If you’ve been grinding through applications for months and hearing nothing back, John Boyle has some things to tell you. Not all of them are comfortable to hear.
Boyle is Senior Talent Director at CIBR Warriors, a national IT and cybersecurity staffing firm that has been placing candidates and building teams for companies across the country for years. He joined Get Into IT Live recently to answer the question our audience keeps asking: why aren’t they responding?
He did not sugarcoat it.
The Market Is Weird Right Now. Here’s Why.
The 2026 IT job market is not broken, but it is complicated.
Boyle is seeing a wave of candidates coming off layoffs, many from larger tech companies that made big cuts and pointed to AI as the reason.
“I’m not sure I believe all of that,” he said, “other than just poor management on the company’s part.”
He has also watched the boomerang play out in real time. Organizations cut positions, realized they still needed human oversight, and started hiring again. AI improves efficiency. It does not replace the people who understand what they’re looking at.
For job seekers, that’s useful context. The demand is real. The competition, though, is also real.
The “Grind” Probably Isn’t What You Think It Is
When candidates tell Boyle they’ve been grinding through applications and getting no responses, his first question is: what do you mean by grinding?
“If your concept of grinding is hitting submit all day long, one-click apply on LinkedIn or the job boards,” he said, “that can be an extraordinarily frustrating situation.”
Here’s the problem. Applying used to require effort. You typed a cover letter, formatted a resume, lined up the watermarks, and mailed it. That friction meant you only applied when you were a solid fit.
Today, applying takes 10 seconds. Which means recruiters can have 200 responses before noon.
“What if you’re the perfect fit for that job and you’re number 198?” Boyle said. “I might not ever see you.”
His plea to job seekers: if you’re not a real fit for a role, don’t apply. Not because recruiters are gatekeeping, but because your application is pushing someone who IS a perfect fit further down the pile.
Stop Applying. Start Connecting.
The candidates who stand out are the ones who do something different.
Boyle’s advice: identify the actual hiring person at the company. Use LinkedIn to find them. Then reach out directly. Call them. Email them. Introduce yourself before your resume ever hits the ATS.
“Even as a recruiter, I love it when my phone rings and it’s a cold call from a candidate,” he said. “I’m impressed.”
He referenced a story from a previous Get Into IT Live guest, Todd Mankin of CIBR Warriors, who stepped away right before going live to take a call from a candidate who explained why she’d be a great fit for a role. She moved to the top of the list on the spot.
“Don’t be shy,” Boyle said. “You’re selling yourself. You’re trying to stand out from the onslaught of other candidates doing the same thing you’re doing.”
The LinkedIn easy apply button? “I hate it,” he said without hesitation.
What Happens to Your Resume in the First 10 Seconds
With 200 resumes potentially hitting a recruiter’s inbox before lunch, the first pass is fast.
Boyle goes straight to content. He wants a chronological resume with specific details under each position, not a summary of everything you’ve ever done dumped at the top.
“Doesn’t tell me anything,” he said of the summary-first format.
Job hopping catches his eye fast, and not in a good way. Six years of experience with 12 jobs is a red flag every client he works with has asked him to avoid.
The bigger issue: tailoring. In this market, one-size-fits-all resumes do not work.
“You have to make that resume look so much like the job that whoever’s reading it can’t miss it,” he said.
That does not always mean a full rewrite. Sometimes it means moving your fourth bullet to the first so the most relevant experience hits the reader immediately. The goal is to make whoever’s reviewing it think: I need to call this person.
He also pushed everyone watching to look at their resume bullets with fresh eyes. Every bullet should point to an outcome.
“If I created something, what was the outcome of that creation?” he said. “Did it produce revenue? Did it improve efficiencies? Did it reduce something? Did it exceed something? Otherwise, it’s just noise.”
The Truth About ATS and AI
Candidates have developed a healthy skepticism of applicant tracking systems, and Boyle gets it. But he pushed back on the idea that ATS is the enemy.
The newer AI-powered systems are getting smarter. Instead of just counting how many times a keyword appears in your resume, they now run semantic searches that look for relationships between your experience and the job requirements.
“It’s sophisticated enough to know that if you’ve got experience with an ERP, it understands which modules should be involved in a specific implementation,” he said.
That’s good news. If your resume honestly and accurately reflects the experience the job description is asking for, modern ATS systems are increasingly able to recognize that fit even without an exact keyword match.
He also offered a clear warning about AI-generated resumes. He uses AI himself to screen candidates, and he can tell when a resume is fully AI-built.
“AI will create you in the most perfect sense of the world, and it’s not always the most accurate,” he said. “I have literally seen AI make stuff up.”
His recommendation: use AI to research the company, understand the technology stack, and identify what to emphasize. Use your own words to write it.
Your LinkedIn Profile Is a First Impression
Boyle and his team at CIBR Warriors rely heavily on LinkedIn for sourcing. Most of their candidates are passive, meaning they are not actively responding to job postings.
What makes him stop and look twice? A complete, detailed work history that mirrors what a strong resume would show, a clear picture of your trajectory, and a photo.
That last one might seem minor. It isn’t.
“I didn’t used to pay attention to it,” he said, “but it’s a yellow flag. Why don’t you want me to see you?”
Networking Is Not Optional (Even for Introverts)
Boyle’s wife is an extreme introvert. He watched her go through a job search and had to coach her through the networking piece directly. He understands why people avoid it.
He also knows it’s not optional.
“Network is a part of life,” he said. “You’re doing it at the company whether you know it or not.”
LinkedIn makes the warm introduction much more accessible. Find someone you went to college with at the company you want. Find someone you’ve worked with before. Ask them to introduce you. Even a name drop in a cold outreach changes the dynamic completely.
For anyone in a longer search, Boyle recommends user group meetings and association events. Everyone in those rooms is dealing with the same thing, and very few of them are natural extroverts.
“I can promise you they’re not all extroverts,” he said. “Role play with yourself. Develop your elevator pitch. Work up the nerve to go in there.”
He sat next to a stranger at a networking event, asked how he was enjoying it, and ended up working with that guy for five years.
When Nothing Is Working: Autopsy What You’ve Been Doing
For someone deep in a search with no results to show for it, Boyle has a framework he calls the autopsy.
Think of your job search as a patient that’s on life support. What do doctors do? They go back and look at everything done up to that point. Something’s clearly not working.
He walks through a list of questions. Have you targeted specific companies that use your skill set? Have you reached out to HR directly at a company that isn’t currently posting, just to introduce yourself? Have you stopped doing the exact same thing every day and expected different results?
His other recommendation: take care of yourself. Exercise. Build a routine. Surround yourself with people who are encouraging you.
“I get it. You get your head kicked in every day,” he said. “I have literally been there.”
And then: call a recruiter. Not to beg for a placement, but to get an honest critique of what you’ve been doing. Good recruiters will look at your resume, tell you what’s working and what isn’t, and connect you to their network if they can’t help you directly.
“This conversation doesn’t have to stop here,” Boyle told the audience. “If you’ve got questions, this is my zen.”
He can be reached at jboyle@cibr.com or on LinkedIn. CIBR Warriors works across IT, cybersecurity, networking, engineering, finance, and education, and they actively place candidates at the entry level and up.
Ready to build the skills that give recruiters like John Boyle a reason to call you? Explore our computer career training programs and see how MyComputerCareer prepares you for the IT job search from day one.