Vladislav Kolosnicin’s Post

Vladislav Kolosnicin I agree with the diagnosis, and it is still too kind. The over-polishing of LinkedIn profiles is not dishonesty. It is adaptation. It is the rational response to a hiring system outsourced to intermediaries who are neither outcome-driven nor technically literate, yet fully empowered to block access. When recruitment is reduced to keyword matching, competency theatre, and scripted interviews run by people who do not understand the work, engineers do what engineers always do: they optimise for the system in front of them. Profiles turn into marketing pages because marketing is the only language that passes the gate. This creates a perfect self-fulfilling prophecy: the system manufactures exaggeration, then uses it as proof that candidates cannot be trusted, justifying more stages, more checks, and more “rigour”. At some point, hiring stopped detecting signal and started producing noise, then congratulated itself for filtering it. This is not a talent problem. It is a systems failure that rewards performance over competence, and then blames candidates for playing by the rules it designed.

Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of takes saying that job listings on LinkedIn are just a formality. And that people add connections here the same way they follow on social media — just to grow numbers. Honestly? There’s some truth in that. But it’s not the whole story. Yes, not every job post means hiring is happening tomorrow. Yes, not every connection is built with intention. But LinkedIn was never meant to be just a digital CV or a popularity contest. For candidates, job listings are still a signal: what skills are in demand, how roles are evolving, and where companies are headed. For recruiters and leaders, they’re a way to test the market, build pipelines, and stay visible — not just “check a box.” Same with connections. A connection isn’t valuable because of the number — it’s valuable because of context. Shared industry, shared conversations, shared respect. Insight > optics. Substance > algorithms. At the end of the day, LinkedIn reflects how we use it. If we treat it like social media, it becomes one. If we treat it like a professional space, it creates real opportunities. Curious to hear how others see this.

Linkedin is dead. 0.4% I said it, but not for the reasons you are thinking. If you are "open to hire" at the moment. Linkedin job hunting is your worse enemy. You have a 0.4% chance of getting an interview (read passing the ATS bots) on Linkedin at the moment. It's bad everywhere if just hoping to get through the ATS pipeline to a hiring manager. I heard this from a pretty smart person on YouTube. But, I did look into it to see if it was accurate. His advice was to quit doubling down on using AI to tweak your resume. Stop trying to fit into the crowded pipeline. Do something different. He built an interactive site where managers are intrigued and not filtering for reasons to disqualify you as a candidate. (he suggests this for you as well, and even has a build guide and GitHub repo if you're adventurous. Most will say, if a manager won't take 5 seconds to review a resume, then why would they interact with my site. Easy. You're already showing skills others aren't. You are building in public. Showing no fear. That's interesting. You still have to market yourself to get in front of hiring managers. That's where LinkedIn is still alive and kicking. It is still great for content sharing and getting noticed. If you do it well. Someone else can tell you how to do it well. I'm not the guy for that. I can share the youtube video if you like, but I didn't want to crowd the feed with another shared video. HMU if you want the link.

1 Million Impression 🚀 A few months ago, I was just another person on LinkedIn scrolling… saving posts… feeling stuck. I was applying for jobs. So were my friends. So were hundreds of smart, capable people around me. Same skills. Same resumes. Same silence. That’s when I realized something uncomfortable: ❌ The problem wasn’t talent ❌ The problem wasn’t effort ❌ The problem wasn’t “bad luck” The problem was visibility. I started going deep — not surface-level tips. I studied how job platforms actually work: • How Naukri reads resumes • How recruiters search (keywords, filters, titles) • Why good resumes never get seen • Why ATS is not a “rejection bot” but a search engine I didn’t read one blog. I didn’t watch one YouTube video. I studied 150+ resources, real resumes, real recruiter behavior, real dashboards. Slowly, patterns became clear. And something unexpected happened. People started asking me: “Can you check my resume?” “Why am I not getting calls?” “What am I doing wrong on Naukri?” That’s how my LinkedIn journey changed. Today, I don’t post for likes. I post to decode the system. I work on micro, practical fixes: • Resume structure that ATS can actually read • Naukri profile setups that show up in searches • Fixing silent errors that block visibility • Making profiles recruiter-friendly, not fancy No motivation. No false promises. Just how the market really works. If even one person gets an interview call because of something I shared — that matters more than any metric. I’m still learning. Still refining. Still obsessed with understanding the hiring system better than yesterday. If you’re someone who’s tired of “do this, do that” advice and wants clarity over comfort — you’re in the right place. More to come. This is just the beginning. 🤝 If you want help with resume / Naukri visibility comment YES or HELP — I’ll reach out.

Forget LinkedIn's "Easy Apply," it doesn't work. #Hiring Ok, bear with me. For some reason, my LinkedIn post about hiring a new marketing teammate got way more attention this time (I’m blaming Noah Greenberg’s 2x audience compared to last year, plus a job market that feels increasingly precarious). But we actually received MUCH fewer applications than last year, which… honestly, is great. Why? Screening questions. I know everyone hates them, but they completely changed the applicant pool. Instead of sifting through a mountain of “spray and pray,” I’m seeing candidates who are genuinely aligned with the role, in a way I didn’t get last year during my first marketing hire. So here’s my first piece of advice for this new season of my #HiringInPublic series: skip the “Easy Apply” roles and prioritize jobs that filter at the top of the funnel. Three reasons: 👉 It signals the company (and hiring manager) is being intentional, which usually correlates with a better hiring process and a better place to work. 👉 You’ll automatically face less competition because fewer people will bother. 👉 Hiring managers who design for mass applications create a time-wasting mess for everyone, and we should not reward them. If a role invites 1,000 random applicants, it’s not a virtue, it’s a broken system. Honestly, if people had done this to me last year, and I’d gotten only bad applicants, I would’ve learned this lesson a lot faster. I’m reviewing applications today and likely over the weekend, and I expect to send a first round of emails next week. I’ll keep you posted.

I see this all the time on Linkedin: “Recruiters just want a unicorn!” “I have X years of experience...” “I have so much experience in Y...” “It’s unfair that I have to shorten my resume.” Here's the deal: Your resume isn’t about you - it’s about the problem(s) you can solve. Change your mindset on this.  The recruiter AND hiring manager share the same goal: identify enough of a fit that it warrants an interview. If that signal isn’t obvious within seconds, you get passed over - not because you aren’t qualified, but because the fit isn’t clear fast enough. If you want your resume to work harder, try this: 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁‐𝗹𝗼𝗮𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲: Put your strongest, most relevant wins in the top third of page one. That’s where the yes/no decision usually happens. 𝗥𝘂𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 “𝗦𝗼 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁?” 𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁: If a bullet describes a duty but doesn’t show what changed because you did it, it’s filler. 𝗠𝗶𝗿𝗿𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗴𝗲: Use the terms the job description uses. You’re not gaming anything - you’re making the match obvious. Here’s what that looks like in practice: 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗲𝘅𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲: “Hit 115% of annual quota, generating $2.1M in new revenue.” 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗲𝘅𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲: “Grew organic lead gen by 40% by increasing CTR to 5.5%.” 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗲𝘅𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲: “Reduced system latency by 30% and cut cloud costs by $12k/month.” Your resume doesn’t need to tell your whole story. It just needs to make the next step obvious - INTERVIEW! Am I wrong? Would love to hear your thoughts.

There’s a filter on LinkedIn most people never touch: “Under 10 applicants.” It lives quietly at the bottom of “All filters.” No one scrolls that far. That’s the point. This isn’t about gaming the system. It’s about understanding how hiring actually works. Recruiters don’t review 500 résumés. They review the first few that look plausible and stop when momentum kicks in. Early applicants don’t compete on pedigree. They compete on timing. Small companies, new postings, low applicant counts: these roles are still decidable. Once applicant volume explodes, outcomes are mostly path-dependent. Most job seekers optimize the wrong thing: Résumé keywords. Cover letters. One more certification. The real lever is competition density. If you apply where everyone applies, you’re betting on miracles. If you apply where decisions are still forming, you’re betting on process.

Most people think the job market looks like LinkedIn job boards. It doesn’t. What it actually looks like is a funnel. At the top? Internal moves. Someone already inside the company raises a hand. Then referrals. A hiring manager asks, “Do we know anyone?” Then recruiter outreach. Quiet pings. Soft conversations. And only at the very bottom… A public job post. By then, the role is often half-decided. That’s the part no one tells you when you’re firing off application #73 at midnight, tweaking keywords, hoping this one finally lands. I’ve seen this pattern again and again. Across roles. Across industries. Across seniority levels. Which is why mass applying feels exhausting and oddly personal when it doesn’t work. You’re competing at the noisiest, least human layer of the funnel. The hidden job market works differently. It rewards familiarity. Not fame. Not “networking hard.” Just being known, clearly and consistently, for something specific. That’s the shift I ask people to make. Stop asking: “Where can I apply?” Start asking: “Who should already know me?” Practically, this means three things. First, your LinkedIn isn’t a resume dump. It’s a positioning signal. When someone lands there, they should instantly get what you do and why it matters. Second, informational conversations aren’t favors you beg for. They’re curiosity-driven exchanges. Ten to fifteen of these, done well, quietly change how you show up in a market. Third, consistency beats intensity. Showing up thoughtfully: posts, comments, conversations and keeps you top of mind without feeling salesy or desperate. This is slower than applying. And paradoxically, it works faster. Because when an opportunity opens up, the question isn’t “Who applied?” It’s “Who do we already trust?” That’s how most meaningful roles are filled.

Pro tip: if you see a “We’re hiring!” post, just make sure that they work for that company. Commenting with your email or asking for connections might feel helpful, but it’s really just an extra step. That person doesn’t know more about the job than you do since you can literally find everything on the company’s careers page. Yes, these posts grow profiles and engagement. But for people actually trying to apply, it’s a small detour that doesn’t need to exist. So before you DM or comment your info, ask yourself: do they work there? If not, just go straight to the source. #linkedinadvice #linkedin #fakemarketing

Can we talk about how LinkedIn lately feels more like a performative job market than a platform meant for real connection and opportunity? I’ve been trying to stay off here because I’m tired of the constant rhetoric that candidates need to do more meanwhile, the people with actual hiring power keep deflecting responsibility. Every time I log in, I see: *Posts complaining about how we show up on this app (even though it’s literally become “corporate social media”) *Critiques on how we apply to jobs: “you should’ve networked more” “you didn’t tailor your resume enough” “your presence wasn’t professional enough” Or Advice that basically says we need to beg for jobs just to be seen Here’s the reality: There’s a major disconnect between the candidate experience and the people doing the hiring. We’re not angry for fun we’re EXHAUSTED from being ignored, gaslit, and told to “keep trying” while we apply to hundreds of roles, hear nothing back, get automatically get rejected or go through multiple rounds of interviews just to still end up without a job secured. Instead of defensively justifying ATS and “how the market works,” imagine if more hiring managers and recruiters actually shared: * Who they helped land a job recently and HOW * What made a candidate stand out outside of algorithmic nonsense * What a human centered process actually looks like and not canned responses And let’s be real, if you’re going to ask for public engagement and feedback on your posts, you don’t get to police what kind of feedback shows up. If people disagree with you, that IS engagement. LinkedIn should be a space where hiring and searching is more transparent and collaborative, not another platform full of vague posts and smoke & mirrors. Can we PLEASE get back to that? Thank you for joining my TedTalk ❤️ #jobsearch #hiring #recruitment #jobmarket #hiringmanagers #linkedin #networking