7 ms·

Targeted Bets: An alternative approach to the job hunt

133 points by seany62 9mo ago

seany62 9mo ago
I posted this mainly as something to refer friends to when they complain about something being to competitive / hard to get. Thought I'd shoot it here too.
tekacs 9mo ago
> If the company is <30 people, reach out to the CEO directly. When the people you're interviewing with are 'already senior' (e.g. direct reports to the CEO), you can sometimes make your case worse rather than better, because it feels like you're going over their head. So rather than size... - If the interviewer(s) in question feel like you're trying to circumvent them, you're probably making your case worse. - The kind of CEO that tends to meddle in things below their level might drag down your case even if they like you, because folks can develop a distaste for their meddling. - Doing this for senior roles, or roles at small companies can actually be worse, because the person in question is more likely to be close in reporting chain to the CEO, who is more likely to directly meddle in your hiring process. Zero- or one-level removed can be the worst.
- wrs 9mo ago
  I interpreted this post as being about how you get an interview in the first place, so the hope would be that the CEO forwards your mail to this senior person you're worried about.
  - tekacs 9mo ago
    Even still - a lot of senior folks, sadly, don't take it super well when candidates are forwarded their way by people above them when they're running a process.
    - deleted 9mo ago
      [deleted]
    - ghaff 9mo ago
      Remember, that you may not know who the hiring manager is and there may not even be a relevant posted position. I've gotten lucky with just reaching out to very senior people at a couple of different companies (of very different sizes) over time.
- onion2k 9mo ago
  When the people you're interviewing with are 'already senior' (e.g. direct reports to the CEO), you can sometimes make your case worse rather than better, because it feels like you're going over their head. If that happens then it's a very good thing - you do not want to work at a company where people are precious about how they succeed. If a great candidate (e.g you) drops into the inbox of the CEO who forwards it to someone else, and their first reaction is 'Well, they violated my personal kingdom by going over my head!' then that is a manager you do not need in your life.
- zem 9mo ago
  I understood the OP to be saying "reach out to the CEO to express your interest in working for the company in order to get to the interview stage", not "email the CEO to make a case for being hired when you're already in the interview pipeline"
lbrito 9mo ago
>Get in contact with current employees at the company. It is important that you send more than one email. I've gotten dozens of emails asking for meetings and referrals. The only time I actually respond to these is after the second email. Please, no. Go through the proper channels like everyone else. If you have a referral - great. Otherwise, DON'T spam current employees you randomly find on linkedin or whatever. I get those from time to time and ignore 100% of them.
- hansvm 9mo ago
  Some people don't though, and their referrals are much more valuable than dozens of additional applications. Much like many other decisions you're making in the job market, it's a polarizing choice that increases your overall chances when the alienated class of people isn't too large. If 90% of people ignore those emails but your chance of getting a first-round interview goes up 5x compared to a cold application when the remaining 10% respond, 2+ emails are easier to send than 1 application, especially when you've done the legwork to make your application any good. I haven't used techniques like these specifically yet, but as somebody who nearly always eventually gets the job once I've had a first-round interview, I wouldn't be opposed to seeking out the hiring manager and contacting them directly to decrease the resumé false rejection rate.
  - drillsteps5 9mo ago
    Soooo... My guess is the next step in evolution of automated resume submission apps will be looking up hiring manager (or above) and sending a tailored email to "decrease false rejection rate". Can we expect a "Show HN" post with this feature soon?
    - skmurphy 9mo ago
      There are a number of tools out there that help map who you may know at a target firm or may know someone at the firm. I think it's critical that you handcraft craft a thoughtful personal email and not generate a flood of "fake personal." It's also a good idea to dig your well before you need the water and help others find work in what is a very challenging economy. My $.02 your mileage may vary.
drillsteps5 9mo ago
> Instead of applying broadly, identify 5-10 specific opportunities you genuinely want. Do that. >Get in contact with current employees at the company. It is important that you send more than one email. Don't do that. >I've gotten dozens of emails asking for meetings and referrals. I've never gotten one in my entire career, and I was hiring manager in multiple companies/roles. >If the company is <30 people, reach out to the CEO directly. Don't never ever EVER do that. Edit: formatting
- ebiester 9mo ago
  Oh, I get them all the time. Usually from junior engineers. I don't hold it against them - it's good advice. So, what's your trick to avoid getting skipped because a contract recruiter or internal recruiter is going through resumes at 6 a minute and looking for keywords nowhere near the job profile? What's your trick to get through the noise? Right now, it's brutal from junior to staff, and if your network isn't hiring there's no real way to tell the difference between someone who is taking care and someone spamming 200 applications and using 5 minutes of AI to customize. So other than "utilize the network you built over 25 years," what's your advice if all you have is "don't do that?" I'm glad I have a job now. However, it's brutal for people on the hunt in bad situations or people who have been laid off.
  - hectormalot 9mo ago
    > So, what's your trick to avoid getting skipped Ideally write the hiring manager and not HR. And, write something that makes it hard to not want to talk to you. 1: Minimal hygiene is writing something that shows you read the vacancy (if any). Don't: "I'm interested in the role, CV attached". do: "You want onsite in Amsterdam, I'm living in Milan but already planning to move to Amsterdam for reason X". 2: Stand out from the average applicant. Someone recently applied with a personal website that was a kinda-functioning OS (with some apps). Someone else applied with a YouTube channel hacking an ESP32 into their coffee machine. Someone applied with a tool on their GitHub profile, super well written, in our target language, doing interesting things on the database we're working with, etc., etc. how could I _not_ talk these applicants? All of these are soft signals that show affinity for their work as engineers. Don't: generic application letter combined with 3+ pages resume with too much detail. 3: if invited: get curious (but not overly opinionated/combative) about their stack. Candidates we've been most excited about have come in asking questions on how we're setup, and why we've made certain choices. Don't: expect the interviewer to ask all the questions, or bring only a prepared question that misses the mark. 4: Its a people process, if that's your challenge, work on that. Maybe you share a hobby with the interviewer, maybe you've both solved similar problems in earlier jobs, maybe you both like Haskell, maybe something else to connect over. Connection matters to most hiring managers.
cadamsdotcom 9mo ago
I think the author is saying “don’t spray and pray”. Seems like good advice.
- mothballed 9mo ago
  This seems to vary based on what stage of your career you are in. Early career when I realized trying the 1000th way to make myself seem better than all the other college graduates with the same qualifications I gave up targetting and just sprayed and prayed and got jobs that way through pure lottery luck of ending up randomly on the pile at a moment when the company was too exhausted because they lost their preferred candidate at the last minute or something like that. I basically put in so many apps that the 1 in 1 million chance happened that I was an unremarkable cog that showed up at the right place at the right time. By mid career when I actually had something worth anything to anyone then spray and pray was no longer necessary and targetting an application could actually be effective.
  - tayo42 9mo ago
    Have you tried targetted applications in the last 2-3 years?
ebiester 9mo ago
It's interesting that the first thing you see in the comments is "don't contact anyone." Right now we're in a weird place - if you have a network, you're pretty well off. If your network isn't hiring, or you are early in your career, it's brutal trying to get through the noise. The truth is that proof of work matters. But the big problem is that proof of work is easy to fake right now. It takes being creative. I get a few emails a month right now. Honestly, I think this isn't going to work at this point - some go to my personal and some go to my professional emails. But what might work? Look at people who are writing blogs. Is there something interesting on their blog? Is that worth engaging them on first? (I mean, don't waste their time if you aren't interested or if you're going to submarine it the second or third email - someone will feel used - but showing a dual purpose of the email might not be the worst thing and even if they don't have a position or influence on the position, you might have a good conversation. Are you involved on bluesky/twitter/threads? Are you getting positive engagement? Are you finding ways to make community? It may not get the formal referral but it might make the social referral and give you 30 extra seconds with the resume and a reason to say yes.
- johnnyanmac 9mo ago
  >The truth is that proof of work matters. But the big problem is that proof of work is easy to fake right now. The big shame is that the hardest PoW to fake right now tends to be under NDA's and proprietary codebases. So if you aren't in the position to make major contributions to FOSS in your free time or "code for fun", it feels like a soft reset all over again. As if those yeras in industry mean nothing. I especially dread the idea of needing to jump on the very doomscrolling places I left at the start of the pandemic just to get a potential lead. My mental health over 2025 was already pretty bottom of the barrel without that.
  - joquarky 9mo ago
    If you're interested at all in Eastern philosophy, it has helped me survive mentally the past few years of unemployment and unstable work after burning out from a 22 year career. Highly recommend Alan Watts. If you like audiobooks, I started out on the one titled You're It. I think it was a good starting point.
rvz 9mo ago
Or even better. Build yourself a startup.
- 4m1rk 9mo ago
  I love it, but 1) I don't have good ideas to implement, 2) I need to do the same as job hunting, just dealing with more than one customer.
- dommer 9mo ago
  If you can’t find a job, make a job. Sounds reasonable but fraught with risk. Having been in the software industry for 30 years I feel the need to provide some balance and context to your advice. YMMV Getting a startup to even survival level money takes incredible effort, skill, and time. Outside of those, luck is by far the most important aspect. Which is out of your control. You have to fight and beat dozens of biases and fallacies. Here is a small sample… Survivorship bias — focusing on visible winners, ignoring the many failures Outcome bias — judging decisions by results rather than decision quality Availability bias — overweighting memorable success stories Publication bias — only successes get written about or promoted Narrative fallacy — inventing clean stories after the fact Please ignore the one-shot-bro-influencers who have a fool proof recipe for making 10MMR with Ralph mode. If they are real they have hit luck not execution. As hard as it is getting a job. The massive amount of work and time it will take. Building a network via proof of work [side projects] and hitting only your archetype with applications is still far more valuable for landing a role. With, and this is key, much higher levels of success than startups.
  - jamesfinlayson 9mo ago
    Yep - I worked for a start-up many years ago - it was run by someone with a good idea, enough money to sustain development, and it had paying customers but it was a long way from paying everyone's wages let alone paying the boss good money.
- johnnyanmac 9mo ago
  With what money and time? making a startup isn't free either.
biophysboy 9mo ago
Why isn't there a job search website that forces you to adopt this targeted bet strategy? The game theory of job-hunting incentivizes both submitters and receivers to adopt inefficient practices. Why not limit applications to one per day to signal genuine interest? Then you can demonstrate skill at an in-person interview, or at your local legally-bound interview center? (my very boring sci-fi prediction)
- pavlus 9mo ago
  Using spray-and-pray job-sites allows employers to analyze the market, so they can feel the quality, quantity and the price of proposition, to negotiate wages and assess if they can afford to hire to grow, or shrink to get lean. Connecting the employer with employed to be is not the core proposition.
- jjmarr 9mo ago
  Greenhouse allows you to mark a single "dream job" per month to stand out. It's unclear if anyone cares.
  - AznHisoka 9mo ago
    Thats just greenhouse. They’re one of hundreds of ATS’ out there.
- webel0 9mo ago
  I tried to build this back around 2020. I think my concept was trying to be too cute in several places. But this was the basic idea. I found that neither side of the market wanted to rethink the market, they just wanted something that worked well for them. Even today, job seekers may be reaching for something like this but employers have no interest; there is a glut in the market. I’m sure I never quite got the messaging correct. However, I distinctly recall that triplebyte attempted a pivot in this same vein and also failed bad.
- johnnyanmac 9mo ago
  > Why not limit applications to one per day to signal genuine interest? I'm not sure if this strategy taken at scale will end up being much different from the LinkedIn model. You just slow down the pipeline on the employee's side while the employer still ends up with way too many applications to process each day. Or the reverse in an employees' market. It still might be worth a shot, though. Especially if it can cut down on fake AI profiles that LinkedIn has become rife with. Any job board that can commit to a "human experience" is worth its weight in gold at this point.
leeny 9mo ago
This is very good advice. Because OP doesn't talk about how to write emails, here's how to write good cold emails to hiring managers/employees/CEOs: https://interviewing.io/blog/how-to-get-in-the-door-at-top-companies-cold-out-reach-to-hiring-managers-part-2 https://interviewing.io/blog/how-to-get-in-the-door-at-top-c... P.S. I'm CEO of a Series A company. I get a lot of email from prospective candidates. I never hold it against them, and as long as it doesn't look like spam, I reply. Telling people not to send emails (I saw a bunch of that in the comments) is categorically bad advice.
- cj 9mo ago
  I also regularly get cold emails from candidates. Most often for marketing roles, rarely for technical roles. Cold emailing definitely wont hurt your chances at the job. But to be effective, the outreach needs to be heavily tailored and personalized. You need to make it obvious you aren’t copy and pasting the email to 20 other people.
  - asdff 9mo ago
    Would you actually hire a candidate from a cold email? I did it when I was in undergrad looking for research experience. But for professional level jobs it seems so presumptuous considering how you cost 10 or 20x more than an undergraduate on work study.
    - leeny 8mo ago
      You certainly wouldn't hire someone from a cold email. But if they seem like they're the kind of person who's smart and gets things done, you can certainly get them into the process. The purpose of these emails is just go get you in the door. From there, you gotta interview well.
    - aprdm 8mo ago
      Why wouldn't someone ?
      - 8mo ago
cal_dent 9mo ago
FWIW one of the things about advice on job hunting (and a lot of other things in life tbh) is that no one ever seems to acknowledge that, more often than we like to think, it's just luck. Yes reaching out to your network is good, putting yourself out there through direct contact where possible is good (early in my career two jobs which were real stepping stones came from emailing a head of and ceo directly after a conference), spending time trying to find your edge relatively to others is good. But there are so many points in the whole process where it's simply luck of the draw that spray and pray within reason isn't a completely ridiculous route. Unless you're already in a role, try what you have to. It's no fun in it but things are always easier once you don't have anything to fall back too.
- jamesfinlayson 9mo ago
  > it's just luck So true. Looking back, I got my current job because the preferred candidate dropped out and apparently there was no other preferred candidate, the one before that I bombed the interview but I guess they saw potential etc.
- joquarky 9mo ago
  It's definitely luck. The advice helps you cast a wider net to catch that luck. I just wish there were more job search advice for weird people. My net is tattered and falling apart after two years of fishing.
- csomar 9mo ago
  > it's just luck No one will admit that because everyone likes to pretend that they "earned" it. Everything about you, your circumstances and surroundings is stochastic.
- ptero 9mo ago
  Luck plays a big role, but it is not just luck. One can apply in a way that significantly stacks the deck in his favor. So absolutely reach out to your network, study the current market and find your edge. It might still be poker-style games which you can still lose because of luck; but doing that gives you starting hands with two aces. My 2c.
johnnyanmac 9mo ago
>You have a unique connection to the company. So it comes back to "networking", huh? Sadly the advice doesn't work if your network is either also laid off or simply is in a soft/hard hiring freeze. They can't connect you to what isn't there. And that's even before following point #1. This far in my career I don't really have a "dream job" anymore. My dream is to be my own boss. But I need a bit more money and a smidgen more time to establish myself there. So those facts make me fall back to "apply to whatever fits my skillset, maybe ping to check vibes if I know anyone".
hammock 9mo ago
In real estate and private equity this is called a “buy box.” It works.
Beijinger 9mo ago
I tried this a lot. It did not work for me. But I also only sent one email and did not follow up. A few points: 1. Getting rejected does not say anything about you. The guy they hire says a lot about the company. 2. "If the interviewer(s) in question feel like you're trying to circumvent them, you're probably making your case worse" This is the whole point. In most cased you don't deal with an expert, but with HR. HR are idiots most of the time. HR, like real estate, has also very low entrance requirements. This does not mean that all people are idiots, but the field attracts idiots. 3. A job is a sale. You have to sell yourself. And unfortunately there is only one way to make the buyer happy: Sell him what he wants, not what he needs.
- maccard 9mo ago
  > HR are idiots most of the time. HR, like real estate, has also very low entrance requirements Soft skills are the most important. Calling a group of people you work with idiots because their role has a low barrier to entry reflects badly on you. Bad recruiters are beyond useless but a good one can read a resume, match it to the JD, learn what the hiring manager is looking for (do they keep saying no to people with too much experience or too little? Or in X tech stack), and they can glean out all of the really important job stuff - salary, location, flexibility, perks, etc. they can also get a read on whether the person is likely to be… difficult. The way they treat people they believe to be below them is how they’ll treat others when they’re frustrated/stressed or even succeeding.
  - Beijinger 9mo ago
    "Soft skills are the most important. Calling a group of people you work with idiots because their role has a low barrier to entry reflects badly on you" Simple mathematics. There are close to zero entrance requirements to HR or Real Estate. Now compare this to a professor at a decent University. Has to get a HS Diploma, Bachelors degree, PhD, Post Doc, publications. While there may be idiots, it is much harder to become a professor at a decent university if you are an idiot. Back to HR. I did not say that all people working in HR are idiots. There are brilliant people. But on average, their level is not very flattering. And "soft skills" alone is not enough. Many, if not most, just follow check lists and have no idea what they are talking about. Recruiter are worse. They add another layer of unnecessary complexity to the process. I avoid them like the plague.
Atomic_Torrfisk 9mo ago
> You are specifically interested in the job for reasons other than the money. It is unlikely that other applicants want the job as badly as you do. This is really rat race to the bottom. Obviously it goes without saying that people passionate about a project get preference, but if you are trying to wind yourself up to be "passionate" your winding yourself up to accept less for more work. > Do not ask employees for a referral! This amount of times I get asked for blind referrals is insane. Maybe it is a non-western thing, but I nor anyone else I know does this or accepts these requests. It only kills an application, since it looks deceitful, an applicant should stand on their own. > If the company is <30 people, reach out to the CEO directly. There is already a lot of spam filtering through their inbox, this is white noise. This maaaay only work if you know them on other channels and they are "cool". > Again, send more than one email. lol CS is oversaturated right now for many reasons. Regardless, mass applications do not work unless you are cheating, targeted applications do not work unless everyone else does the same. The best bet is internal networks, or searching for work in unexpected locations, e.g. webmaster at the local pulp mill. source: I worked in hiring for small stints over 7 years
aswegs8 9mo ago
Not sure why this is news. This is a common approach and has been so well since pre-Corona times.
FrustratedMonky 9mo ago
Broadly I think this is nice summary of "what color is your parachute". That whole book is basically how to target like this. Just lot more examples and methods to do it.
dworks 9mo ago
A few times in my life I have found job opportunities that would have been my dreamjob and I was uniquely qualified due to a cross-disciplinary background, previous experience and education, language skills and such. I was an SME with technical skills and I had so much knowledge of the company's products, industry and competitors that I could have done their marketing strategy and product strategy in a couple of weeks. Maybe it wouldn't all have been correct from the start, but I had so much knowledge that I could have done this by heart. I spent a lot of time on targeted applications for these places, re-doing my CV and spending weeks iterating on my cover letter. I never heard back from any of those places. Instead I've been hired into industries I knew nothing about. Sure, I was a decent candidate, but I was just another candidate. This has worked out fine. Why did these places hire me and not the others? Because they were growing so they had a need to hire. The former places did not. So for me the only real advice is to apply to places that are growing. When places are growing and really need to hire to expand, all the bullshit in the process is eliminated. Decisions are made fast. It's easier and more pleasant.
- mettamage 9mo ago
  > So for me the only real advice is to apply to places that are growing. Or sometimes when people are leaving and they need a replacement ASAP. That's how I was hired, but it was also quite lucky that there were not many applicants.
- brador 9mo ago
  1 sell everything. 2 turn 18. 3 move to highest gdp location, capital city, largest city, that you can get to, or that your chosen industry, if you have one, is focused in. 4 make list of growing companies. 5 apply to growing companies. Simple, yet so few will actually do this.
  - red-iron-pine 9mo ago
    this is sarcasm, right?
    - deleted 9mo ago
red-iron-pine 9mo ago
what a useless article. how are you reaching these people? what are you saying to them? it's implied but not said that you should be talking to people from the same school or hometown... but what if you're from NYC, or Mumbai?
gnarlouse 9mo ago
A knock on consequence if everybody did this: - HR is no longer inundated with garbage resumes - Hiring managers can actually focus on the resumes in their inbox and assume that people are genuinely interested in the role. - The whole system works more efficiently. From day one I thought the whole notion of AI in the hiring process (on both sides: candidates submitting AI resumes, HR filtering resumes with AI) was positively absurd. I hope more people catch on.
- pjc50 9mo ago
  >> "Get in contact with current employees at the company. It is important that you send more than one email" This just means the average employee starts getting inundated with spam resumes instead that they are ill equipped to handle. AI in the process is absurd, but the logic of the spam arms race is inescapable.
apt-apt-apt-apt 9mo ago
This seems contradictory, why not to ask employees for a referral? "Contact current employees [presumably ask for referral]." "Don't ask employees for a referral, most are incentivized (referral bonus) to give you one if you can convince them"
Unbeliever69 9mo ago
Isn't this basically What Color is Your Parachute?
sennalen 9mo ago
"Get in contact with current employees at the company" and draw the rest of the owl? This blog is really missing the core question of what contact would be more effective than applying to the company's explicit job postings
daxfohl 9mo ago
Often when doing that, you look up the company on blind and it's got a 3 star rating with low pay, bad management, and no vision, though decent WLB. My theory is that a lot of companies are one trick ponies. By the time you've heard of them, the core of their product is finished and they're left floating and have to make up stuff to pretend to work on.
ericmcer 9mo ago
I had a really nice job hunt this time around because: - I quit my job to work on a side project in a specific space (voice AI for me). - Spent three months shipping a few things and sinking into the area. - Apply to jobs in that space, custom cover letter if applicable. - Reach out directly to hiring people/engineers on LinkedIn for those companies, if it is engineers I usually say things like "did you also struggle with 'x'", "I solved 'Y' by doing __" - Be genuinely interested in that space. ~50% reach out to interview rate using that strategy.
- j_bum 9mo ago
  What did you put on your resume for that time period? “Sabbatical”?
  - ericmcer 8mo ago
    It was only 3 months so I didn't put anything. In the past I took a 18 month break and played around with leaving it blank or putting side projects. It definitely doesn't help but it wasn't a killer either.
apwheele 8mo ago
I generally do not agree with this advice (or you can do both, cold emailing folks should not prevent you from cold applying to other jobs). It really just hinges on what you think your probability increase is relative to the amount of time you spend, https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post004 https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post004.

133 points by seany62 9mo ago

I posted this mainly as something to refer friends to when they complain about something being to competitive / hard to get. Thought I'd shoot it here too.

tekacs 9mo ago

> If the company is <30 people, reach out to the CEO directly. When the people you're interviewing with are 'already senior' (e.g. direct reports to the CEO), you can sometimes make your case worse rather than better, because it feels like you're going over their head. So rather than size... - If the interviewer(s) in question feel like you're trying to circumvent them, you're probably making your case worse. - The kind of CEO that tends to meddle in things below their level might drag down your case even if they like you, because folks can develop a distaste for their meddling. - Doing this for senior roles, or roles at small companies can actually be worse, because the person in question is more likely to be close in reporting chain to the CEO, who is more likely to directly meddle in your hiring process. Zero- or one-level removed can be the worst.

wrs 9mo ago
I interpreted this post as being about how you get an interview in the first place, so the hope would be that the CEO forwards your mail to this senior person you're worried about.
- tekacs 9mo ago
  Even still - a lot of senior folks, sadly, don't take it super well when candidates are forwarded their way by people above them when they're running a process.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
  - ghaff 9mo ago
    Remember, that you may not know who the hiring manager is and there may not even be a relevant posted position. I've gotten lucky with just reaching out to very senior people at a couple of different companies (of very different sizes) over time.
onion2k 9mo ago
When the people you're interviewing with are 'already senior' (e.g. direct reports to the CEO), you can sometimes make your case worse rather than better, because it feels like you're going over their head. If that happens then it's a very good thing - you do not want to work at a company where people are precious about how they succeed. If a great candidate (e.g you) drops into the inbox of the CEO who forwards it to someone else, and their first reaction is 'Well, they violated my personal kingdom by going over my head!' then that is a manager you do not need in your life.
zem 9mo ago
I understood the OP to be saying "reach out to the CEO to express your interest in working for the company in order to get to the interview stage", not "email the CEO to make a case for being hired when you're already in the interview pipeline"

lbrito 9mo ago

>Get in contact with current employees at the company. It is important that you send more than one email. I've gotten dozens of emails asking for meetings and referrals. The only time I actually respond to these is after the second email. Please, no. Go through the proper channels like everyone else. If you have a referral - great. Otherwise, DON'T spam current employees you randomly find on linkedin or whatever. I get those from time to time and ignore 100% of them.

hansvm 9mo ago
Some people don't though, and their referrals are much more valuable than dozens of additional applications. Much like many other decisions you're making in the job market, it's a polarizing choice that increases your overall chances when the alienated class of people isn't too large. If 90% of people ignore those emails but your chance of getting a first-round interview goes up 5x compared to a cold application when the remaining 10% respond, 2+ emails are easier to send than 1 application, especially when you've done the legwork to make your application any good. I haven't used techniques like these specifically yet, but as somebody who nearly always eventually gets the job once I've had a first-round interview, I wouldn't be opposed to seeking out the hiring manager and contacting them directly to decrease the resumé false rejection rate.
- drillsteps5 9mo ago
  Soooo... My guess is the next step in evolution of automated resume submission apps will be looking up hiring manager (or above) and sending a tailored email to "decrease false rejection rate". Can we expect a "Show HN" post with this feature soon?
  - skmurphy 9mo ago
    There are a number of tools out there that help map who you may know at a target firm or may know someone at the firm. I think it's critical that you handcraft craft a thoughtful personal email and not generate a flood of "fake personal." It's also a good idea to dig your well before you need the water and help others find work in what is a very challenging economy. My $.02 your mileage may vary.

drillsteps5 9mo ago

> Instead of applying broadly, identify 5-10 specific opportunities you genuinely want. Do that. >Get in contact with current employees at the company. It is important that you send more than one email. Don't do that. >I've gotten dozens of emails asking for meetings and referrals. I've never gotten one in my entire career, and I was hiring manager in multiple companies/roles. >If the company is <30 people, reach out to the CEO directly. Don't never ever EVER do that. Edit: formatting

ebiester 9mo ago
Oh, I get them all the time. Usually from junior engineers. I don't hold it against them - it's good advice. So, what's your trick to avoid getting skipped because a contract recruiter or internal recruiter is going through resumes at 6 a minute and looking for keywords nowhere near the job profile? What's your trick to get through the noise? Right now, it's brutal from junior to staff, and if your network isn't hiring there's no real way to tell the difference between someone who is taking care and someone spamming 200 applications and using 5 minutes of AI to customize. So other than "utilize the network you built over 25 years," what's your advice if all you have is "don't do that?" I'm glad I have a job now. However, it's brutal for people on the hunt in bad situations or people who have been laid off.
- hectormalot 9mo ago
  > So, what's your trick to avoid getting skipped Ideally write the hiring manager and not HR. And, write something that makes it hard to not want to talk to you. 1: Minimal hygiene is writing something that shows you read the vacancy (if any). Don't: "I'm interested in the role, CV attached". do: "You want onsite in Amsterdam, I'm living in Milan but already planning to move to Amsterdam for reason X". 2: Stand out from the average applicant. Someone recently applied with a personal website that was a kinda-functioning OS (with some apps). Someone else applied with a YouTube channel hacking an ESP32 into their coffee machine. Someone applied with a tool on their GitHub profile, super well written, in our target language, doing interesting things on the database we're working with, etc., etc. how could I _not_ talk these applicants? All of these are soft signals that show affinity for their work as engineers. Don't: generic application letter combined with 3+ pages resume with too much detail. 3: if invited: get curious (but not overly opinionated/combative) about their stack. Candidates we've been most excited about have come in asking questions on how we're setup, and why we've made certain choices. Don't: expect the interviewer to ask all the questions, or bring only a prepared question that misses the mark. 4: Its a people process, if that's your challenge, work on that. Maybe you share a hobby with the interviewer, maybe you've both solved similar problems in earlier jobs, maybe you both like Haskell, maybe something else to connect over. Connection matters to most hiring managers.

cadamsdotcom 9mo ago

I think the author is saying “don’t spray and pray”. Seems like good advice.

mothballed 9mo ago
This seems to vary based on what stage of your career you are in. Early career when I realized trying the 1000th way to make myself seem better than all the other college graduates with the same qualifications I gave up targetting and just sprayed and prayed and got jobs that way through pure lottery luck of ending up randomly on the pile at a moment when the company was too exhausted because they lost their preferred candidate at the last minute or something like that. I basically put in so many apps that the 1 in 1 million chance happened that I was an unremarkable cog that showed up at the right place at the right time. By mid career when I actually had something worth anything to anyone then spray and pray was no longer necessary and targetting an application could actually be effective.
- tayo42 9mo ago
  Have you tried targetted applications in the last 2-3 years?

ebiester 9mo ago

It's interesting that the first thing you see in the comments is "don't contact anyone." Right now we're in a weird place - if you have a network, you're pretty well off. If your network isn't hiring, or you are early in your career, it's brutal trying to get through the noise. The truth is that proof of work matters. But the big problem is that proof of work is easy to fake right now. It takes being creative. I get a few emails a month right now. Honestly, I think this isn't going to work at this point - some go to my personal and some go to my professional emails. But what might work? Look at people who are writing blogs. Is there something interesting on their blog? Is that worth engaging them on first? (I mean, don't waste their time if you aren't interested or if you're going to submarine it the second or third email - someone will feel used - but showing a dual purpose of the email might not be the worst thing and even if they don't have a position or influence on the position, you might have a good conversation. Are you involved on bluesky/twitter/threads? Are you getting positive engagement? Are you finding ways to make community? It may not get the formal referral but it might make the social referral and give you 30 extra seconds with the resume and a reason to say yes.

johnnyanmac 9mo ago
>The truth is that proof of work matters. But the big problem is that proof of work is easy to fake right now. The big shame is that the hardest PoW to fake right now tends to be under NDA's and proprietary codebases. So if you aren't in the position to make major contributions to FOSS in your free time or "code for fun", it feels like a soft reset all over again. As if those yeras in industry mean nothing. I especially dread the idea of needing to jump on the very doomscrolling places I left at the start of the pandemic just to get a potential lead. My mental health over 2025 was already pretty bottom of the barrel without that.
- joquarky 9mo ago
  If you're interested at all in Eastern philosophy, it has helped me survive mentally the past few years of unemployment and unstable work after burning out from a 22 year career. Highly recommend Alan Watts. If you like audiobooks, I started out on the one titled You're It. I think it was a good starting point.

rvz 9mo ago

Or even better. Build yourself a startup.

4m1rk 9mo ago
I love it, but 1) I don't have good ideas to implement, 2) I need to do the same as job hunting, just dealing with more than one customer.
dommer 9mo ago
If you can’t find a job, make a job. Sounds reasonable but fraught with risk. Having been in the software industry for 30 years I feel the need to provide some balance and context to your advice. YMMV Getting a startup to even survival level money takes incredible effort, skill, and time. Outside of those, luck is by far the most important aspect. Which is out of your control. You have to fight and beat dozens of biases and fallacies. Here is a small sample… Survivorship bias — focusing on visible winners, ignoring the many failures Outcome bias — judging decisions by results rather than decision quality Availability bias — overweighting memorable success stories Publication bias — only successes get written about or promoted Narrative fallacy — inventing clean stories after the fact Please ignore the one-shot-bro-influencers who have a fool proof recipe for making 10MMR with Ralph mode. If they are real they have hit luck not execution. As hard as it is getting a job. The massive amount of work and time it will take. Building a network via proof of work [side projects] and hitting only your archetype with applications is still far more valuable for landing a role. With, and this is key, much higher levels of success than startups.
- jamesfinlayson 9mo ago
  Yep - I worked for a start-up many years ago - it was run by someone with a good idea, enough money to sustain development, and it had paying customers but it was a long way from paying everyone's wages let alone paying the boss good money.
johnnyanmac 9mo ago
With what money and time? making a startup isn't free either.

biophysboy 9mo ago

Why isn't there a job search website that forces you to adopt this targeted bet strategy? The game theory of job-hunting incentivizes both submitters and receivers to adopt inefficient practices. Why not limit applications to one per day to signal genuine interest? Then you can demonstrate skill at an in-person interview, or at your local legally-bound interview center? (my very boring sci-fi prediction)

pavlus 9mo ago
Using spray-and-pray job-sites allows employers to analyze the market, so they can feel the quality, quantity and the price of proposition, to negotiate wages and assess if they can afford to hire to grow, or shrink to get lean. Connecting the employer with employed to be is not the core proposition.
jjmarr 9mo ago
Greenhouse allows you to mark a single "dream job" per month to stand out. It's unclear if anyone cares.
- AznHisoka 9mo ago
  Thats just greenhouse. They’re one of hundreds of ATS’ out there.
webel0 9mo ago
I tried to build this back around 2020. I think my concept was trying to be too cute in several places. But this was the basic idea. I found that neither side of the market wanted to rethink the market, they just wanted something that worked well for them. Even today, job seekers may be reaching for something like this but employers have no interest; there is a glut in the market. I’m sure I never quite got the messaging correct. However, I distinctly recall that triplebyte attempted a pivot in this same vein and also failed bad.
johnnyanmac 9mo ago
> Why not limit applications to one per day to signal genuine interest? I'm not sure if this strategy taken at scale will end up being much different from the LinkedIn model. You just slow down the pipeline on the employee's side while the employer still ends up with way too many applications to process each day. Or the reverse in an employees' market. It still might be worth a shot, though. Especially if it can cut down on fake AI profiles that LinkedIn has become rife with. Any job board that can commit to a "human experience" is worth its weight in gold at this point.

leeny 9mo ago

This is very good advice. Because OP doesn't talk about how to write emails, here's how to write good cold emails to hiring managers/employees/CEOs: https://interviewing.io/blog/how-to-get-in-the-door-at-top-companies-cold-out-reach-to-hiring-managers-part-2 https://interviewing.io/blog/how-to-get-in-the-door-at-top-c... P.S. I'm CEO of a Series A company. I get a lot of email from prospective candidates. I never hold it against them, and as long as it doesn't look like spam, I reply. Telling people not to send emails (I saw a bunch of that in the comments) is categorically bad advice.

cj 9mo ago
I also regularly get cold emails from candidates. Most often for marketing roles, rarely for technical roles. Cold emailing definitely wont hurt your chances at the job. But to be effective, the outreach needs to be heavily tailored and personalized. You need to make it obvious you aren’t copy and pasting the email to 20 other people.
- asdff 9mo ago
  Would you actually hire a candidate from a cold email? I did it when I was in undergrad looking for research experience. But for professional level jobs it seems so presumptuous considering how you cost 10 or 20x more than an undergraduate on work study.
  - leeny 8mo ago
    You certainly wouldn't hire someone from a cold email. But if they seem like they're the kind of person who's smart and gets things done, you can certainly get them into the process. The purpose of these emails is just go get you in the door. From there, you gotta interview well.
  - aprdm 8mo ago
    Why wouldn't someone ?
    - 8mo ago

cal_dent 9mo ago

FWIW one of the things about advice on job hunting (and a lot of other things in life tbh) is that no one ever seems to acknowledge that, more often than we like to think, it's just luck. Yes reaching out to your network is good, putting yourself out there through direct contact where possible is good (early in my career two jobs which were real stepping stones came from emailing a head of and ceo directly after a conference), spending time trying to find your edge relatively to others is good. But there are so many points in the whole process where it's simply luck of the draw that spray and pray within reason isn't a completely ridiculous route. Unless you're already in a role, try what you have to. It's no fun in it but things are always easier once you don't have anything to fall back too.

jamesfinlayson 9mo ago
> it's just luck So true. Looking back, I got my current job because the preferred candidate dropped out and apparently there was no other preferred candidate, the one before that I bombed the interview but I guess they saw potential etc.
joquarky 9mo ago
It's definitely luck. The advice helps you cast a wider net to catch that luck. I just wish there were more job search advice for weird people. My net is tattered and falling apart after two years of fishing.
csomar 9mo ago
> it's just luck No one will admit that because everyone likes to pretend that they "earned" it. Everything about you, your circumstances and surroundings is stochastic.
ptero 9mo ago
Luck plays a big role, but it is not just luck. One can apply in a way that significantly stacks the deck in his favor. So absolutely reach out to your network, study the current market and find your edge. It might still be poker-style games which you can still lose because of luck; but doing that gives you starting hands with two aces. My 2c.

johnnyanmac 9mo ago

>You have a unique connection to the company. So it comes back to "networking", huh? Sadly the advice doesn't work if your network is either also laid off or simply is in a soft/hard hiring freeze. They can't connect you to what isn't there. And that's even before following point #1. This far in my career I don't really have a "dream job" anymore. My dream is to be my own boss. But I need a bit more money and a smidgen more time to establish myself there. So those facts make me fall back to "apply to whatever fits my skillset, maybe ping to check vibes if I know anyone".

hammock 9mo ago

In real estate and private equity this is called a “buy box.” It works.

Beijinger 9mo ago

I tried this a lot. It did not work for me. But I also only sent one email and did not follow up. A few points: 1. Getting rejected does not say anything about you. The guy they hire says a lot about the company. 2. "If the interviewer(s) in question feel like you're trying to circumvent them, you're probably making your case worse" This is the whole point. In most cased you don't deal with an expert, but with HR. HR are idiots most of the time. HR, like real estate, has also very low entrance requirements. This does not mean that all people are idiots, but the field attracts idiots. 3. A job is a sale. You have to sell yourself. And unfortunately there is only one way to make the buyer happy: Sell him what he wants, not what he needs.

maccard 9mo ago
> HR are idiots most of the time. HR, like real estate, has also very low entrance requirements Soft skills are the most important. Calling a group of people you work with idiots because their role has a low barrier to entry reflects badly on you. Bad recruiters are beyond useless but a good one can read a resume, match it to the JD, learn what the hiring manager is looking for (do they keep saying no to people with too much experience or too little? Or in X tech stack), and they can glean out all of the really important job stuff - salary, location, flexibility, perks, etc. they can also get a read on whether the person is likely to be… difficult. The way they treat people they believe to be below them is how they’ll treat others when they’re frustrated/stressed or even succeeding.
- Beijinger 9mo ago
  "Soft skills are the most important. Calling a group of people you work with idiots because their role has a low barrier to entry reflects badly on you" Simple mathematics. There are close to zero entrance requirements to HR or Real Estate. Now compare this to a professor at a decent University. Has to get a HS Diploma, Bachelors degree, PhD, Post Doc, publications. While there may be idiots, it is much harder to become a professor at a decent university if you are an idiot. Back to HR. I did not say that all people working in HR are idiots. There are brilliant people. But on average, their level is not very flattering. And "soft skills" alone is not enough. Many, if not most, just follow check lists and have no idea what they are talking about. Recruiter are worse. They add another layer of unnecessary complexity to the process. I avoid them like the plague.

Atomic_Torrfisk 9mo ago

> You are specifically interested in the job for reasons other than the money. It is unlikely that other applicants want the job as badly as you do. This is really rat race to the bottom. Obviously it goes without saying that people passionate about a project get preference, but if you are trying to wind yourself up to be "passionate" your winding yourself up to accept less for more work. > Do not ask employees for a referral! This amount of times I get asked for blind referrals is insane. Maybe it is a non-western thing, but I nor anyone else I know does this or accepts these requests. It only kills an application, since it looks deceitful, an applicant should stand on their own. > If the company is <30 people, reach out to the CEO directly. There is already a lot of spam filtering through their inbox, this is white noise. This maaaay only work if you know them on other channels and they are "cool". > Again, send more than one email. lol CS is oversaturated right now for many reasons. Regardless, mass applications do not work unless you are cheating, targeted applications do not work unless everyone else does the same. The best bet is internal networks, or searching for work in unexpected locations, e.g. webmaster at the local pulp mill. source: I worked in hiring for small stints over 7 years

aswegs8 9mo ago

Not sure why this is news. This is a common approach and has been so well since pre-Corona times.

FrustratedMonky 9mo ago

Broadly I think this is nice summary of "what color is your parachute". That whole book is basically how to target like this. Just lot more examples and methods to do it.

dworks 9mo ago

A few times in my life I have found job opportunities that would have been my dreamjob and I was uniquely qualified due to a cross-disciplinary background, previous experience and education, language skills and such. I was an SME with technical skills and I had so much knowledge of the company's products, industry and competitors that I could have done their marketing strategy and product strategy in a couple of weeks. Maybe it wouldn't all have been correct from the start, but I had so much knowledge that I could have done this by heart. I spent a lot of time on targeted applications for these places, re-doing my CV and spending weeks iterating on my cover letter. I never heard back from any of those places. Instead I've been hired into industries I knew nothing about. Sure, I was a decent candidate, but I was just another candidate. This has worked out fine. Why did these places hire me and not the others? Because they were growing so they had a need to hire. The former places did not. So for me the only real advice is to apply to places that are growing. When places are growing and really need to hire to expand, all the bullshit in the process is eliminated. Decisions are made fast. It's easier and more pleasant.

mettamage 9mo ago
> So for me the only real advice is to apply to places that are growing. Or sometimes when people are leaving and they need a replacement ASAP. That's how I was hired, but it was also quite lucky that there were not many applicants.
brador 9mo ago
1 sell everything. 2 turn 18. 3 move to highest gdp location, capital city, largest city, that you can get to, or that your chosen industry, if you have one, is focused in. 4 make list of growing companies. 5 apply to growing companies. Simple, yet so few will actually do this.
- red-iron-pine 9mo ago
  this is sarcasm, right?
  - deleted 9mo ago

red-iron-pine 9mo ago

what a useless article. how are you reaching these people? what are you saying to them? it's implied but not said that you should be talking to people from the same school or hometown... but what if you're from NYC, or Mumbai?

gnarlouse 9mo ago

A knock on consequence if everybody did this: - HR is no longer inundated with garbage resumes - Hiring managers can actually focus on the resumes in their inbox and assume that people are genuinely interested in the role. - The whole system works more efficiently. From day one I thought the whole notion of AI in the hiring process (on both sides: candidates submitting AI resumes, HR filtering resumes with AI) was positively absurd. I hope more people catch on.

pjc50 9mo ago
>> "Get in contact with current employees at the company. It is important that you send more than one email" This just means the average employee starts getting inundated with spam resumes instead that they are ill equipped to handle. AI in the process is absurd, but the logic of the spam arms race is inescapable.

apt-apt-apt-apt 9mo ago

This seems contradictory, why not to ask employees for a referral? "Contact current employees [presumably ask for referral]." "Don't ask employees for a referral, most are incentivized (referral bonus) to give you one if you can convince them"

Unbeliever69 9mo ago

Isn't this basically What Color is Your Parachute?

sennalen 9mo ago

"Get in contact with current employees at the company" and draw the rest of the owl? This blog is really missing the core question of what contact would be more effective than applying to the company's explicit job postings

daxfohl 9mo ago

Often when doing that, you look up the company on blind and it's got a 3 star rating with low pay, bad management, and no vision, though decent WLB. My theory is that a lot of companies are one trick ponies. By the time you've heard of them, the core of their product is finished and they're left floating and have to make up stuff to pretend to work on.

ericmcer 9mo ago

I had a really nice job hunt this time around because: - I quit my job to work on a side project in a specific space (voice AI for me). - Spent three months shipping a few things and sinking into the area. - Apply to jobs in that space, custom cover letter if applicable. - Reach out directly to hiring people/engineers on LinkedIn for those companies, if it is engineers I usually say things like "did you also struggle with 'x'", "I solved 'Y' by doing __" - Be genuinely interested in that space. ~50% reach out to interview rate using that strategy.

j_bum 9mo ago
What did you put on your resume for that time period? “Sabbatical”?
- ericmcer 8mo ago
  It was only 3 months so I didn't put anything. In the past I took a 18 month break and played around with leaving it blank or putting side projects. It definitely doesn't help but it wasn't a killer either.

apwheele 8mo ago

I generally do not agree with this advice (or you can do both, cold emailing folks should not prevent you from cold applying to other jobs). It really just hinges on what you think your probability increase is relative to the amount of time you spend, https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post004 https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post004.