A hundred applications and four replies is a common number. People assume it means the market is brutal, or that they are underqualified. Usually it means the resume is being filtered before anyone reads it, and nobody has told them.
Applicant tracking systems parse your file into fields before a recruiter sees anything. If the parse goes wrong, your experience lands in the wrong box or nowhere at all. Here is what breaks it most often.
1. The layout fights the parser
Two column templates, text inside tables, contact details in the header, skills as a graphic. These look considered and they parse badly. A single column with plain headings is duller to look at and survives the machine intact.
2. The keywords are not there
If the post says Kubernetes and your resume says container orchestration, you will not match. Recruiters search using the words in their own job description. Use the same words, provided they are true.
3. Duties instead of results
Responsible for managing the reporting pipeline says nothing. Cut report generation from six hours to twenty minutes for a team of forty says everything. Same job, different reader reaction.
4. Seniority is unclear
A recruiter decides in seconds whether you are the right level. If they have to read three roles deep to work that out, most stop. Put scope, team size and ownership near the top.
Fix the order, not the volume
Work through those four, then apply again. Twenty applications on a fixed resume will outperform another hundred on the broken one, and you will know why.