Thanks for the answer. For myself, it is easy to forget this reality. Once your career is bootstrapped the story changes so much. I've changed employers only 4

Thanks for the answer. For myself, it is easy to forget this reality. Once your career is bootstrapped the story changes so much. I've changed employers only 4 times in 23 years, one of those was an acquisition, and the other three times I only interviewed with four companies (total, not each job change). Since getting my first job, I've never not gotten the phone screen/onsite interview/job offer. Ok that all sounds very braggadocio. Sorry. But when I consider my first job search: over a period of nine months I sent out over a hundred applications, received several hundred rejections (some companies like to reject you once for each internal department that doesn't like you), and finally scraped a handful of interviews, some mealy mouthed "maybe if" not-quite-offers, and finally a real job offer. I also had the unbelievable arrogance to walk out of an interview because they used a 4GL and I wanted a real programming job (I was polite about it, I waited until lunch and just said that I didn't feel that I would be a good fit) Hone your craft, it gets better.