How to get more interviews

I understand that many people are burned out by their interview journey or angry at the current job market. I have a lot of empathy for that, and I plan to write a separate piece about mental well-being soon. However, this one is specifically for those who are actively job hunting and looking to refine their strategy for getting interviews. Here is my mental model for landing an interview without being burned out.

Step 1: Assess your motivation

Only target roles you genuinely care about and can see yourself doing for a few years. Whether you are driven by a pay raise, a move to a new city, or a passion for a specific product area, having a clear objective increases your resilience. When you actually want the job, doing the hard work I'm going to share in the following steps feels much more natural.

Step 2: Identify skill gaps

Research the company and the hiring team to get to at least a conversational level about their products. Look honestly at the job requirements and identify gaps in your own experience (you can get help from AI). For instance, if you are applying for an AI engineering role, you need to understand AI engineering principles. If you want to step up from an EM to a Director role, you need to know what a successful director looks like. If you aren't ready to close those gaps, reassess your motivation or pivot to a different role.

Step 3: Tailor your CV to the job

Do not broadcast a generic CV to every company, since recruiters and hiring managers assess candidates based on how well their experience matches the role. Make sure your resume highlights the right keywords and articulates your past achievements to match the job requirements. For example, if you are a technical lead applying for an EM role, add a bullet for your impact on team health by making good tech decisions, or how you coached team members to remove a major blocker. Again, you can scale this with AI or many existing tools on the market for formatting and advice, but make sure to use your own wording that reflects the best of yourself without exaggerating.

Step 4: Leverage your network

Check if anyone in your network currently works at the target company. When I was hiring for an EM about four months ago, people around me were all introducing their friends to me, and it got my attention much more quickly. In addition, many companies offer referral bonuses, so employees are usually highly motivated to refer strong candidates. If you know who the recruiter or hiring manager is, send them a thoughtful message on LinkedIn explaining why you are a fit. Knowing that most CVs get buried in the ocean of CVs received on the other end, a warm introduction largely increases your chances of being noticed.

Step 5: Manage your expectations

Have realistic expectations about the timeline of your application. Sometimes you will get a recruiter screen within a week. Other times, you might be waiting weeks just to hear back, so try not to stress. Once, I had a recruiter who checked my LinkedIn profile multiple times for a month before he actually contacted me for a call. If you don't hear back, it could be that there are already a lot of candidates waiting, and the recruiter might be the bottleneck in this process.

Step 6: Keep building momentum

Keep doing great work at your current job, or focus heavily on a personal project. Continue learning and closing the skill gaps you identified in step two. For people who are still in their current role, I know it's hard to keep your motivation if your mind is somewhere else, but staying active makes your mind sharper, keeps your skills fresh, and stops you from overthinking.

That's the model. None of it is about grinding harder; it's about pointing your effort where it actually moves the needle. If you want to share what's worked for you, the original thread is over on Reddit. Once you've landed the interview, the rest of the interview-prep guides cover how to pass it.