A real, battle-tested job search methodology built and refined over my personal experience of a sustained cold-application campaign in the U.S. market (2025–2026). Shared here so you don't have to figure it all out from scratch.
I want to say something, because I wish someone had said it to me when I was going through all of it.
If you've been job hunting for a while, especially as an international candidate in a tough market, you've probably found yourself doom-scrolling LinkedIn or searching for answers and reading various stuff online at some point. And if you did, you would have ran into countless threads/posts full of people saying things like:
- "Cold applications are DEAD!"
- " Applying for a job is no different than hurling your resume into a black hole."
- "Network is your net worth!"
- "It's not about what you know, it's about who you know."
- "You have to do something different to stand out! Stalk the decision maker and shake their hand firmly when you catch them at a grocery store, the job would be yours!"
- "Hiring decisions are made based on who knows whom, even before the job is posted."
And every time I read that stuff, it would dishearten me to my core. Because to me, it seemed that what they were essentially saying (and I can be wrong), that underneath all the hustle-culture packaging, your skills don't matter. That grinding, building, learning, and actually being good at your craft is worth less than knowing the right people, playing the right social games, is more important to make your way into a referral.
I hated that idea. The thought of DMing strangers on LinkedIn for referrals, having awkward "networking" conversations at meetups just to extract value from someone, felt completely at odds with how I wanted to operate. Maybe you feel the same way.
So here's what I want you to know, from my own personal experience:
Cold applications still work. Full stop.
I applied cold. I kept applying when the rejections came. I refined my approach over time, which probably led to better results. Maybe it was luck, maybe it was timing, but with better resumes, a systematic approach, a system that actually scaled, I got interviews at Walmart, Qualys, Humana, CVS Health, and Samsung Research America, which I wouldn't even have dreamed of a year ago, if you would have asked me. I went to multiple final rounds of interviews and finalized multiple offers, before deciding on a role. Did it the traditional way full of grind, without a single warm introduction, without any connection, or knowing someone who knew someone.
If I could make it work, so can you.
Now, please understand. My point here is not to dunk on making connections and networking. It isn't inherently bad. If a genuine connection opens a door, then that's great! If you meet someone at a conference because you both care about the same technical problem, that's real and worth pursuing. My point is that, despite what anyone tells you, you do not have to perform networking theater and antics to deserve a shot. You don't have to pretend that socializing is the only variable that matters.
You can build a systematic approach. You can do the work and apply and make it, just the way I did. That's what this repo is about.
This repo contains of two files
This is the full job search playbook, consisting of knowledge base setup, resume system, job discovery, interview prep, LinkedIn profile and posting, transferable skills, pipeline management, and post-interview analysis. This is also for you to use as your AI project knowledge base. You can upload it and the AI will use it to walk you through the entire system personalised to your background.
This is something that I made to search more job postings on LinkedIn based on what roles might be suitable for my skillsets and experiences. It contains detailed LinkedIn search methodology, like using Boolean operators, post search, hashtag strategy, daily routines, and saved search URLs for finding roles that hiring managers post directly. Upload this alongside the guide for complete coverage.
Read JobSearch-Guide.md end to end. It's structured to help you thoroughly. Each part helps in building towards a holistic system of job application approach. Start from knowledge building even if you already have a resume and some applications in flight, because a complete knowledge base is what makes everything else work better.
This is how the system was originally built and used.
- Create a new Project in Claude (or a custom GPT, Gemini Gem, or equivalent in whatever AI platform you use)
- Upload
JobSearch-Guide.md&LinkedIn-JobSearch-Dorking.mdto the project's knowledge base - Start a conversation and say something like:
"I just uploaded some files that provides systematic guidance in job search. Read them and help me build my own version of this system. Start by asking me everything you need to know about my background, experience, skills, and the kind of roles I'm targeting, and then walk me through setting this up step by step."
The AI will onboard you, ask the right questions to build your knowledge base, and then work with you as a co-pilot throughout your search, helping you customising resumes, prepping for interviews, building panelist profiles, and everything else in the guide.
Note: The more honest and detailed you are in the onboarding, the better the output. Vague inputs produce generic resumes. Specific inputs produce targeted ones.
This was built by an offensive security professional targeting red team, penetration testing, and offensive security engineering roles in the U.S. market. The specific examples throughout are curated accordingly.
But the system is domain-agnostic. The same methodology applies if you're targeting:
- Cloud Security / Cloud Engineering
- DevSecOps / Platform Security
- Application Security (AppSec)
- Detection Engineering / Purple Team
- Threat Intelligence
- GRC / Compliance
- IT Infrastructure / Sysadmin → moving into a security-adjacent role
- Any technical role where skills matter and the application process is a grind
The content of your knowledge base changes. The workflow doesn't.
This repo reflects one person's experience, one domain, and one job market (U.S., 2025–2026). Use it as a skeleton, not a script. Where the guide gives offensive-security-specific examples, substitute your own. Where it references specific tools or platforms, replace them with yours. The principles, i.e. build a deep knowledge base before you write a single resume, customise every application, do your homework on every interviewer, post about your actual work in your actual voice, hold regardless of what you do.
Make it your own. That's why this repo was created.
If you've used this system and refined it for your domain, your market, or your situation, feel free to share the same. More real-world examples, more transferable skill paths, more domain-specific adaptations, all of it helps in paying it forward, and makes this more useful for the next person who finds it at 2am wondering if any of this is even worth it.
Please take my word for it, it definitely is.
Built from 70+ conversations, dozens of applications, and a lot of rejection before the right door opened. Shared here so you don't have to start from zero.