Fifteen months out of work: no interviews, no offers, a market the candidate called a horror show.
Then two offers in the same week. Their account of what changed:
Retune the résumé the way an AI parser reads it, with a line naming the tools and technologies actually used. Swap the STAR format for CARL — Context, Actions, Results, Learnings — because the learning at the end turns the questions back on the interviewer. Keep every story to three and a half minutes, because interviewers, too, have short attention. Keep a document of those stories and read them aloud. Practise until a failed interview stops being a failure and becomes an adjustment. Apply everywhere, and prioritise the postings with ten applicants or fewer.
Underneath the tactics is the thing that carried them through: do not give up.