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I applied to 250 jobs and timed how long each one took

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Re: I applied to 250 jobs and timed how long each one took

#141

Two and a half minutes to apply to a job doesn't seem like a lot of time at all. Do people really think that's too much time?

The answer to that depends entirely on the success rate. Over 11 years in the workforce, my success rate with applying to ATS-like platforms on company websites is 0%. And even just getting a rejection is in the neighborhood of 5-10%. So with those numbers do you still think 2.5 minutes is a lot of time? 2.5x500 applications is ~21 hours of applying to jobs. With recruiters on LinkedIn, my success rate is roughly 80%…

I've reached out to recruiters on LinkedIn, but maybe I'm not an easy candidate, because they never seem to do much for me. Do I need to do something specific or hit up the right recruiter?

Re: I applied to 250 jobs and timed how long each one took

#142

I only apply to companies I really, really want to work for. Might sound a bit kitsch, but I work a lot on my cover letter to show how eager I am to work with them. Of course it could be luck, but so far I wrote only two applications in my life and got both got accepted + for job offer from both (after interviewing). When I tell people about my cover letters some say that HR don’t even read cover letters, but I want…

I do read them. It’s the easiest way to stand out for candidates. A paragraph about what interests u in this role usually is enough.

Same here. In my experience a cover letter is the fastest way to tell if someone actually cares about the role enough to do a little research and understand what is involved.

Re: I applied to 250 jobs and timed how long each one took

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running a scraping aggregator and being an end user are not the same thing.

Workday is not great for applicants either. Maybe the back-end is nice?

It's just aa convoluted. I work for Workday. Having to re-enter your data each and every time is part of the enterprise tenant isolation model. There is no information sharing between tenants, especially PII. The UX suffers because of data privacy.

Re: I applied to 250 jobs and timed how long each one took

#144

I remain confused by the absense of a sizeable reverse headhunter industry. Headhunters are trying to find a best fit for a company. Why is there no one trying to find a best fit for a candidate? The inherent problem in hiring, on both sides, is search costs. I'm probably going to be searching for a new job sometime next year. I think that, to avoid the time spent on these appliations, and to ensure a relatively good…

Companies are both more solvent and pay quicker than your typical job seeker (who is usually unemployed). Basically, less risk.

Re: I applied to 250 jobs and timed how long each one took

#145

Oh goodness, someone else who shares my irrational antipathy for Workday! Workday is such junk from a user facing perspective. It’s a huge pain to index content from. I have to omit a bunch of big semiconductor companies from my job site because it’s fucking impossible to get job data out of Workday. If you work in talent at either NXP or Qualcomm, please God read this essay. You are actively harming your own recruit…

Workday: At Least It's Not Oracle

Re: I applied to 250 jobs and timed how long each one took

#147
post #17

I overheard a guy at the gym a couple of weeks back saying that he's automated (gpt4) the keyword-optimised CV/cover letter process to the point where he was able to apply to - I'm a bit suspect on this bit, but the generation at least is believable - 75 jobs in an hour and a half. We've raised the noise floor significantly. Ps. If you're here mate I hope it worked out for you.

> If you're here mate I hope it worked out for you

I hope it didn’t, contaminating the applications like this and automating it will only hurt the ones who’s applying, because now authentic resumes and legit knowledge will be overlooked by other fake auto generated resumes. This try hard wannabe attitude is always going to ruin the experience for everyone else, either in jobs, blog writings, dating, gaming, and basically everywhere.

Re: I applied to 250 jobs and timed how long each one took

#148
post #17

I overheard a guy at the gym a couple of weeks back saying that he's automated (gpt4) the keyword-optimised CV/cover letter process to the point where he was able to apply to - I'm a bit suspect on this bit, but the generation at least is believable - 75 jobs in an hour and a half. We've raised the noise floor significantly. Ps. If you're here mate I hope it worked out for you.

People aren't as smart as they think.

I also automate part of the process, and I think everyone should be or soon will be, but having received many CVS/cover letters as well, the ones with too much LLM are glaringly obvious and an easy rejection.

These days with companies receiving hundreds of CVs, you only need 1 reason to reject an application. Don't make your application so LLMy that you give the hiring manager an easy reason

Re: I applied to 250 jobs and timed how long each one took

#149
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer to that depends entirely on the success rate. Over 11 years in the workforce, my success rate with applying to ATS-like platforms on company websites is 0%. And even just getting a rejection is in the neighborhood of 5-10%. So with those numbers do you still think 2.5 minutes is a lot of time? 2.5x500 applications is ~21 hours of applying to jobs. With recruiters on LinkedIn, my success rate is roughly 80%…

I've reached out to recruiters on LinkedIn, but maybe I'm not an easy candidate, because they never seem to do much for me. Do I need to do something specific or hit up the right recruiter?

You have to keep rotating them. If they do not happen to have something that matches their current clients they basically dont help you but string you along.

Re: I applied to 250 jobs and timed how long each one took

#150

I remain confused by the absense of a sizeable reverse headhunter industry. Headhunters are trying to find a best fit for a company. Why is there no one trying to find a best fit for a candidate? The inherent problem in hiring, on both sides, is search costs. I'm probably going to be searching for a new job sometime next year. I think that, to avoid the time spent on these appliations, and to ensure a relatively good…

Isn't that just a recruiter at an independent agency? Reply to LinkedIn messages and even if you don't like the role they have at that time, those people are your headhunters.
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