Clicking "Easy Apply", or just applying in general, on LinkedIn or any other popular job posting website 40 times (or more) in a week is not a job search. It's the appearance of a job search.
I understand the appeal. It's low friction. It feels like volume. It generates a number - "I've applied to 40 roles this month" - that can masquerade as progress.
What Actually Happens to Those Applications
Here's what's actually happening on the other end of most Easy Apply submissions: they land in an applicant tracking system alongside hundreds of others, get filtered by keyword matching before a human ever sees them, and the few that do surface to a recruiter are often missing the context that would make them compelling.
Your LinkedIn profile - even a strong one - is a general document. It's not tailored to the specific role, the specific team, or the specific problem a company is trying to solve by filling this position. An Easy Apply submission is essentially saying, "here's my generic professional summary - please figure out if it fits."
What Works Instead
Compare that to a different approach: identifying the role, finding a connection at the company - first or second degree - sending a genuine note, and asking for a brief conversation before or alongside your application. That approach takes longer per role. It also works.
The candidates who land roles fastest in this market aren't the ones applying to the most positions. They're applying to fewer roles with significantly more intentionality per application, and pairing every application with some form of human outreach.
Quality Over Volume, Intention Over Convenience
A tailored application with a warm introduction will beat a generic Easy Apply submission almost every time - not because the system is unfair, but because it was never designed to reward volume in the first place. It was designed to filter it.
If your search has stalled, the fix usually isn't applying to more roles. It's applying to fewer roles, better.
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