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I spent 10 years recruiting. Here's what actually works.
Emily Durham has seen both sides of the hiring table — and most job search advice, she'll tell you, is wrong.
Before building an audience of nearly a million followers on TikTok, she spent a decade recruiting at major banks and tech companies. She watched talented candidates torpedo their own chances with small, fixable mistakes. Eventually, she started talking about it online. Within weeks, people were hooked.
Now she advises job seekers full-time. Her take is blunter than most.
Stop customizing your résumé
It's the most common piece of advice out there, and Durham thinks it's completely outdated. "It solves the wrong problem," she says. "No one's seeing your résumé to begin with." Spending hours tailoring it for each application — especially with AI help, which recruiters can spot immediately — won't fix that.
What works instead: one strong résumé, written in your own voice, built around keywords that show up repeatedly across job descriptions in your target field. Cross-reference a few postings, find the overlap, and weave those terms naturally into how you describe your work. "Analyzed data" lands better than "worked with spreadsheets." Simple, but most people don't do it.
Network like a human being
Durham gets roughly a hundred cold LinkedIn messages a day from people asking for referrals. She doesn't respond to most of them — not because she's unkind, but because they skip straight to the ask. "People aren't going to refer you if they don't know you."
The fix is straightforward: get someone on a call, ask genuine questions about their career, and actually listen. Then, toward the end, mention you're looking. That sequencing matters. It's the difference between a transaction and a relationship — and people only go to bat for the latter.
In-person events are underrated here. Companies host hiring mixers quarterly, and showing up puts a face to a name in a way no message can.
Post on LinkedIn — but don't go overboard
A lot of people resist posting because they don't want to feel like influencers. Durham draws a sharp line: posting about your work is personal branding, not performance. Once a week is enough. It can be as simple as resharing something relevant to your industry. Twice a week, leave a thoughtful comment on a post from someone at a company you want to work for. That's it. That's enough to stay visible in the algorithm without turning your feed into a content show.
What she'd skip entirely: AI-generated posts with vague inspirational lessons. They don't work, and they make you look like everyone else.
Interviews are conversations
Two things kill candidates in interviews more than anything else: scripted answers and answers that are too long. Attention spans in a job interview run about 90 seconds per question. If you're going three or four minutes, you've lost them.
The other thing — don't skip the small talk. When a recruiter asks how you're doing, actually answer. Ask them about their weekend. It sounds trivial, but it works. People hire people they can imagine working with. Being warm and memorable at the start of a call is easier than you'd think, and most candidates blow past it.
And stop saying "we" so much. Recruiters are evaluating you, not your team. If every accomplishment is framed collectively, they'll assume your individual contribution was small. Aim for roughly 70% "I."
Protect your energy
Durham structures her job search in shifts — applications on Mondays, LinkedIn outreach on Tuesdays, networking events on Wednesdays. It keeps the process from bleeding into everything else.
She also recommends muting job-hunting content on social media. Watching someone document day 800 of their search doesn't motivate you. It just adds noise.
"Even if you do everything right," she says, "it can still take time. You have to preserve your sanity."