Beat the Hiring "Signal Problem": Referrals, Targeting, and Volume

Bashiri Smith · Facebook reel · 2026-09-21 · 1:34 · 8,109 views · Open on Facebook

Topics: Resume, Job Search & Interviews, Industry Trends & Job Market · Level: beginner

Summary

Hiring managers get thousands of applications, and the resumes all look the same, so being qualified isn't enough. You also need to get seen. Bashiri Smith gives three ways to stand out: build a referral network by offering value and proof of your skills, apply only to roles where you're a strong fit, and keep sending lots of applications while you improve your resume and projects.

Key points

• The CEO of a major ATS (applicant tracking system) and hiring platform calls this a 'signal problem': with a thousand similar resumes, a recruiter can't tell who is qualified, who is interested and who auto-applied.
• The creator says landing a tech job today is '90% about just being seen.'
• Strategy 1, referrals: email people at companies you want to join and offer them value or proof of your skills. Also offer value to people already in your network: peers, coworkers, professors, bosses, businesses and LinkedIn connections.
• Strategy 2, targeting: don't send your resume to every company. Apply where you're actually qualified and well placed, so your resume looks like the perfect fit when it's seen.
• Strategy 3, volume and time: this works even if you have no unique experience or network, as long as you keep updating your resume and building projects.
• The creator says he has never seen anyone with a good resume, good projects and decent experience who sends 100–500 applications a month fail to land a job eventually.
• Sending the same generic resume to every opening isn't a strategy.

Resources mentioned

• Why Your Job Applications Keep Getting Ignored · video · youtube.com · free
  Bashiri Smith's YouTube video on his strategy for standing out among applicants and getting interviews.
  Also in: Software Engineer to AI Engineer Before 2027: A 5-Step Career Plan (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), Using the September Hiring Surge: Volume Plus Quality in Your Job Search (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes)
• BASWE.Ai Engineer (Skool community) · community · skool.com · paid
  The creator's paid community and program, with an AI learning roadmap (including the full ops and evaluation track), daily calls with engineers and recruiters, resume and portfolio help, and a job-search pipeline.
  Also in: Basic RAG Pipeline in 60 Seconds: From Documents to Grounded Answers (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), Pointer to Bashiri Smith's Complete AI Engineer Roadmap for 2026 (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), Step-by-Step Roadmap to a $200K+ AI Engineering Role (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), How to Evaluate a RAG Pipeline: Retrieval vs. Generation (Interview Answer) (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) and 76 more
• LinkedIn · website · linkedin.com · free
  Professional network, used here to find warm-lead connections and the names of contacts for cold outreach.
  Also in: Step-by-Step Roadmap to a $200K+ AI Engineering Role (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), 7 Habits to Become an AI Engineer: Books, Tooling, Research & Shipping (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), 6 Steps to Build a Resume Project That Lands an AI Engineering Job (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), 6-Step Framework for Building AI Projects Target Companies Care About (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) and 3 more

From the PDF shared here: The Interview Engine: The 7-Step System to Land AI Engineering Interviews

Open the original · 12 pages

A BASWE field guide that lays out a 7-step job-search system for software engineers going after AI engineering roles. The steps are a one-page ATS-friendly resume, tailoring the resume to each job with a Claude prompt, exporting your LinkedIn connections, a three-tab job tracker, using Claude to match connections to companies for referrals, finding hiring managers' emails with Hunter.io and Apollo, and a cold email template with a follow-up schedule. It includes copy-paste prompts, message templates and a weekly routine aimed at an 8–12% application-to-interview rate. Work through it step by step, then repeat the weekly loop.

• Claude Opus 5.5 · tool · claude.ai · paid · open in a browser to verify · recommended by both Bashiri Smith & Melvin Vivas
  Anthropic's AI assistant, used throughout the guide to tailor resumes, add live roles to the tracker, match connections to target companies and find hiring managers.
  Also in: Generating a Repo Promo Video with a Claude Skill on Sonnet 5.5 vs Opus 5.5 (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Comparing Coding Models on the Same Task in Devin iOS (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Customizing Your Coding Setup with Pi Coding Agent Extensions (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), AI Engineer Roadmap Overview: From ML Foundations to RAG, Agents & Ops (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) and 54 more
• Hunter.io · tool · hunter.io · free
  An email-finding tool: domain search shows a company's email pattern, the email finder returns a person's likely address with a confidence score, and it can verify addresses before you send.
  Also in: AI Engineer Roadmap: 5 Skill Areas, a 24-Week Study Order & Interview Strategy (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes)
• Apollo · tool · apollo.io · free
  A people database for searching by title at a company (e.g. engineering manager) and pulling verified emails. The guide calls it best for volume; it has a free tier with monthly limits.
• LinkedIn Download My Data · tool · linkedin.com · free
  LinkedIn's data export page, used to download Connections.csv (name, company, position and connection date for your network) so you can map warm referral paths.

Try this

• Email people at the companies you want to work for and offer them value or proof of your skills.
• Offer value to people already in your network (peers, coworkers, professors, bosses, businesses, LinkedIn connections) so you can get referrals.
• Apply only to roles where you're qualified and well placed instead of sending your resume everywhere.
• Keep improving your resume and building projects while sending a high volume of applications (100–500 a month).
• Watch the creator's YouTube video on standing out (comment 'signal' to get the link) and read the Get More Interviews PDF.