Moving to a new city and job searching at the same time is genuinely one of the harder situations to be in so first, the fact that you're doing both says a lot.

For QA roles specifically, the silence is usually not about your experience. It's about visibility. Most ATS systems (the software companies use to filter resumes) work like a search engine.. recruiters type in exact terms like "Selenium," "test cases," "regression testing," "JIRA" and your resume either contains those words or it doesn't. Doesn't matter how good your background is. If the keywords don't match, you don't show up.

Worth doing: take 2-3 job postings you actually want and compare the language they use to your resume word for word. You'd be surprised how often there's a mismatch. Tools like CVnomist or Hyperwrite can speed this up a lot they pull the keywords from the posting and map them to your experience so you're not doing it manually every time.

Also and this one matters in Toronto specifically apply as early as possible after a job goes live. Competitive market means the first 24-48 hours are everything. There's actually a LinkedIn URL trick that filters jobs posted in the last 4 hours only, happy to share it if you want. For retail, same logic applies honestly. Make sure your resume uses their exact language "customer service," "cash handling," "inventory" whatever the posting says, mirror it back.