Finally Got a Job—Without ATS/AI and Only One Interview

This was my second-longest stint of looking for work—I'm talking years. I'll write what happened focusing on common areas of advice, perceptions, FAQs, and what they did differently to hire me. YMMV.

A month and a half ago, I saw a job opening during my weekly job applications. The instructions were to e-mail a cover letter, résumé, and three references to a medium-sized non-profit that a friend had worked for previously (I only told her after I got hired so this is the second time I chose not to use a connection and still got the job, which is about even for mentioning a connection and not getting the offer). I have three templates of a cover letter and résumé because I failed to specialize in my career; it's made it harder to meet experience requirements since "well-rounded individual" is something only colleges are looking for in students. I sent them the two-page version of my résumé that has not been touched by AI nor "ATS optimized" (and I know has terrible parsing because for some organizations, I was promoted and I kept both titles on that version with different dates amongst two or three other formatting issues). On the cover letter I send to these kinds of jobs (I didn't use AI on that either), I only changed the first line to reflect the name of the role, organization, and where I found the JD.

I also didn't send them my references because I'm very old-school about privacy so I didn't mention them at all; if it's a required field, I write "Due to past experience, references will be provided after a mutually successful virtual interview." I've gotten two interviews where I didn't provide references which were asked for upfront; I can't know for sure if that was a deal breaker for others or if I simply didn't meet other criteria. Employers didn't used to ask for references until they were ready to make a job offer or at least until the first interview so I'm suspicious about it now after being unethically added to newsletter mailing lists after applying to two or three jobs.

They replied in just five days, rejecting me with an original (non-template) e-mail. Two weeks later, they e-mail me again out of the blue giving me a heads up about a similar position in another department. Surprised at the professionalism and thoughtfulness, I replied positively and then there was over two weeks of absolute silence before I got a phone call from their assistant to schedule an interview. Phone call on Monday; one interview on Wednesday with the heads of HR, my department, and the overall organization; I sent my references and they were checked hours after the meeting; and I got a job offer Friday morning. This is the second job I was offered where I didn't send a thank-you letter/e-mail. Also, I was fortunately able to schedule the interview for right after lunch when people are in a good mood. Further details on r/interviews.

My new job will be helping people fight debt collectors, keep their homes, and declare bankruptcy if necessary. I think there's going to be even higher demand in the years to come. Best of luck to all those still looking; I hope this post is at least a little helpful either practically or psychologically. Thanks to this subreddit for keeping hope alive while still being realistic about the anomalously bad job market.