern I discovered? They're putting their eggs in too many baskets. I made this exact mistake during grad school - applying to software engineering, data science, AND analytics roles simultaneously. Months of failed OAs and rejections. Then I focused on just data engineering and analytics. Everything changed. Recruiter calls started coming in and my interview performance improved dramatically. Here's what you should do instead: 🎯 Pick ONE role and go all-in. When you focus on a specific path, you can: • Tailor your resume to match exactly what those roles require • Practice only the technical skills that actually matter for interviews • Build a portfolio that demonstrates relevant experience • Connect with people already doing the work you want I know what you're thinking – "But what if I pick the wrong specialization?" Here's the reality: a targeted job search beats a broad approach every time. You're better off being a strong candidate for fewer roles than a weak candidate for many. Even if your chosen field has fewer openings, you'll stand out more when your background actually aligns with what companies need. How to choose your focus: 1. Review your projects - Which ones showcase skills you want to use daily? 2. Consider your experiences - What internships, clubs, or side work energized you most? 3. Pick your strongest area - In this tough market, lead with what you're genuinely good at 4. Commit fully - You can always pivot later, but scattered effort gets you nowhere The key is demonstrating depth in your chosen area rather than surface-level knowledge everywhere. If you're currently applying to multiple roles – how has that been working for you?

I talked with Tim Paradis at Business Insider about how people can stand out even in a tough job market, and his piece has great data and ideas. You can read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/gBiNXMyc We talked about our recent Chief of Staff search at Rising Team, and what helped the top candidates move forward. My top tips: 1) Send something that stands out: This was the main point of the article—for the jobs I've hired for, the people who send something extra, beyond what is required, always stand out. It could be a video, slides, a prototype, anything that shows you care enough to put in extra effort. It should be specific to the company, not just about you, to show that you did your research and understand the specific role and the company. This is a strategy very few people use and can work for anyone, even without connections or without the exact experience of doing the role before. 2) Be thoughtful about how you use AI: We all know that AI can help us write faster, and often better and more clearly than we do on our own. It can also help people apply rapidly to many jobs. The challenge is that it can also make us all sound the same. In fact ~100 of the 800 applicants for this role started their responses to our questions with the same 2 sentences. If you want to use AI, make sure to start with a more creative prompt (not just the direct question that was asked) and do significant editing to make it sound like you. 3) Network: It's still a good idea to use the tried and true strategy of leveraging connections. If you have relationships at the company, reach out to try to get an interview, an introduction, or a recommendation. Even if you don't have a direct relationship, it's worth looking at your 2nd degree connections to see if you know someone who can introduce you or put in a good word. While networking has always been a helpful strategy, it's harder now that so many people are applying to each job, and many people are using this strategy. The good news is that the other strategies above work for people who don't have any connections. One more tip, that I didn't mention in the article—practice your resilience. Job hunting in a tough market is a lot like fundraising (which I've also done a lot of). You will likely get a lot of nos before you get a yes. As long as you can bounce back and keep at it, I believe the right fit is out there for everyone. #hiring #interviewing #jobsearch