There are two kinds of companies: those with a high hiring bar, and those with a low one. It's less work to get a job at low-bar companies, so why would you app

There are two kinds of companies: those with a high hiring bar, and those with a low one. It's less work to get a job at low-bar companies, so why would you apply to a high-bar company? If the caliber of people you work with is a major factor in how much you enjoy working somewhere, you should be applying to high-bar companies even though it's more work. Caliber of co-workers matters more or less with different kinds of work. In a tight software development team, a small number of doofuses or toxic people can make working there awful. In a typical outside sales team, co-worker competence might not matter as much because you're each closing deals independently. So there's no single answer.