7 Ways to Get More Interviews Without Applying to More Jobs
Most of these take under three hours a week, and several of them work on applications you have already sent rather than new ones.
By Marguerite Dunlevy · Oct 05, 2026 · 9 min read
If you are sending out applications and hearing nothing, sending more of the same is rarely the fix. The higher-leverage moves are changing what happens to each application after you submit it, and building a handful of conversations with people who already do the work you want.
The seven strategies below are things you can start this week with no budget. None of them guarantees an interview — nothing does — but each one has a signal you can count, so you can tell within a fortnight whether you are actually doing it.
The Strategies
- Build a 25-company target list before you open another job board. Decide the type of role and the type of employer you want, then write down actual organizations that match — CareerOneStop (U.S. Department of Labor), undated, advises identifying the job or company type first and then looking for network contacts in that field, using tools such as its Business Finder. Keep the list in one sheet with a column for a contact name and a column for whether you have a job alert set up for that employer. Signal: 25 named employers written down by the end of week one, each with either a contact or an alert attached.
- Send three informational interview requests a week, asking for 20 minutes. An informational interview is an informal conversation with someone in a career or company you are targeting, and it is research rather than a request for a job offer (CareerOneStop (U.S. Department of Labor), undated). Ask for something small and specific — a sample outreach message from the same source suggests requesting a 20-minute meeting scheduled a couple of weeks out. These conversations are described as helping you learn the work environment, judge whether a career or company fits, get advice on breaking in, and meet people who can pass on future contacts or leads. Signal: three requests sent every week, and one or two conversations actually on the calendar.
- Pull exact keywords from each posting and use each one about twice. An applicant tracking system scores incoming applications and ranks them by how well each matches the employer's stated criteria (CareerOneStop (U.S. Department of Labor), undated), and the same guidance notes that qualified people get filtered out when they miss the employer's chosen keywords, use fonts or formatting the system cannot read, or look as though they lack preferred experience. The recommended approach is to analyze the posting for its exact terms and use each identified keyword roughly twice — more repetition is not helpful — and to change those keywords for each different opening rather than sending one static resume everywhere. Tailor three things specifically: the job title line at the top, the tools and methods named in the posting, and the two or three bullets where you can attach a number. Signal: zero applications submitted without a keyword pass, logged in your tracker.
- Ask someone who already holds the job to red-line your wording. The terminology that reads well to you may not be what the field actually uses; CareerOneStop (U.S. Department of Labor), undated, suggests asking someone in a similar job to check your wording, including finding such people on LinkedIn, and checking professional association sites or an Occupation Profile for additional keywords. Send one page, not a full packet, and ask a narrow question: which phrases here would a hiring manager in your team not recognize? Signal: two people in your target job title have marked up your resume within three weeks.
- Switch on Open to Work with specific titles, locations, and start date. LinkedIn's Open to Work feature lets you signal that you are job searching either publicly, with a green #OpenToWork photo frame visible to all members, or privately so it is visible only to recruiters using LinkedIn Recruiter (contentin.io, undated). When you enable it you specify job titles, locations, start date and job types, and that information feeds recruiter search and job matching — so vague titles waste the feature. Signal: the titles you entered match the titles on your target list, and you review inbound messages weekly.
- Audit what an employer finds when they search your name. Social and career networking sites such as LinkedIn, X and Facebook are described as essential job search tools for learning about industries and companies and meeting contacts, and employers also use them to find and check out candidates before deciding whether to interview or hire (CareerOneStop (U.S. Department of Labor), undated). Search your own name in a logged-out browser, look at the first page of results, and fix the obvious gaps: a headline that names the work rather than your last job title, a profile photo, and privacy settings on anything you would not want a stranger reading. Signal: first-page results for your name are either professional or neutral, checked once a month.
- Follow up once, seven business days after applying, to a named person. Pick one real person — the hiring manager, the team lead, or the recruiter named in the posting — and send a short note referencing something concrete from the job description rather than asking for a status update. Do it once per application, log the date, and let it go after that. Signal: a follow-up date recorded against every application in your tracker, and a running count of replies you can compare month to month (your own numbers only — reply rates vary enormously by field and employer).
Two of these need words. Rewrite both before sending: the bracketed parts are the minimum you have to change, and the sentence about why you are contacting that person is what makes it worth reading.
Informational interview request
Subject: 20 minutes about [job title] work at [company]?
Hi [first name] — I'm researching a move into [field or role type] and came across your profile while reading about [specific project, team, or topic you actually saw]. I'm not asking about openings; I'd like to understand what the work is really like day to day and what you'd tell someone trying to move in from [your current field]. Would you have 20 minutes in the next couple of weeks? I'm happy to work around your calendar. — [your name]
One-time follow-up after applying
Subject: [job title] application — [your name]
Hi [first name], I applied for the [exact job title, requisition number if there is one] role on [date]. The part of the posting about [specific responsibility or tool named in the ad] lines up closely with [one specific thing you have done, with a number if you have one]. If it's useful, I can send a short note on how I'd approach it. Either way, thanks for reading. — [your name]
Putting It Together
Do not try all seven in one week. Spend the first week almost entirely on Build a 25-company target list before you open another job board, because it decides who you contact and which keywords matter. Give it two sittings of about an hour. While the list is fresh, do Switch on Open to Work with specific titles, locations, and start date in the same sitting — you are copying the job titles off your own list into the field that feeds recruiter search, which takes ten minutes once you know what to type.
From week two, run two things in parallel on a fixed rhythm. On Monday, send your three messages for Send three informational interview requests a week, asking for 20 minutes, drawn from the target list rather than from whoever appears in your feed. On whichever days you apply, run Pull exact keywords from each posting and use each one about twice before you hit submit, and set a reminder seven business days out so Follow up once, seven business days after applying, to a named person happens without you having to remember it. That combination means every application leaves with the employer's own vocabulary on it and has one scheduled nudge behind it, while two or three conversations a month build up in the background.
Use the slower weeks for the two maintenance tasks. Ask someone who already holds the job to red-line your wording fits naturally at the end of an informational conversation — if the call went well, ask whether they would glance at one page. Audit what an employer finds when they search your name is a monthly half-hour, best done just before you start sending outreach, since the people you message will look you up. If you can only sustain three of the seven, keep the target list, the keyword pass, and the weekly outreach; the rest are multipliers on those.
Frequently asked questions
How much time does this take each week?
Once the target list exists, a realistic week is about two to three hours: thirty minutes writing outreach messages, an hour or so on keyword passes for the applications you are actually sending, and whatever time the conversations themselves take. The front-loaded cost is the company list, which is a one-off few hours. If you have less time than that, drop the number of applications rather than the keyword pass.
Does informational outreach work if I'm changing careers?
It is arguably more useful for career changers than for anyone else, because the stated purpose is learning rather than asking for a job — CareerOneStop (U.S. Department of Labor), undated, describes these conversations as a way to gain clarity on whether a career or company fits and to get advice on breaking into a field. Be upfront in the message that you are coming from another field; it gives the person a clearer question to answer. Expect some messages to go unanswered, which is normal and not a verdict on you.
Will my current employer see that I've turned on Open to Work?
LinkedIn offers a recruiters-only setting that hides the public green badge, but it states that even then it cannot guarantee recruiters at your current company won't see the signal (contentin.io, undated). If being discovered would cause you a real problem, treat the private setting as lower risk rather than no risk, and lean harder on direct outreach instead.
Is there anything here I have to pay for?
No. Every strategy above runs on a free account, a spreadsheet and your own time. Paid resume services and premium job board tiers may be worth it to you for other reasons, but none of the seven depends on one.
Sources
- CareerOneStop (U.S. Department of Labor) — Take Your Network Online
- CareerOneStop (U.S. Department of Labor) — Informational interview
- CareerOneStop (U.S. Department of Labor) — Applicant tracking systems
- contentin.io — What Does Open to Work Mean on LinkedIn?
Written by
Marguerite Dunlevy
Marguerite oversees coverage of job hunting and career pivots, with a focus on how people make decisions when the path forward isn't obvious. She's drawn to the messy middle of a career change more than the tidy success story. Her writing tends to ask what a 'good job' even means to the person doing it.
