I Applied to Almost a Thousand Jobs. Here’s What I Learned.

The company I worked for folded unexpectedly almost a month ago. I worked there for almost eight years. I’m in my mid 30s, which means that’s definitely the most consistent part of my professional career. I had a few jobs prior, and freelanced, but this was a big boy job. Prior to this, I was relying on someone “giving me a chance” to get anywhere professionally, looking at my minimal resume and assorted body of work, and deciding I’d be good if given the opportunity. I thought that was something that would at least be less of a concern with extended experience. Since then, the economy and job market have changed, and we heard about it constantly, but tangibly, I didn’t know what that truly meant for someone looking. The way you apply for jobs has changed, too. A decade ago, I physically went to some physical places, put my corporeal hand onto some paper made from tree pulp and wrote things down to ask someone to give me a job. Post COVID, in an environment where literally everything is digital, I have filled out hundreds of online applications, hoping someone, a real human being, might read it and consider me for a position. This isn’t a guide or any kind of pointers to get hired; I’ve had offers, but I in no way would suggest I’m informed or skilled at getting them after my time applying. What this is instead is my experiences, what I learned personally about how things are done, from an applicant’s view and a business’s, and the increasingly odd juxtaposition it is to know that companies are claiming there are more open positions than unemployed individuals.

This time spend applying and navigating the market has given me some insights that I thought may be interesting to others in a similar position or wondering what the market is like. I may get long winded and detail oriented, but here are some thoughts about this experience. Please keep in mind, this isn’t advice. It’s data and thoughts on my experience.

Specifics

The last time I had to apply for jobs, I was essentially looking for entry level positions. I had experience, but it was limited enough that some people, whether honestly or dishonestly, treated me as if I were straight out of college and seeking my first job. That isn’t the case now. Of the people who I have interviewed with and heard from, most have few specific questions about my experience, saying my resume spoke for itself and I am more qualified than many other applicants. I have been asked about the quality of my resume, and that’s my only insight. I have applied for every position I might reasonably be considered for in my area and a good few that weren’t. After getting a few responses early, I quickly realized two things: there is a shortage of people in my field doing my role, and I didn’t want to move right now. Moving would mean the normal requirements of relocating, and my partner would need to find a job, as well. That’s not something that I was interested in doing, after getting a few offers in more rural places and turning them down. My main considerations, within my area, are schedule and compensation. I made a decent wage prior, essentially topping out in my position at my prior company, and my schedule was relatively comparable to a normal office job. I left for work slightly after most office employees were already in the office and came home a bit after most had already left. Maintaining a normal schedule where I can still see my partner and occasionally maintain a social life is important. One might be led to the conclusion that this means I have the ability to seek comparable compensation, but that hasn’t been the case. The best offers I have gotten would more or less maintain my prior wage, which hadn’t been increased for inflation since the pandemic, and the worst were considerably less. In my city, considerably less is outright insulting: my prior wage was not far from the median here. However, most of the offers I have had were also difficult schedules, having me come into work or return home in the middle of the night when my partner would be asleep and leaving us little time to see one another. That, also, isn’t reasonable for me. I’m an adult man with a fair level of experience; I feel like asking for fair compensation and a schedule that won’t kill my real life — my actual life, the one that doesn’t include labor for money — isn’t unreasonable. The offers I have been given say otherwise. I wouldn’t have known that when applying, however.

After a month, I collected all of the email responses I have, sorted them, and now present the data here to you. A month ago, I wouldn’t have even considered some of these groups, but their presence speaks to the job market in a way many may not have thought of.

The Data

I I broke my email data down to:

• Application confirmations (not every application sent generated a confirmation email, so I applied to more than listed but it is a good reference number, at minimum)
• “No” responses
• “Job closed” automated responses
• “Job put on hold” automated follow ups
• Independent communications (email chains with individuals, recruiters or employers)
• Applications never read (this number is unknowable, but LinkedIn and Indeed will tell you if an application via their site was never even opened or viewed)

Application confirmations: 867

Nos — 87

Job closed — 35

On Hold- 18

Independent communications — 236

Interviews: 15

Applications never read: 105

What I Learned

Let me start the breakdown of this data with a few points. To start, the number of “no” responses: they were almost entirely automated n(all but 2), and roughly 1/10 of the applications documented. IIn some cases, I applied to more than one position at a given business in an evening; due to how long it takes to apply, even when some sites are better than others, allowing you to use information already given, my applications would regardless be minutes apart, at least. However, many of the rejection emails were denied at the exact same time, to the minute. That likely means the rejection is automated through an algorithm. Most came later at night when there is likely no one physically available and working. Even stranger, some rejections happened within a few hours of application, if not less. “Job closed”/”On Hold” may also be an algorithmic oddity, as a closed position does not mean it was filled and there was no rejection of an application. While the number of independent communications is a bit under ⅓ of the number of applications, some of these are email chains with someone I already spoke to or bringing in another party. The majority of these were scheduling or following up on an interview, which is roughly 1/57 application:interview ratio. That’s the rate of interviews for a given position. I often interviewed more than once for one role. Some days I was doing three interviews and rushing to send follow up information in between.

Applying

When I was applying to jobs in my 20s, I have a distinct memory of being completely burdened by needing to copy and paste every small point, from my name and contact to the details of my employment, from my resume to a website that already asked for my resume. It’s a meme at this point. While this slog of copy and paste data entry is still a thing, the way in which data is processed from your resume has gotten smarter… but I would still consider it extremely dumb. Some sites ask a few basic questions and for your resume, click submit, you have applied. Congratulations. Other websites operate much like Web 1.0, expecting you to enter every point from a resume that you have already attached into a form, and if you apply to another position at the same company, you will do it all over again for that role. However, in a global economy where a few corporations own every possible smaller company within their industry as subsidiaries, I have found that the larger companies do parse data better and, because now every website wants you to make an account, will apply much of your available prior applications to a new one. That’s great if you want to work for, in my example, Fox Media, but it’s far less helpful when applying to individual companies that aren’t owned by some of the most powerful entities on earth.

One odd thing I have noticed was the absolutely load bearing amount of informational weight these applications ask for. The increasing amount of required fields in an application means you’re going to be telling them some surprisingly invasive information about yourself, things that I’m not particularly comfortable telling people I know much less a stranger in a hiring office or, more likely, an algorithm and the data miners they sell my information to. I am unsure why they need to know detailed information about my heritage or my specific sexual preferences and other deeply personal information, but they ask, and it’s frequently a required field. Input it or don’t apply. I thought asking my address was weird until this. There is also a common element of applications that ask you to input your behavior and work types, vague descriptions of your professional personality that come from a dropdown and couldn’t possibly mean anything to anyone, except for the system that dictates whether your application is seen by a real human or digitally deleted before making it to anyone but, maybe, those data miners.

Sadly, you can expect the data entry version of Sisyphus in the current year. The only way to be immune from that quicksand time suck is job boards, and they’re their own problem.

Job Boards

LinkedIn is the worst place on the internet. It’s Facebook for people who made Facebook unbearable, with the addition of constant forced networking, self promotion, and outright BSing about someone’s success. If you were doing as well as you say, you wouldn’t have time to constantly update your LinkedIn to tell everyone you have ever briefly met about it. There. It’s out of my system.

LinkedIn and Indeed, in my experience, are the most common, and vetted, job boards. Most of the other sites, many specific to my industry, are straight up stealing listings from those two sites and directly from large company’s career boards and reposting them without checking whether a job is salaried or an unpaid internship, valid employment or MLM junk, or if a job has been unlisted and filled for months already. I’ve encountered half a dozen sites that email me daily saying a job is new, but it’s the same job from a few days ago on the same site and several weeks ago on LinkedIn. Monster.com appears to be nearly dead, I found no jobs, at all, in my field in the major city I am in. This means that LinkedIn and Indeed could be your main source for information outside of trolling specific company sites, but there’s a downside.

LinkedIn and Indeed both have their version of Quick Apply, using information from your resume and other job applications prior to fill in your data and give it to an employer with as few clicks as possible. Great. I started to notice many of these jobs never budged. I never heard back, I never saw the listing removed or position be filled. On looking a few of them up on their respective company sites, if they had them at all, I often found that either site leaves a decent amount of difficult to format information out. My only assumption is that these employers are getting dozens or hundreds of half filled applications that they know immediately on reading were filled out by people who clicked a few links from their email and never did the research or follow up on those businesses. That’s not good for anyone. It’s entirely reasonable to want to minimize the amount of work put into applying to each specific job, though, because you are going to be doing it a lot if you’re proactively searching and applying.

There are also tests on both sites that attempt to judge your skill in a certain program or field. In my experience, these tests are next to worthless, or outright directly harmful to the applicant and employer. For example, I have taken a test, on the request of several potential employers, to judge my skill of the programs used in my field, Adobe Suite, Microsoft Office, the like. Some of these programs I used for hours a day, every day, for several years… but I couldn’t tell you what the specific function is titled, what the button is called, or the hot key for a specific action. I know what it does. Being expected to know all of that information as if reading a textbook is absurd. There are also tests about personality and work type, attempting to determine how you function professionally or work in a team. These questions read like the Voight-Kampff test, odd scenarios and judgment calls that, factually, can have no correct answer. I don’t believe they belong on a professional scale of how hireable an individual would be.

The Listings

Job descriptions can be extensive without containing any truly useful information. When in certain fields and positions, much of the available information is a clear given, while the rest is fluff and junk tossed in to create a professional sounding listing, extensive word usage about a company’s goals or culture. I have read anecdotes online that these are the words they want to find in your resume or cover letter, but I can’t confirm personally. I have found, in almost every example I have interviewed for, compensation is either vague or entirely undiscussed; it won’t be brought up in concrete terms, like if they’re willing to meet your current or minimum pay range, until an offer is made. Schedules are also not talked about until at least the first interview: so far, of the offers I have been given, I would either be making far less than my prior role paid in a major city with one of the highest costs of living and in the top 20 of highest average salary in the country, or I would be working an awful schedule that kept me away from my family. It’s information that should be right up front, in my opinion some of the most significant information about a potential opportunity, but it’s kept secret until you’ve invested time and energy into getting there.

I have also noticed requirements in experience that I very much doubt many people in my field have. I have heard this referred to as “Unicorn Hunting”, a practice that, at best, demonstrates unreasonable expectations on the part of an employer and, at work, mean the employer never intended to fill a position, but has a listing for any assortment of reasons that range from placating overworked employers or HR to qualifying for various grants or programs. It’s similar to the meme in which someone is looking for an entry level employee with years of experience.

In a post-COVID world where remote work is talked about constantly, very few of the positions I applied to allowed it. That is likely in part my field, where I would be expected to be in person and work with a team physically to produce content, but it’s also an old industry holding on to norms. The flip side to this is freelance remote jobs, which I applied and interviewed for, in which an employee, by all legal definitions, would be told when to start work, how to do it, and what to produce with others remotely online, but using their own computer and software they paid for in their own home. The definition of freelance and remote are stretched here.

Ruining Your Contact Information

As I applied for more positions, I found that some of them, particularly through Google, are only available for application through certain sites. Many of these sites require that you make an account or at minimum give an email address to them, not the employer, before even letting you apply. Some of these sites, the more time I put into applying, seem to exist entirely for this purpose: the jobs are outdated, they no longer exist on other sites, but if you want to see who the employer is or how to compare that information to the employer’s own career site, you need to offer your personal data. Sure, some sites want you to pay a few dollars a month, but most people aren’t going to do that (not to mention you can copy and paste part of the description in a search to find the original listing), and you are much more valuable as a data set 100% of the time than you are a paying user .5% of the time.

What they seem to be doing with this data ranges from maintaining your engagement to completely selling you out. I have over 50 “job alert” emails from yesterday, ranging from sites I would actually trust to somewhat use my data to push me new listings, to sites showing me jobs I have zero interest in or listings that were closed months ago. That isn’t the worst of it, though. The more I have applied and uploaded my resume, the more scams I am getting. I wake up every morning to missed calls, voice mails, and texts from “employers” either hoping I will participate in direct sales for commission or outright scams. These emails, texts, and calls use vague language or fast talking to avoid addressing that you didn’t apply for this position, sometimes seeming to lie entirely that you applied, or attempting to not mention the job title or company. Several well known insurance companies have posed as small businesses to ask me to participate in training for direct sales. I have several “offers” that are phishing attempts. Multiple times, I have been asked to fill out a credit check, because that’s something some employers actually do in this cursed hellscape of capitalism, and it takes research to figure out which are valid (not reasonable, it’s never reasonable at the applicant stage) and which are scammers.

The combination of a difficult job market and increasingly high costs of living have made people more susceptible to scams than before and job applications are a perfect landscape for scammers and generally ill-intended people (not cheap, lousy employers, mind you, we will get to that). If your resume is out there, expect scam calls, texts, and a completely useless email address. Make a new one for applications. Some job boards exist specifically to take your email.

Recruiters

The phrase “if it can be automated, it would” only works when there’s not money to be found in adding additional steps. While automated resume parsing and application scanning is very dangerous, making sure the vast majority of people never have their resume seen for a specific position, the opposite end of adding another set of eyes to a resume has it’s issues. This is purely anecdotal, but in my previous job hunting, I don’t remember running into recruiters. That seems to have changed. Of my 15 interviews, around half have been with recruiters at some point in the process. Their capability and usefulness has ranged from giving me legitimate tips and offering advice I wouldn’t otherwise consider to being a person who talks to you on Zoom for over a half hour to fill out a questionnaire that would have taken you ten minutes. I understand why they exist: employers can choose to either dedicate a person or department to vetting applicants, use an extremely limiting algorithm that will only let a few resumes slip through, or pay someone else to deal with the applicants. As public information on companies and how to directly reach their hiring department, if any interior level department not built to face customers, having a layer between the applicant and the business makes their job easier, and cuts down going through literally hundreds of files for one position. As an applicant, though, it wastes considerably more of your time, as what may have never materialized into a dedicated interview now requires one, not to mention that ten minute form that now requires two people to talk it through. It also grinds the progress of the process down: one employer I really liked will only speak to me through the recruiter, and that means scheduling three people’s time rather than two. My two interviews will take over a week, and in that time my employment status could change. The most significant value a recruiter has added so far was telling me what the employer, personally, liked in an applicant’s tone and energy, and that I needed to immediately submit a thank you letter. Another recruiter also offered more detailed training programs and rewards, but that is a unique situation that I feel goes beyond a recruiter title. In general, however, it mostly seems to be businesses existing to middleman the process and collect funds, from the employer or various hiring and training programs, in between. It’s a job that exists because other people need jobs. But, it keeps the filthy working class from taking up too much of the precious time of the person whose job is, probably, to vet and hire people.

Interviews

I’m not sure what I am doing wrong sometimes. I have done enough Zoom interviews to generally know what I thought some employers liked; they almost always ask the same questions, things they could frequently take directly from my resume, but they want to see how I respond. The factual answers I might give are mostly yes and no about my experience, but I am expected to elaborate in a way I sometimes am unsure is constructive. Some seem interested, others don’t. It’s a crapshoot. However, a few things that are consistent could start with no one ever being on time. I have joined roughly two dozen Zoom calls, and no one is ever there before me. I usually wait at least two or three minutes, but have waited more than ten for some. It’s interesting to try to judge how much they might respect you after clarifying that your time isn’t part of that respect. If it is a test, it’s one applicants definitely wouldn’t have the ability to do on their potential employers. Every interview via Zoom so far that moved towards further screening required more interviews, the same questions being asked by someone higher up the food chain, furthering my belief that recruiters are largely to further dehumanize us and distance us from those in positions that matter.

For every interview request that took place promptly within a few hours or days, there are more still sitting in my inbox that I have heard nothing back from, either in the early interview stage or at the time where either an offer would be made or someone else will take the role. This is not the way that applicants are allowed to treat employers; if I ignore some of these recruiters or companies for a few hours, I will get attempts at contacting me via text or call. This almost always cannot be done by an applicant given how little information they often have about a company and how to reach their hiring staff. Many times, I get called from a private number or returning a call goes to a general line.

The Data

I started actively applying every day at the start of March 2022. It is now the end of the month. I have over 1000 emails, most of them application receipt confirmation, but also an assortment of communications about jobs I didn’t get or passed on, automated denial emails, and job board follow ups mostly telling me that certain employers haven’t so much as looked at my application. I have interviewed through Zoom for just about a dozen positions. I recently watched a video in which a guy created two fake resumes and applied for entry level positions, getting back around 250 replies or requests for interviews from 1000 applications. My field is more specific and I have a decade of experience, but my findings on application response, using a resume that got me offers elsewhere, is not as high.

So far, six interviews have resulted in offers. Two paid a significant percentage less than my prior role, two were far away, and two had unreasonable schedules, meaning some of them had more than one major issue. One was a freelance role which would pay me likely less than a retail job after expenses and tax. I accepted one offer, which offered comparable compensation to what I had before, and a decent schedule.

My Impressions

I have seen data suggesting that there are currently more job vacancies than people seeking employment. However, my time being unemployed and searching puts some context on that concept. Firstly, as far as the data knows, I am not considered unemployed; I am not working, but not only am I not drawing benefits from unemployment, my severance is being paid out over time as if it were a normal paycheck. To the government, I am still working, and so are the 75+ other people in my situation. Our situation is unusual but not being considered “unemployed” is not. Anyone who has stopped actively searching or isn’t drawing benefits most likely doesn’t count anymore, either; it’s a fall-off that I personally believe is clever data manipulation to make job seekers appear lazy or incapable of getting work, not a lack of availability. It also makes an economy appear stronger to present those not working in lower numbers. My personal experience has also demonstrated that actively hiring may not mean they’re doing enough. I don’t often speak positively of myself, but the interviews I did get have all said my experience is extensive and speaks for itself, I’m not shooting above my station for a role I am not qualified for on paper. However, many of the offers I am getting are considerably far from my current city, which would require relocating my family, and don’t offer particularly great compensation, or offer weak compensation and scheduling for someone experienced in the field. I don’t owe any employer that, and neither does anyone else. A fair wage and liveable schedule, meaning a schedule that permits you to live a personal life outside of work, are reasonable requests for anyone. I am unsure if this means that positions are being filled by people willing to take less for comparable experience or being given to people with much less experience that can be paid much less for that reason. I’m certainly not unfamiliar with extremely green colleagues straight out of college struggling to pay their basic needs. I also would easily believe some of these jobs aren’t being filled at all, as some jobs have remained unfilled and available for application, and pushed to me constantly, the entire duration of my search. I doubt these jobs are particularly concerned with being filled, pushing the work on existing employees while the business looks for a unicorn applicant or to fulfill the requirements of a loan or tax benefit, saving money the entire time regardless.

The low wages I have encountered, both in positions I didn’t apply to because the wage was stated or in offers I have been given that I denied, are particularly surprising in my city: I live in one of the most expensive Cost Of Living cities in the US, and the median wage reflects that; pre-pandemic, half of our workforce lived outside the city, making the commute for the higher wages offered. Seeing that people are being asked to work in this environment for a wage that could be made anywhere else in the country and not require relocating to a city with an average rent of $1,700 and small houses selling for over a million is disappointing.

There are listings up that I applied to casually before I became laid off that are still being pushed on job boards. These listings are sitting unfilled, many with no correspondence at all since my application. It brings into question the validity of the concept that people don’t want to work or jobs are available and ready to be filled. While I could only speculate, I suspect these businesses aren’t seeking to fill them in any pressing way, if they care to do it all.

All said and done, applying is a full time job. I am well aware that my prior job was not constant labor; everyone has slow days, or periods of inactivity. The only slow time while applying is when finding more positions to apply to is yielding few results, and thanks to the pile of job boards, many of them dishonest or outdated, there is no shortage of constant emails suggesting that various jobs might be a good fit. I have frequently woken up, poured a cup of coffee, and started applying, only stopping when I realize several hours have passed. Some boards attempt to gamify applying, seeking consistent engagement from applicants. It’s work. It’s difficult, mind-numbing, and disheartening work, as the days and weeks pass and the responses are far between. I also get anxious, and will start applying again at night; it seems like LinkedIn and other sites like to send emails throughout the day and just after most people would get home from work. This means I am easily spending several hours, often more, a day doing this, weekends included. I have struggled to relax or do anything I enjoy because of the stress and guilt of not spending my time the right way. My prior job certainly took a toll on my mental health, but seeking another has been even worse. I thought I might use some of this time to seek physical and mental care while I had the time, but I haven’t. I’ve spent it searching.

This search has truly made me question my value, my existence, and my place in a capitalist market. I am sure I am not the only one. I hear discussion of the great resignation, but based on my experience, I am not looking to resign from work. I am looking to be treated fairly and resigning from the notion that I could handle anything less to get by. Only if businesses refuse to treat people decently and pay them for their work would anyone resign from the economy.