Yeah I used to think like you, but I kept getting screened out of interviews because my cv was missing keywords. Then I listed every technology I ever worked with and suddenly I was getting interviews.
I never tailored the cv to each job as that would take way too much time, especially as you get more senior. As a junior developer, sure, it might be worth it because you might get offers from most jobs you apply for. Nowadays I would have to apply for dozens of jobs to find a good fit.
This might only apply for EU and UK though, I imagine things are a lot better in the US
> Then I listed every technology I ever worked with and suddenly I was getting interviews.
I got flooded with job spam that way. As a signal-to-noise ratio, I would much rather strip all the keywords from my CV and get an occasional cold call (or e-mail) than wake up every day to a mailbox full of jobs that are not related to what I've done, but matched some keyword on my resume.
>I never tailored the cv to each job as that would take way too much time, especially as you get more senior.
How many jobs are you applying for? It's harder when you're a graduate looking for a job. When you're senior you're probably only applying for a handful of roles that caught your eye and it only takes 10 minutes to refactor your CV to make it more relevant to each company.
My experience has been the complete opposite, as a junior you are less picky and pretty much every role hits your requirements so you apply for a couple jobs and get offered most of them.
As a senior, you have to apply for lots of jobs because most the jobs you apply for won't hit the requirements (for example, salary). For reference, I have 15+ years of experience so I'm fairly senior for the industry.
The last time I thought about getting a stable job I got quite a few interviews but most of them were offering £100 to £120k which I consider fairly low (I was making that in 2014...)
It's honestly quite a waste of time, I don't know how much different it is across the pond but I imagine it's easier over there, considering the kind of comments you read on HN and such
I never tailored the cv to each job as that would take way too much time, especially as you get more senior. As a junior developer, sure, it might be worth it because you might get offers from most jobs you apply for. Nowadays I would have to apply for dozens of jobs to find a good fit.
This might only apply for EU and UK though, I imagine things are a lot better in the US