I’ve applied to between 550-600 jobs since December and hardly heard anything back. The past two weeks recruiters started reaching out to me and at this point I’m at least having early round discussions with 5 companies. They’re mostly smaller and somewhere in the health care space, but I went from virtually 0 to having something. Obviously it’s early stages so you can’t count on anything, but it looks like things may be picking up again.
I think there’s some widespread regret about AI not being good enough to replace your whole dev team with one new grad project manager who just clicks yes on 100 Claude code sessions.
If only there was a way to test if the new path is sound before burning all the bridges behind you. But I guess that’s crazy talk, there’s literally nothing those brave CEOs could have done better.
They had a really really really hard choice though
Be “behind” on AI with the shareholders, or drop expenses and pretend using ChatGPT/Claude makes them unique for the shareholders!
Yes they are picking up in the US. I was also looking same timeline as you, finally got a job I start next week.
I have started getting some unsolicited Linkedin messages again about job offers instead of try out new AI software.
Do note that December is the tail of the budget year. First and second quarter is when many companies execute the year’s strategy and burn budget. Third quarter is a bit late but still active.
For us, our clients came out hot and heavy the first two quarters, more than doubling the order totals for 2025. Hiring was hectic for most of Q1 and all of Q2. Q4 is pretty dead most of the time.
500-600 applications!? Sounds like you are putting low effort into sending a lot of applications rather than high effort into a few.
Uh, linkedin is that way >>
What are you talking about? 500 applications is clearly way too many for them to be serious. You’re basically spamming at that point.
not quite, I did every generally recommended approach, applying on their websites, messaging their recruiters, custom hand typed cover letters. In the past I never even needed to really apply because I was fielding so many calls from recruiters. This year’s been a whole lotta nothing
Remember seeing an article somewhere saying people are starting to hire again.
Im seeing the same thing. Although im not really looking.
If you’re in Romania, my company is also hiring (or hired, may have stopped now).
We hired 3 people in less than a year. But applications were en masse. Most people were pretty dumb. I think we hired about 1 in 100 people. Applications closed within a week usually.
I’d move to Romania about now.
We were hiring in Spain and took way longer, and CV often looked better than the candidate, and we don’t even do stupid shit like live coding or homework projects
Thanks for the news! Maybe I should pick the job search effort back up here in Australia
It’s the time of year too
Went a couple months without much beyond form letter “we have decided to move forward with candidates who better align with our needs” rejections. Got one internal apply going now for the sad mega Corp I’m at (but a better team, I’m told), and one referral got a call back.
I think referrals are still the way to go. Sadly even that only goes so far.
Yeah, I’ve been getting interviews the past couple months, but I haven’t had any luck so far. Got to the final round a couple times, but I guess they liked someone else they interviewed better.
You were too expensive
I wish that was the case for me.
Yes, I also thought that recently.
