I applied to 40 jobs with a generic resume, then switched to writing a cover note for 3 places and got 2 interviews

Holly Cooper · 2026-09-11T09:15:05.939368+00:00

For about 5 months I was firing off applications with the same resume to anything that looked close to my field. I kept a little spreadsheet, and the count got up past 40 sends. I got 3 canned rejections back total. Then a guy at a meetup in Columbus told me my resume read like a job posting, not like me. So I tried something different. I picked only 3 places I actually wanted, looked up the person who would likely read it, and wrote 5 sentences saying why that specific shop and what I could do for them on day one. Two of those three emailed back within a week. The difference was not my skills, because it was the same resume under the note. It was that someone could tell I was not blasting the same thing everywhere. The 40 spray approach felt busy but it was just noise. Has anyone else had better luck with a small handful of targeted apps over volume, and how do you pick which few to go after?

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I applied to 40 jobs with a generic resume, then switched to writing a cover note for 3 places and got 2 interviews | Career Advice - SMM Buzz