I was scrolling through LinkedIn when I saw this Sankey of a hackathon organizer trying to get a SWE role:

An obviously talented and hard-working student, who was accepted by Microsoft (literally the biggest tech company ever), got rejected by 97% of the internships/opportunities they applied to.

Perhaps applications follow the 100 calls:10 pick-ups:1 sale ratio of marketing. The fact that people apply to so many jobs, implies that they think they need to. This strategy of shooting at many targets to increase the chances of getting one is known as shotgunning, and can be very emotionally draining.

Nobody should have had to go through all of that, yet thousands of people do. They spend so much time and energy trying to impress companies that most of the time, don't even want them.

And applying is getting worse

They spend so much time and energy trying to impress companies that most of the time, don't even want them.

In fact, job seekers spend around 50% more time looking for a job than during the Great Recession (https://lnkd.in/dFcWzZZx). This means unemployment and job vacancy rate are BOTH increasing (an expansion of the Beveridge Curve and a market failure).

Many startups, from Ladder to Techintern.io, are trying to fix this, but both applicants and employers could do things individually.

Apply when it’s worth it

Imagine if you got reimbursed for your time if you were rejected, or even if you were paid by companies to apply (that's what my startup, DAOHQ, is doing):

For my new startup, I'm thinking I should eschew the numbers game, which wastes so much time from applicants, and instead just look for the best people possible myself. I plan to pay applicants for the value they provide during the application process, and just accept as many people into the community for short-term engagements as possible.

Don’t Apply

On a more personal note, I don't believe that applying is a numbers game. When you're applying, you're really only competing with the few applicants that are actually considered - those with unfair advantages. So either shotgun, or get those unfair advantages so you can signal better.

But for many people, I don't think applying is even a game that should be played at all. I don't like applying, and pretty much all the good jobs I've had and all the good people I've found were through working on something together. At Harvard, I worked at least 3 jobs every semester in college, but I’ve been pretty privileged to never really need to apply. I’ve had 19 jobs, 3 of which I applied for via a form with an application process, where the three applications were for getting a stipend for volunteering.

Naturally, I've applied to other things, but those were mostly to see if companies I didn't want to work at would even consider me since my parents wanted me to apply.

How did I do this?

Instead of shotgunning, I got an unfair advantage to beat everybody else by doing what everybody else didn’t do as well, by:

• Replying to emails. I’d set filters so that I’d get alerted when a job was shared via email, so that I could immediately reply with my interest. These type of opportunities tend to be niche and time-sensitive, and have very little competition.

• Emailing: after thinking about where I wanted to work, I put together a plan, putting myself in the executive’s shoes, and emailed them with what value I could add. Again, very few people do this, and I get to define the opportunity on my own terms, as I can choose who to send to, what I’m proposing, and when I’m sending.

• Getting emailed: after working on what I wanted to most, just by myself or with friends, I’d share it, and inevitably someone would reach out with an opportunity that I could leapfrog into.

tl;dr: to avoid the applications rat race, be more willing to find, make, and accept niche positions.