Are You Applying for the Wrong Jobs?

I’m going to say something that probably isn't particularly helpful when you're desperately looking for work.

You might be applying for too many wrong jobs.

Not because you aren't trying hard enough. Quite the opposite. You might be trying far too hard, applying for anything and everything because you think eventually something has to stick.

But it doesn't necessarily work like that.

The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show there were an estimated 707,000 vacancies in the UK between May and July 2026. That's down 19,000 on the same period last year, a fall of 2.7%. There were also 2.5 unemployed people for every vacancy.

So yes, the job market is competitive.

But that doesn't mean the answer is to send another 50 applications.

I see this quite often when people come to me for CV writing. They've applied for 30, 40 or sometimes 100 jobs and are getting nowhere. They assume the problem must be their CV, so they want me to rewrite it.

Sometimes it is the CV.

Sometimes it's the jobs.

Because when I ask what they've actually been applying for, the answer can be surprisingly vague.

“Anything really.”

That's not a career strategy. That's panic.

And I understand why people get there.

You've been made redundant. You're fed up with your current employer. You've been looking for months. Your savings are disappearing. You've got a mortgage, rent, children or bills to pay.

You see a job advertised that you could probably do, so you apply.

Then you see another one.

And another.

Before long, you've applied for Project Manager, Operations Manager, Business Development Manager, Account Manager and something else because the salary looked interesting.

The problem is that your CV now has to somehow convince five completely different employers that you're exactly what they're looking for.

It can't.

Not convincingly, anyway.

Your CV needs a direction.

That doesn't mean you can only ever apply for one job title. It means you need to understand what you actually bring to the table and where that experience has the most value.

If you're an experienced Operations Manager looking for your next move, for example, your CV should make your operational experience obvious. It shouldn't spend half the first page trying to convince someone you're actually a Marketing Manager because you once helped organise a campaign.

I've written thousands of CVs and one of the things I notice repeatedly is that people massively underestimate what they've actually achieved.

They tell me what they were responsible for.

They don't tell me what happened because they were there.

“Managed a team of 20.”

Fine.

What did the team achieve?

“Managed a £2m budget.”

Fine.

What did you do with it?

“Responsible for improving processes.”

Great.

Did you actually improve them?

Did you save money? Reduce errors? Speed something up? Increase productivity?

Those answers are much more interesting than another list of responsibilities.

And they are particularly important when you're applying for a role where you don't have the exact same job title.

Perhaps you're trying to move into a different industry.

Perhaps you're going for a promotion.

Perhaps you've been doing the same job for 15 years and have finally decided you want to do something else.

This is where your LinkedIn profile and your CV need to work together.

They should tell the same story.

Not copy each other word for word. That's boring.

But if your LinkedIn profile says you're a senior commercial leader and your CV makes you sound like someone who spends their entire working life updating spreadsheets, we've got a problem.

The same goes for your applications.

You don't need to rewrite your entire CV every time you see a vacancy. But you do need to make sure the important experience for that particular role isn't buried on page two while you've given half a page to something completely irrelevant.

And please don't confuse tailoring with keyword stuffing.

I've seen CVs where someone has clearly copied half the job advert into their CV because they've been told that's how you “beat the ATS”.

It reads terribly.

Your CV should still sound like a human being wrote it.

Because one eventually has to read the thing.

The current job market means you probably do need to be more deliberate about where you're putting your time. With vacancies down year-on-year and 2.5 unemployed people per vacancy, simply increasing the number of applications isn't necessarily going to improve your results.

I'd rather see someone send ten genuinely strong applications than 100 applications where they're hoping something, anything, will happen.

So before you hit “Apply” for the 47th time this week, stop for five minutes.

Look at the job.

Look at your experience.

Ask yourself whether you actually want it.

Then ask whether your CV gives the employer a reason to believe you're right for it.

If the answer to all three is yes, crack on.

If the answer is no, don't apply just because you can.

Your job search isn't a competition to see who can submit the most applications.

It's about finding the right opportunity and giving yourself the best possible chance of getting it.

And sometimes that means applying for fewer jobs.

Just better ones.

If you need help working out what your experience is actually worth, that's exactly what I do at REWRITE. No templates. No AI. No pretending that changing the font is going to transform your career. Just a proper look at what you've done, where you want to go and how we get the two to make sense.