I wish I could say job hunting feels better this year, but let’s be honest. It still kind of sucks.
You’re doing all this work, polishing resumes, writing polite emails, pretending to be upbeat in interviews – and half the time, it feels like you’re applying into the void. And when you do hear back, it’s either a rejection that feels like it was written by a bot, or worse, a recruiter who ghosts you right after saying you’re a “great fit.”
Anyway. If you’re in the thick of it right now, I want to help. Not with vague advice like “just network more,” but with actual tools I’ve used. Stuff that saved my time or sanity or at least made me feel a little less useless at 2 AM when I was trying to pull myself together enough to apply for another role I wasn’t sure I even wanted.
Here’s what’s in my current arsenal.
1. A Cover Letter Generator That Doesn’t Make You Hate Yourself
I used to hate writing cover letters. Like deeply hate. I’d open a blank doc and just sit there, spiraling. “Dear hiring manager, I’m passionate about… whatever this job is about?” It felt fake. Or worse, desperate.
Then someone in a job search group I’m part of sent me a link to a free tool they’d found – InterviewPal’s Cover Letter Generator. I rolled my eyes at first because most tools like that just churn out the same tired paragraph with your name swapped in. But this one actually worked. You upload your resume, paste the job description, and it doesn’t just rewrite the same bland fluff – it pulls out real experience from your resume and phrases it in a way that sounds like you, if you were less exhausted and a little more articulate.
I started using it as a base. I’d tweak the intro or throw in a story, but it cut the time it took me to write a decent letter down from two hours to like twenty minutes. Honestly, that alone saved me from giving up a few times.
2. BeamJobs for Resumes That Don’t Make You Look Boring
My old resume looked like a college project. Center-aligned, Times New Roman, way too much text. I thought more words = more impressive. Nope.
I tried a bunch of resume tools before I landed on BeamJobs. What I liked about it is that it doesn’t try to be cute. It just works. The layouts are clean and pass through ATS systems. The AI suggestions actually make sense – it doesn’t tell you to add buzzwords for no reason. It nudged me to focus on metrics and responsibilities that mattered, and more importantly, it helped me cut stuff. That’s something no one tells you. Trimming a resume is way harder than writing one.
If you already have a resume, you can upload it and it’ll just clean things up. If you don’t, it walks you through it. I used it to make three versions depending on the job I was applying for. Is it overkill? Maybe. Did it get me callbacks? Yeah.
Remotive: A Remote Job Board That Isn’t Full of Garbage
I’ve wasted so many hours on job boards that feel like spam traps. You apply and suddenly you’re getting shady emails about “freelance crypto marketing” or whatever.
Remotive is one of the few places that didn’t make me feel like I was being scammed. It’s mostly remote roles, mostly legit tech and operations stuff. Not all of it is gold, and some of the listings are already closed even if they look active. But I bookmarked the search I cared about and checked every morning while making coffee.
There’s something about seeing fresh postings that gives you a weird sense of momentum, even when you’re still unemployed. Maybe it’s just placebo, but I’ll take it.
4. One Spreadsheet to Rule Them All
Not a tool, but I swear by it. I have a single spreadsheet that tracks every job I’ve applied to. It has five columns: company, role, status, date applied, and a link to the job listing (because they always vanish after two weeks). I color-code them depending on whether I heard back.
Sounds dumb, but when you’ve applied to 45 roles in two weeks and a recruiter calls you about something you don’t even remember sending, you’ll be glad you have a reference. Also keeps you sane when you’re tempted to apply again to the same role, which yes, I’ve done.
5. Notes App Therapy
Every time I get rejected – or even when I don’t hear back – I write a quick note about what I think went wrong. Not to beat myself up, but to learn. Sometimes I realize I was unprepared. Sometimes I realize I just didn’t want the job in the first place. Sometimes it’s just “they probably already had someone in mind.” Either way, it helps me keep moving without taking every silence personally.
No app for this. Just your phone. It helps. Trust me.
6. One Tool for Practicing Interviews (That Doesn’t Make You Feel Dumb)
So I’m a bit weird, I practice interviews out loud, pacing around my apartment. But I found it way easier when I started using InterviewPal again for this. It has this feature where it just throws you questions based on your resume or the job listing, and you can answer them out loud. Then it gives you feedback. Not perfect, but better than talking to yourself or dragging a friend into a fake interview for the fifth time.
There’s also a feature that helps you come up with smart questions to ask at the end, which sounds small, but saved my ass in a couple interviews where the hiring manager said “Any questions for me?” and my brain short-circuited.
7. Chrome Extensions I Never Knew I Needed
Small stuff, but it adds up:
- Grammarly for tweaking messages without sounding like a robot.
- Tab suspender because you will have 37 job listings open at once.
- Screenshot tool so you can save listings before they vanish into the internet void.
Here’s the thing. You don’t need all the tools. You just need a few that keep you sane, help you move a little faster, and maybe give you a small edge.
Sometimes that edge is enough. Sometimes it’s not. That’s the worst part about job hunting. You can do everything right and still not get the job. But if something helps you stay in the game without burning out, it’s worth keeping.
And yeah, maybe some of these tools won’t be your thing. That’s fine. The goal here isn’t to find a silver bullet. It’s to keep yourself in motion. One decent cover letter. One better resume. One more role you wouldn’t have found on your own.
If nothing else, know this – you’re not the only one tired of pretending you’re not tired. You’re not crazy for thinking this system is broken. It is.
But we can still game it. A little.