so i did my btech in aiml in 2025 from ips academy indore (yes tier 3 ikr) then i went to Bangalore for 7-8 months for doing a data science course with specialization in gen ai

made some cool projects there mostly vibe coding but can explain each one of them to its depth  
been applying literally everywhere since last 2-3 months but i am just not getting any traction  
no interviews or anything

here is what i have been doing since 2 months-

Not just Easy Apply going to company career pages directly

DMing employees at target companies for referrals + conversations (not cold "please refer me" spam)

Posting on LinkedIn about my projects weekly ( or anything related to aiml )

Applying across LinkedIn, Naukri, Wellfound

**Result:** \~150-200 applications. **1 interview call.** From a mid-stage startup. In 3 months.

I am looking for ML Intern, Junior ML Engineer, Associate AI Engineer, GenAI Intern roles. anything to get started with and I genuinely don't know what's blocking me.

Is it the college name auto-filtering me out before someone sees the resume Is my resume format killing ATS? Am I targeting wrong companies? Is the market just this bad right now?

really need some guidance as i dont have a mentor or anything like that and think that this place would give me something good

150+ applications, 3 months, 1 interview call - tier-3 CS grad with real ML projects, what am I actually doing wrong? need genuine advice