What am I doing wrong?

Soufiane Amt — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 12:56:52 +0000

I’m a full-stack developer who graduated months ago. Over the last few years, I worked on more than 16 projects (web, DevOps, low-level programming, systems, and others). I also completed a 4-month internship, and because of all this, I’m confident in my skill level.

However, it’s been more than 8 months since I started actively looking for a job or internship as a software developer. I mainly use LinkedIn and Indeed to apply. At first, I was generating emails with ChatGPT and attaching my resume. It took me four months to realize that my resume wasn’t even ATS-friendly, which meant that if a recruiter was using an ATS for filtering, my CV wouldn’t even pass the first stage—regardless of its content.

So I redesigned my resume into an ATS-readable format. After another three months of applying, I still didn’t land a single interview.

I felt really bad about that, so I started looking for possible reasons. I uploaded my resume to Reddit and asked the community to review it. I received feedback such as:

Existing typos

Lack of metrics and numbers

Unattractive theme

Missing profile summary

No skill level indicators (Advanced / Intermediate / Beginner)

And other points

After fixing these issues and getting a higher score on platforms like ResumeWorded, I made sure there were no major problems left in my resume. In the meantime, I realized that my email text sounded very AI-generated. I’m sure many candidates are doing the same thing, and I’ve seen recruiters complain about this, calling it a red flag. They say it shows a lack of effort in reading the job description or learning about the company, and sometimes it even signals bot usage because it doesn’t sound natural.

So instead of sending cold, soulless emails, I started reading about each role and company before applying and writing a custom email for each one. I even began recording a one-minute video introducing myself, expressing interest in the role, and sharing the link in the email. I also included a short video presentation of one of my recent projects to stand out from the crowd.

Now it’s been a month of doing all this, and still nothing—except for one interview where I received very positive feedback. I was advised to start deploying my projects live so recruiters could review them easily. That’s exactly what I did: I rebuilt my portfolio website with a better design and recently deployed two of my web projects.

As you can see, it took me more than 8 months to take all the feedback seriously and apply it gradually. Each time, I hoped that fixing another issue would finally lead to job offers—but eventually, nothing happened.

So my question is: what am I doing wrong?
And is there anything to know to standout in the job market that I should know ?

DEV Community: Soufiane Amt

What am I doing wrong?