I landed a job in a month when I started using a strategic LinkedIn filter. It’s not a perfect hack, but it got me a job I love.

• Lauren Young used LinkedIn’s “under-10-applicants” filter to secure a new job.
• Young was stressed and unsuccessful in her job search until she used LinkedIn filters.
• The filter helped her find roles with fewer applicants, leading to a quick job offer.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Lauren Young, a 28-year-old continuing education specialist, based in Indiana. It’s been edited for length and clarity.

In March, I was becoming increasingly unhappy and stressed out at work, so I started applying to multiple jobs a day.

Even within the short time that I was back in the job market, from March to June, it was getting worse, and I started to panic. I was having no luck landing a new role.

I was primarily applying for roles on LinkedIn, and as I scrolled, I saw jobs posted with a hundred or even thousands of applicants. It wasn’t until I paid closer attention to how I searched for jobs that I found the “under 10 applicants” filter on LinkedIn, which helped me land my next role within about a month of using it.

I reentered the job market to find a better career

I studied education in college and taught elementary school for several years before I started working for a local retail company, where I oversaw employee training. It wasn’t what I saw myself doing long-term, but it was a job I knew would help build my skillset, and then I would hopefully be able to find a good career to settle down in.

About a year and a half into the role, I decided to start looking elsewhere. I was so stressed out all the time, and I didn’t think I could stay much longer. I had luckily worked on impressive projects, built up a lot of technical skills, and had things in my portfolio that I was really excited to use in my applications.

When I started using the correct LinkedIn filters, my job prospects got better

Once I had been back in the job market and saw how bad it was, I started playing around with LinkedIn filters, trying to be more strategic about how I spent my time looking for work.

I looked for jobs with fewer applicants or jobs that were just posted that day, and that’s when I found the “under 10 applicants” filter. It’s one of the last options under the function that says “all filters,” pretty close to the bottom.

Once I started using it, I saw roles at small businesses that didn’t have a huge following on LinkedIn. There were roles that were also the same or very similar to ones I had been applying for, but they had weird titles that I wouldn’t have paid attention to, or ones that wouldn’t have come up under my keyword searches alone.

I used this tool during my last month of searching for jobs.

After 2 weeks of interviews, I got my new job offer

I don’t remember which exact keyword I used to find my current role. I’d usually search for keywords like “learning,” “training,” and sometimes “education” while using the filter.

My role now is helping medical professionals who are seeking different educational opportunities or want to get further licensing. I didn’t think I would be a top applicant since I’d never worked in the medical industry, but it had very few applicants and had just been posted.

The post included the HR email and asked that I email my résumé as part of the application. By the next day, I had already received an email back from HR, and they were looking to fill the role quickly.

It was a pretty fast interview process. I landed my first interview at the end of May and received my offer letter in mid-June. I was so relieved.

The ‘under 10 applicants’ filter is better than the other job search filters I’ve used on LinkedIn, but I wish it had more options

I tried using other LinkedIn filters, too. I would use the filter for “jobs posted within the last day,” which was still helpful, but I feel like everyone uses that.

I live outside Chicago, and some of the jobs that would come up would be at huge Fortune 500 corporations that people really wanted to work at. Even if the role was posted within the last day or the last hour, there were still hundreds of applicants immediately.

I had to do a lot of sifting with that filter, and since I was on a time crunch, switching to the under-10-applicants one helped me be more efficient.

I do wish there were filters for applicants under 50 or 100 because 10 is a really small number. Ideally, LinkedIn would have multiple filters for the number of applicants, which would be a lot more helpful to people trying to find roles.

I love my new job and have helped friends use the filter in their job search

One of my coworkers was looking for a new job at the same time as me, and she was having a hard time. She applied to a few jobs and wasn’t getting anything back. I shared my filter hack with her, and it was how she got her first interview after reentering the job market.

I believe the job she has now had more than 10 applicants when she applied, but it helped to build her confidence in getting that first interview out of the way.

My new role has been completely life-changing. I’m able to work primarily remotely, and I only go into the office about once a month. The company has great benefits, a really generous PTO policy, and a great work-life balance.

Do you have a job search story to share? Contact this reporter at [email protected].

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