Pre-2020 job hunting vs now, is the old way actually better?

I spent 11 years in retail management and my last job search in 2018 was all handshake and phone call stuff, got a position in 3 weeks. This month I've sent out 40 online applications through portals, only got 2 automated rejections and one callback from a recruiter that ghosted me in Dallas. Meanwhile my buddy uses AI to tailor his resume for every posting and he's getting interviews left and right, but he also gets canned in the first round because he can't handle their behavioral questions. I'm starting to think the personal connection thing died, but is the new algorithm-first approach actually finding better fits, or are we just pleasing computers? Anyone else seeing this split between old-school networking and modern application systems?

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evangarcia1mo ago

I gotta push back a little here because the old way was not some magic bullet either, it just had different pain points. Before all the online portals you were mailing resumes or walking in and praying somebody actually read it, and if you did not know someone on the inside you were basically toast. The tech just made the gatekeeping faster and more invisible, but the game was always about who you know and who will vouch for you. Your buddy getting interviews with a tailored resume but tanking the first round is proof that a bot can get you in the door but it cannot make you a good hire. The people I see landing solid jobs now are doing both, using the online stuff to get seen and then finding a real human to talk to before the interview.

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