My journey
Who am I?
I came to Germany in 2023 for my master's degree, full of optimism. With strong grades and international work experience, I was sure I would find a job upon graduation. I started applying for roles in July 2024, reading through each job description and editing my resume religiously. Then reality hit. Rejection after rejection, sometimes within a couple of hours of applying. As an expat before coming to Germany, I was promised by the news and media about the shortage of skilled workers facing the continent. I bought into this promise. My biggest misconception was believing there was someone across the screen who was also religiously reading my resume and thinking about my application with the same passion. Silly me. Fact: In most cases, there was no person in the initial shortlisting loop. It's just an automated system (ATS—Applicant Tracking System) quantitatively assessing and matching your resume against the job description.
I feel that with hundreds of applications coming through for each role, it saves time to adopt such an automated system (however much I might hate this). It's the industry norm. However, I felt inefficient in this process. It takes a long time to read a job description, research the company, adapt my resume, and apply. By diligently following this process, I romanticized each role I applied to. My brain would dream up stories after I received the email "You have been hired," sipping a cup of coffee in my brand-new role. I blame my limbic system for taking over.
Job applications are not for dreamers!
What changed?
Around mid-September 2024, after hundreds of rejections and a shattered dream world later, I realized that maybe it was time to think logically (time to put my limbic system in the back seat). Why not build an automated process to our advantage? Within a few days, I put together a process that would review each job description against my resume and provide me a score. It also included the language requirements and recommendations on how to personalize my resume for the role.
Two weeks later, this process showed results, as I was shortlisted for the first time. Although I did not get this particular job, I got at least 10 shortlistings over the next 4-5 weeks. I could not believe what was happening. Eventually, I managed to crack 3 interviews and get hired into my dream role by January 2025.
Is there a secret? NO!
Though it might feel like I have cracked some secret code, it's just clever engineering. Companies over-promise and under-deliver, as usual. They claim to carefully review your application and compare to every other applicant, but is that even possible? It comes down to the demand and supply principle, where roles in Germany are few yet applicants are plenty. The real question is "How do you plan to be seen in this crowd?"
All I did was apply only to the jobs where I was a strong match (quantifiably, not because I felt it) with a resume that was personalized for the job. That's it. You also only need to concentrate your efforts in the right direction. Don't make the same mistake as me and start dreaming before getting hired. Keep your feelings aside and let your System 2 (prefrontal cortex) take over.
I see many of my friends in a similar situation, struggling to find jobs as they put their efforts in the wrong direction. The reality: The job market sucks right now. So any time you have should be invested in the right place. If you are a job seeker, you might be able to relate to some parts of my story. It's not the most interesting or inspiring, but rather realistic.
Hope is not a strategy.
What are we building?
With the mission of making the job application process seamless and efficient, I started building SwiftScout in February 2025. I've been enriching it with powerful features that help you find jobs faster and make your application better.
- Jobs: Find new jobs added daily.
- Filtering the best jobs: Jobs are refined to meet certain high-skill requirements and expat friendliness.
- Jobs are structured: Each job description is structured into Summary, Experience, Education, Skills, and Language requirements to make it easy for you to apply or ignore with a quick glance.
- Sort Jobs by Resume: With one single click, you can sort all jobs based on your resume to find the best matches to which you should apply.
- Run ATS: You can score each job on the page against your resume with a recommendation to apply or ignore.
- Language filters: You can select German language filters based on the job description to apply according to your language fluency level.
- Career-verse: I believe you should only be limited by your choice of the job, not by what the platform can offer. With Career-verse you get an unlimited choice of jobs sourced from around the web.
- Select and search: Choose the titles that interest you, location, posting date, and tenure, and the system searches for jobs based on your criteria.
- Jobs are structured: Each job is broken into Summary, Experience, Education, Skills, and Language requirements, so you can apply or ignore with a quick glance.
- Match your resume: Every single criterion from the job is matched against your resume, making it effortless to apply or ignore. It highlights your resume strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement.
- Filtered for freshness and competition: Filter each job by how recently it was posted and how many applicants have already applied. Your best bet is the freshest and least competitive roles.
- Personalize your resume: One click personalizes your resume for the job in an easy-to-edit, on-screen format.
- Dashboard that tracks: Every application is tracked as you apply. The dashboard shows each application and your search history so you can stay on top of progress.
Where are we at?
SwiftScout has grown from just a small-time project to now a full-fledged platform. We are hitting 50k jobs being sourced from Germany, and plan to expand this to 100k jobs by next month. With hundreds of users already on our platform, we have grown beyond my wildest imagination.
We have tried to keep most of the features on our jobs page like best jobs based on resume, ATS scoring, advanced filters, and semantic search as free. And our current geographic focus is on Germany for jobs on the platform. The new feature of Career-verse is an attempt to expand our geographic reach to adjust to your preferences. It is currently live in beta and free for you to try up to 200 jobs. We have added a small subscription tier providing a lot more jobs, since the cost was too high to cover out of pocket. Professional members will receive the latest and best features along with personal support and conflict resolution (mail to:founder@swiftscout.ai from your registered email).
Smart job seekers always win.
What's Coming Next? And How Can You Contribute?
We have a strong bias to testing and implementing the latest technologies (in AI or otherwise) to make the frustrating job-seeking experience a little less so. Hence, one of the worst parts of job applications is the application process itself. We plan to make you the captain supervising the Scout Agent's work. So you can let the agent do the tedious work while you approve/disapprove its actions. Another plan concerns expanding the number of jobs on the platform by at least 5x, thus providing more value as a job search platform for all our users.
We would love to hear your ideas on what we should do next. Hence, please feel free to email me: founder@swiftscout.ai from your registered email with subject: Idea ____ .
My Small Ask
We are a bootstrapped platform. Thus, there is no large marketing or advertising budget. If this platform is useful for you, please share with your friends.