'Skip the CV, just show up': Job seekers share the unconventional tactics that actually got them hired

A post on Reddit’s r/recruitinghell opened with a story of a friend who abandoned online applications entirely after two years of failure. Instead, he walked directly into workplaces with known openings, asked to speak to HR without an appointment, and offered himself in person. He was rejected twice before being offered an interview the next day on his third attempt and hired almost immediately. When he later had to move cities and repeat the process, he succeeded on his fifth in-person visit. Marketing and communications roles, both times.

“Every time people were surprised and baffled that he didn’t go the usual route,” the original poster wrote. “I suppose that left enough of an impression that they hired him over the hundreds of online applicants.”

The thread produced a range of strategies, most of them involving some form of direct human contact that bypasses the automated screening systems that have made the standard application process so unforgiving.

One commenter described finding a job two weeks after being laid off, which they described as remarkable given their luck, through a simple tactic: calling the company repeatedly after submitting an application. “After my sixth call, they said, ‘Fine, let’s interview,’ and I got the job five days after. It may be old-fashioned, but if the job has a phone number and they actually answer, it does not hurt to call.”

Another recommended concentrating applications rather than spreading them: “Pick five companies and apply to everything they open. Eventually you’ll be in the first ten applicants, and you’ll get a call.”

Networking was also brought up consistently. “For me, it was about reaching out to folks I knew at companies I wanted to work at. Did that successfully for my last two job searches,” one commenter wrote.

One commenter described treating job hunting itself as a full-time job, committing six to eight hours a day, two months, following up on everything, applying to anything within reach that would not represent a step backwards. They found work within two months and, unusually, expressed genuine enthusiasm about the new direction. “You may have to start a career in a different field. That’s what’s happening to me, and I’m honestly stoked! Keep going!”

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