You still don't have a job in tech? Not

because you haven't done enough, but

because you're invisible. You've been

learning how to code, made a few

impressive projects, and maybe even

contributed to open source projects, and

did some free work for some equity

roles. You did all the right things, and

yet you've got zero interviews in the

first 100 job applications you sent out.

So, now you're sitting there thinking, I

just need to apply more. There are

people who get their first interviews

after 200 or even 500 applications. Then

maybe you land your first interview

after a couple hundred applications, and

you think you finally figured it out.

Only for you to completely bomb it on

the first try. Now you're thinking, holy

[ __ ] I need to apply 200 more times

just to get another rep in. Think about

how insane that sounds. At that point,

you're just going to think this tech job

market is impossible, and there's no

point even pursuing this path. And I

don't blame you. My name is Phil, and

over the last 365 days of opening my

mentorship program, I've helped 50-plus

mentees land not just interviews, but

their goal tech career jobs as

full-stack software engineers in

companies like Amex and Zillow, as well

as multiple dozen upcoming successful

startups. And if you know my story, I

transitioned from an ESL English teacher

to a six-figure senior developer and

ex-tech lead having experiences in both

startups and big tech. And my mentees

are doing the same thing every single

month. Whether their start is as a CS

degree student or a career changer in

their 30s. And the part that I always

emphasize on is resumes. Because a

resume is like the first 6 seconds of a

video on a reel that stops you from

scrolling. The reason this analogy is

perfect is because when a hiring manager

opens your resume, they literally look

at it for 6 seconds, and then close it.

Done. You have exactly 6 seconds to make

an impression to see if you even qualify

for an interview. And it's not because

you can't code. I'm sure if you sent out

a resume, you've taken time to learn how

to code, how to use AI correctly, and

even have two or three impressive

projects built out with users on it. But

none of that matters if you cannot

convey to recruiters you can do all that

in 6 seconds. Your 4.0 GPA, your toy

projects you made in the class, or a

capstone project at your boot camps,

none of that is going to convince your

recruiter that you are not a beginner.

And you know what's a scary part? I even

have cracked mentees who joined my

mentorship who already have two or three

years of experience, and I meet them and

think like, bro, how the hell are you

not landing interviews? You're good

enough to be a mid or even senior

developer. I have a mentee, his name is

Derek. He is one of the most talented

young developers I've met. When I first

met with him, he was telling me, I am a

generalist. And I guess in his previous

workplace before he got laid off, they

never really gave him a chance to prove

his worth. But the guy already has SaaS

products under his name. He has got

amazingly coded projects with actual

users on it that solves actual problems.

He has a very efficient AI workflow and

is very knowledgeable in systems design.

So, with all that being said, I

literally told him, you're not a

generalist. You're just very good at

everything. Like, I would want this guy

on my team in a heartbeat, and even if I

had to sign him as a remote developer

from Japan. Anyways, enough glazing. But

the guy couldn't land interviews before

he came to our mentorship to save his

life. And it's clearly not because of

his abilities. It's because he was

underselling himself so badly on his

resume that he was not only invisible,

but his resume was screaming, just

another beginner developer. So, my team

and I worked with him, and well, just

expect big things to happen soon. So,

that's the scariest part in all this.

You could be good, like actually really

damn good. Better than half the people

even getting hired, and you could still

get nothing. No interviews, no

callbacks, no responses. I've seen it

happen over and over again. Cracked

developers, no jobs. But I've seen

average developers landing offers. Why?

Because this isn't just about skill.

This is about perception. So, before I

tell you how we have helped over 50

people last year get hundreds of

interviews and help them land roles

ranging from a junior role to a senior

level role, I want to talk about the

reason the market feels impossible right

now. And it's not because AI threatens

the very existence of software

engineers. It's because of the smell.

This is something nobody talks about.

Something your mentor probably won't say

out loud, but every recruiter knows it.

Every hiring manager knows it. It's that

moment they look at your resume and

instantly think, another one of these.

Because when a job listing is posted and

thousand job applications are sent out

for that specific job within a few

hours, chances are 950 of them are going

to be filtered out in a blink of an eye.

Why? Because these 950 resumes are going

to scream, a boot camp grad, tutorial

projects, no real experience, and the

same buzzwords. They don't see you as a

candidate. They see you as a category,

and that category, poof, ignored. And

it's not your fault. Damn near every

single educational path gives you the

same cookie-cutter path. It used to work

back then because companies were

desperate. I remember back in the day,

you can get close to six figures as a

simple front-end developer. Now, it's

the opposite. There are more candidates,

and the roles require you to be much,

much, much better than a simple general

developer produced by a CS degree or

boot camp. They require candidates who

know exactly how to build a full-scale

application top to bottom. Someone who

has speed because they have a good AI

workflow. Someone who knows how to make

good architectural decisions to handle

difficult edge cases. Someone who knows

how to solve real problems real fast.

Yes, it sounds brutal. And yes, it

sounds unfair, but you have to also ask

yourself, are you just so concerned with

the barrier to entry and quit because

the barrier to entry is higher, or do

you actually want to become a cracked

developer that can solve real-world

problems, and potentially one day have

your own products and make cool [ __ ]

Because if you're in the first category

of people, this path was never going to

work out for you anyways, even in 2017.

But if you're in the second category,

for you guys, I'm going to not just link

you two resumes that got insane results

within our own mentorship, but we're

going to code through it, analyze it, so

that you guys can land those interviews

this year and break into tech finally.

And if you want to go even beyond

resumes, if you want to join a community

and land a tech job this year as a

developer in this crazy job market, I

run a mentorship where my team and I

take you from wherever you are currently

at in your career journey and help you

reach your goal. Your desired salary,

the job market that you've been working

so hard for within this year, and we

don't stop until we get you there.

Anyways, back to the video. All right.

So, we're going to go over two resumes,

my mentees, Gabe and Julian. And we're

going to go over what made these two

resumes extremely successful.

So, first, let's look at Gabe. Gabe was

a student who graduated late from his CS

degree. He was one of the first mentees

I ever took on when the YouTube channel

was under 5,000 subscribers. He was

always a smart kid, already had decent

skills, but had big goals of landing a

job at big tech. Long story short, not

only was he able to consistently land

interviews at Bloomberg, Deloitte,

Accenture, and even Apple, he was able

to actually get job offers from them.

But the biggest win came when he was

able to land a six-figure job at Amex,

which was his dream company he always

wanted to work at. So, let's go over why

he was able to get attention from these

companies via his resume. Right off the

bat, if you see his resume, within

seconds you see that he's not a

beginner. You can see that he has real

experience under a company named Daffo

AI. And it's not like he went to the

internship, got a cup of coffee, and

then left. He had real success in things

he contributed to within the internship.

He did work with 3D engines. He worked

on performance optimizations. He clearly

quantified impact everywhere within

these bullet points. This line, reducing

production time for facial animations by

26%. That line alone tells recruiters he

worked on a real product, he understands

performance, and he measured impact. And

another thing he did really well is how

he wrote his bullet points. He followed

something called the CAR method.

Context, action, result, learning. Let

me show you what I mean. Example one. He

says he integrated Oculus lip sync into

a Unity project and reduced production

time by 26%.

Now, let's break that down in plain

English. It was a Unity project with a

facial animation problem. What he did

was integrate lip sync. The result was a

26% improvement in production time. And

what that tells us is he understands

optimization and tooling. That's it.

Straight to the point, no fluff. Example

two. He built an AI-driven application

that reduced DMV form processing time by

60% and errors by 25%. Again, simple.

There was a slow manual DMV process. He

built an AI system using Azure. It made

things faster and more accurate. And

what that shows is he knows how to use

tech to solve real problems. That's the

key. He's not just coding for fun. He's

solving something that actually matters.

Now, let's talk about why he stood out

compared to hundreds or even thousands

of other applications. Most people write

things like I built an app or I used

React or I worked on a project. But Gabe

says, "I improved performance by 25%. I

reduced time by 60%. I achieved 95%

accuracy." You see the difference here?

One sounds like a student, the other

sounds like an engineer. He positioned

himself as someone who understands

impact, someone who thinks about

performance,

someone who measures results. And that's

exactly what big companies are looking

for. Now, his projects. On the surface,

they don't look that special. A soccer

fantasy app, a full stack project with

React and Firebase, real-time updates,

Redux, pretty standard. But what made it

stand out was how he described it. He

mentioned drag-and-drop interactions and

real-time updates. That tells me there's

actual complexity there. State

management, user interaction, not just

basic CRUD. But the real standout was

his AI project, the auto form filler.

This is where things change because now

it's not just I built something cool,

it's I solved a real problem. Government

workflow, manual inefficiency, error

reduction, time savings. And when

recruiters see that, they immediately

think, "Okay, this person can build

something useful." That's what gets

interviews. And then there are the

smaller details that most people ignore.

He was part of SHPE. That shows

community and leadership. He worked in

agile teams. That shows collaboration.

He worked cross-functionally. That shows

he's not just coding in a corner. All of

that adds up. Now, Julian took a

completely different approach. Before

joining the mentorship, he had been

[snorts] trying to break into tech for

about 3 years. He was doing what most

people do, sending out hundreds, even

thousands of applications, just hoping

something would land. But during our

time together, we changed that approach.

We stopped focusing on volume and

started focusing on alignment. We

tailored his resume to match the

companies he was applying to. We made

sure his projects actually made sense

for those companies. And if there were

gaps in the skills, we fixed them. Now,

let's look at why his resume worked.

First thing, he didn't apply everywhere.

He only applied to companies that

matched his stack. Look at what he

knows. Java with Spring Boot, React with

TypeScript, AWS and Docker, JWT and

OAuth. That's not random. That's

literally what a lot of startups are

using right now. So when a recruiter

looks at his resume, they're not

thinking, "Can we train him?" They're

thinking, "He can start contributing

right away." That's a completely

different mindset. Now, let's break down

his experience. Again, same structure.

It's simple and clear. Then, he built a

full stack interview training app. Front

end, back end, authentication, real-time

behavior. That's not just a project.

That's basically a small product. Then

he talks about deployment. He

containerizes back end using Docker,

deployed it to AWS. Now, this is

important because most people stop at it

works on my computer. He went one step

further. He made it real. Then there's

OAuth. He implemented secure

authentication across platforms. And I'm

telling you right now, if you understand

OAuth, you're already ahead of a lot of

people because that's not easy stuff. So

why did he stand out? Because he doesn't

look like a beginner. He looks like a

back end engineer. Spring Boot, layered

architecture, PostgreSQL, JWT

authentication, Docker, AWS. That's a

real stack. That's what companies use.

And his projects reflect that, too. The

AI interview trainer, that's basically a

SaaS product. The playlist transfer app,

that's real API integration, real-world

use case. The job tracker API, that

shows he understands back end structure

properly. And then there are the extra

things. He worked with AI models,

evaluated code outputs, improved

responses. That's super relevant right

now. He also understands cloud and

deployment, AWS, Docker, CI/CD basics,

which means he's not just someone who

writes code. He's someone who can

actually ship it. So at the end of the

day, both Gabe and Julian won. But they

won in different ways. Gabe showed, "I

can create real impact." Julian showed,

"I can already do the job." So if you're

struggling right now, it's probably not

your skills. It's how you're presenting

yourself. And if you want help with

that, if you want someone to actually

look at resume, your projects, your

positioning, that's exactly what we do

in the mentorship. We don't just help

you learn coding, we help you land

actual interviews and secure jobs. We

work with you directly. And I personally

work with you one-on-one week by week.

And we don't stop until you land the

job. So let me leave you with this. The

difference between you and someone like

Gabe or Julian is this. It's not talent.

It's not intelligence. It's not even

experience. It's clarity. They made it

easy for someone else to believe in

them. So yes, AI is here to stay. Yes,

the market is tougher than ever before.

But that just means the people who try

harder will prevail. So why not just try

harder and get better because the

ultimate goal was never just to land

your first job. It was to become a

senior developer, a tech lead, or even a

tech CEO. And for that to happen, you

have to reach for the heavens anyways.

So aim higher in terms of the skill

level. Look past that first job. And for

those of you right now who've been

learning to code for quite some time

now,

while you might already have the skills,

while you might be good enough, if your

resume doesn't show it, if your projects

don't prove it, if your story doesn't

connect to a recruiter, you don't exist.

And that's the part that hurts because

you can be working hard every day,

grinding, building, and learning and

still get nothing back. But here's the

good news. This is fixable. You don't

need hundreds of applications to land

your first interview. You don't need

another random project. And you don't

need to get lucky. You just need to

present yourself the right way. Show

impact, show alignment, show that you're

the person they are looking for. Because

once that clicks, everything changes.

The same resume that got ignored starts

getting replies. The same skills you

already have start getting recognized.

So don't quit. Don't fall into the trap

of thinking this path isn't for you.

You're closer than you think. You just

need to make it obvious. So if you made

it this far into the video, comment

below, I'll start today, and go get your

shot. And just remember, if I can do it,

you can do it, too. Coding saves lives.