Today’s job market is brutal.
In a 2025 analysis of over 10 million job applications from 27 different studies and surveys by The Interview Guys, they discovered that it takes about 42 applications on average to land one interview, with only 3% of candidates receiving job interview call-backs.
Many jobseekers I’ve worked with recently have told me that they’re struggling to secure even just one interview, and they’ve been applying for several months.
So, I combed through the data from different reports and, in the process, I discovered the exact reasons why you hardly landed any interviews despite being on the job hunt for months and, in some cases, even years.
How To Increase Your Chances Of Landing Job Interviews
From the research and reports I’ve pulled from and have shared within this article, you’ll learn:
- How to increase your interview invites by up to 18x
- Why you’re still not getting past the resume and application stage
- The industries where competition is the highest, and where to apply instead if you want to get hired faster
1. Match The Job Title On Your Resume
“Candidates with job titles on their resumes that match the target title from the job listing had an interview rate 10.6 times higher than those who did not.”–Jobscan
This is one of the biggest yet most surprising gamechangers, and for many people, it really is just that simple. Nothing too complex at all. Yet it’s easily overlooked and can cost you 10x your interview invite rate.
Just ensure the job title on your resume matches what’s on the job advert of the role you’re applying for. Only, of course, if it’s an accurate description of what you really did.
For example, if you’re applying for a role as operations manager, but your previous or current job title is “operations lead,” change the title on your resume to operations manager. This is not lying, because the responsibilities are essentially the same, its just that the exact title used to name the role moves interchangeably depending on what company you work at.
2. Write A Tailored Cover Letter
“Cover letters boost interview invite rate by 3.4x higher,” Jobscan notes in their 2025 report, after they surveyed 442 jobseekers.
Not everyone is a fan of cover letters, and this has definitely been the topic of ongoing debate over the six years that I’ve been coaching and advising professionals for their job searches and career growth. It’s one of the most popular questions I see online: “Should I even bother writing a cover letter?” Will the hiring manager even read it?
Well, here’s your answer. It won’t harm throwing it in there.
At the very least, it demonstrates that you put thought, time, and care into your application, and you give yourself a greater opportunity to include aspects of your career and motivations for the role that you wouldn’t have the space to include in your two-page resume.
3. Apply For The Least Competitive Industries
Back to The Interview Guys’ data, some industries have better odds of securing an interview simply because they have less demand, with less applicants per hire. These industries also have standardized qualification requirements and more structured hiring steps which excludes the “spray and pray” candidates.
These industries include (taken directly from their report):
- Education & Childcare: Just 57 applicants per hire (best odds)
- Healthcare and Skilled Trades: Consistently better ratios due to labor shortages
- Government and Social Services: More structured hiring processes with clearer qualification requirements
On the other hand, The Interview Guys’ report notes that the three worst industries to break into and secure an interview, due to the highly competitive nature of the job market and some shrinkage in job postings in these fields, are:
- Automotive Industry: 234 applicants per hire
- Technology: Software development roles show 33% fewer postings than 2020 levels
- Marketing and Media: Communications roles are down 24-26% from pre-pandemic levels
4. Network Strategically
One of my most consistent pieces of advice has been: Tap into the hidden job market.
The “hidden job market” is the idea that there are more jobs (many sources estimate about 70% of all job vacancies) that are not even posted online
That’s right, not on job boards, not on company career pages, not on recruitment agency boards. So where are they?
Before a job gets advertized, there are some internal chatter about who should get the role, and often, employers prefer to go based off the suggestions of their own employees and executives, whose recommendations they’d trust more than paying an agency or job board to post an ad. It’s cost-effective and much simpler.
I landed my first job at 17, through taking this unconventional backdoor approach. I spoke directly to the hiring manager, and got my foot in the door before he even managed to post the role online; I was then interviewed a week later and hired on the spot.
The Interview Guys noted that, from their study of LinkedIn data, employee referrals were 18x more likely to result in being hired. That’s a significant applicant to interview success rate.
Taking it a step further, they suggest that you should strategically network with recently promoted managers, department heads, and executives. This is because their first few months in the role form the window when they’re most open to networking, and they’re more likely to be building and expanding their teams.
You can use LinkedIn to follow company pages and track company announcements when someone gets promoted or hired to fill a new leadership role.
5. Include Your LinkedIn Profile
Every time I write a resume, the very first thing I add at the top in the contact information section, is the LinkedIn profile URL. I hyperlink it so it looks neater Employers will look for it anyway, so save them the trouble and go ahead and include it.
And of course, make sure your LinkedIn profile is fully updated and optimized so you know you’re showcasing a profile that you’re proud of.
Austin Belcak, a prominent career strategist with over a million LinkedIn followers, shares:
“Including a LinkedIn profile has been shown to boost interview rates, but only 48% of resumes included a link to a LinkedIn profile.”
6. Tailor Your Resume With Relevant Skills & Keywords
Belcak continues,
“Including relevant skills and keywords boosts your chances of landing an interview, but candidates only included 51% of relevant keywords in their resume (with a 60% match rate for hard skills and only a 28% match rate for soft skills),” based off his research of more than 125,000 resumes this year.
7. Use Metrics
This is the single biggest issue I encounter repeatedly when reviewing resumes, even from executives and mid-career professionals with extensive expertise behind them.
“Metrics and numbers are a best practice for illustrating and selling a candidate’s value,” Belcak notes, yet “only 26% of resumes included at least five instances of measurable results, metrics, or value and 36% of resumes had zero instances of metrics.”
o, stop holding back, and don’t be shy about your numbers. Ensure that your professional profile and almost every bullet point in your work experience section, is full of metrics to strengthen each claim.
Some of the changes suggested in this article are nothing new to you. Others, like matching the job title depending on the role you’re applying for, might just be the small shift you needed all along, but you didn’t even realize it.
Here’s to more interview call-backs in 2026.