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Came here to say this. Rather than a metric of "how many total jobs have I applied to", a perhaps more effective metric would be "how many high quality applica

Came here to say this. Rather than a metric of "how many total jobs have I applied to", a perhaps more effective metric would be "how many high quality applications have I put in, how many opportunities have I been exposed to via referral, how many friends do I have looking on my behalf/providing introductions to hiring managers who are actively hiring". Blindly applying to listings you find online with no "in", is going to be a lot of applications to get to a single conversion/hire event. Find your buddies, the recruiters who respect your time and expertise, even "friend of a friend" as parent mentioned is worlds better than "just another resume on the stack".

anon50118810 4y ago
OP here. Great advice for people with a big network, though of course if a company is waiting for a strong referral before hiring, they're not really that desperate, which was my thesis.
- nyc_data_geek1 4y ago
  I would posit that time spent building that network is more valuable than the equivalent amount of time spent blasting out resumes to random job listings. You can network with recruiters to find the right ones with no prior exposure to them. For the most part, desperate employers are not the ones you want to work for anyhow. They're desperate for a reason. It's not like there's some scarcity of candidates now, especially as layoffs before more common.
  - anon50118810 4y ago
    I've said elsewhere that I've had better response rates from direct applications (15-20%) than from third-party recruiters (~0%). My LinkedIn says I'm looking for work and I've gotten very little attention there. I'm sure relying on recruiters works for some people but it doesn't look like the way forward for me. Desperate doesn't have to mean bad, it just means they have a hiring need and you're on hand to fill it. Unfortunately this is really the only option if you're otherwise going to have a tough time competing head-to-head with your peers.

anon50118810 4y ago

OP here. Great advice for people with a big network, though of course if a company is waiting for a strong referral before hiring, they're not really that desperate, which was my thesis.

nyc_data_geek1 4y ago
I would posit that time spent building that network is more valuable than the equivalent amount of time spent blasting out resumes to random job listings. You can network with recruiters to find the right ones with no prior exposure to them. For the most part, desperate employers are not the ones you want to work for anyhow. They're desperate for a reason. It's not like there's some scarcity of candidates now, especially as layoffs before more common.
- anon50118810 4y ago
  I've said elsewhere that I've had better response rates from direct applications (15-20%) than from third-party recruiters (~0%). My LinkedIn says I'm looking for work and I've gotten very little attention there. I'm sure relying on recruiters works for some people but it doesn't look like the way forward for me. Desperate doesn't have to mean bad, it just means they have a hiring need and you're on hand to fill it. Unfortunately this is really the only option if you're otherwise going to have a tough time competing head-to-head with your peers.