Congratulations! These days that's the equivalent of getting a new job tomorrow.

One friend has been searching for 10 months and he's brilliant. Another had his pay cut in half 10 months ago and has been looking since and just had his first set of promising interviews in that time.

It's brutal out there!

For those searching and looking for good resources first I'd consider joining a job search council: https://www.neversearchalone.org/join-jsc

I know several recruiters and none of them are offering interviews to anyone who wasn't a reference because they find plenty qualified candidates before they get to non-referrals.

This means networking is critical. For that consider reading Taking the Work Out of Networking by Karen Wickre. Though the JSC above also talks a good bit about networking and has networking built in.

Applying cold is still useful but a resume and cover letter needs to be properly ATS optimized, and many (not all) companies filter out resumes if they detect AI usage. So consider hiring quality a resume writer.

And good luck, seriously!