If you've been firing off job applications into the digital void and hearing nothing back, personal finance expert Dave Ramsey has some blunt advice: you're doing it wrong.

During a recent episode of "The Ramsey Show," a caller shared her frustration about spending months searching for technology and engineering roles in Atlanta while watching her friends land solid positions. Ramsey's response was straightforward and a bit depressing for anyone without connections.

"Applying for jobs doesn't work unless you know somebody inside the building that takes your resume out of that stack that's nine feet high," Ramsey explained. "They can pull your resume out of the stack, walk it down the hall to their buddy and the hiring manager, and say, 'I don't know if she'll work out, but at least take a look.'"

The Digital Generation Problem

According to Ramsey, part of the challenge facing younger job seekers is that they "grew up doing everything digitally instead of relationally." The muscle memory of networking and building real connections just isn't there.

He shared a personal example of how this works in practice. "An old childhood friend texted me and said a friend of a friend's daughter had her resume in the stack. Would I pull it out? We did. It didn't result in her being hired, but at least we let them look at it," Ramsey said.

Co-host Ken Coleman backed him up with some sobering statistics. He pointed to a 2021 study showing that 4 million qualified candidates were completely overlooked by companies they applied to. The culprit? AI software that employers use to process the tsunami of resumes flooding their inboxes. When you're competing against algorithms, simply being qualified isn't enough.

That Salary Is 'Awful'

The conversation took another turn when the caller revealed she's currently working as a developer making around $40,000 annually. Ramsey didn't mince words, calling the salary "awful" and adding that it "sucks."

Both Ramsey and Coleman agreed that an entry-level developer should be earning somewhere between $75,000 and $85,000. That's nearly double what she's currently making.

Ramsey pushed back against any notion that the tech job market has dried up. "Developers are not hurting, there's a shortage," he said. "I don't know who told you the market has dried up for developers, there's a shortage. I could hire five today if I could find them that were competent."

The message was clear: if you're qualified and earning that little, the problem isn't the market. It's how you're approaching the job search. In Ramsey's view, landing a better position comes down to getting your resume in front of actual humans rather than letting it disappear into an automated screening system.