A near-empty count is nearly always a filter problem, not a market problem. Work through this list in order, checking the count after each change.
- Remove your title exclusions first. They are subtractive and the cheapest thing to give back.
- Loosen the title, keep the seniority. A long title string matches almost nothing. Shorten it to a fragment, or drop titles entirely and let the seniority band carry the search.
- Check your geography depth. City filters shrink pools sharply. Step back to state, then to country.
- Widen the size bands by one step in each direction and see how much comes back.
- Review the keyword. Overly literal or very long keywords select almost nothing. Try a shorter, more common phrasing.
- Check for a filter conflict: a manager-level seniority combined with a 1-10 employee band, or an industry combined with a keyword from a different market, will collapse a count to near zero even though both filters look reasonable alone.
Change one thing at a time. If you loosen four filters at once and the count recovers, you have learned nothing and you have probably given back more precision than you needed to. All of this costs nothing, since counts and previews are free and unlimited.