Published earlier this year, but still relevant.

    • Krono@lemmy.today
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      18 days ago

      No I have a spreadsheet with 3200 lines of submitted applications, which includes both entry level positions and internships. Many with customized cover letters.

      When you do the math its not even a strong pace, only about 3/day over 3 years. On a good day I was submitting 12-15.

      I even applied to some famous ones, like the time Microsoft opened up 30 entry level positions and received 100,000 applications in 24 hours. It is rumored thet they realized they cannot process 100k apps, so they threw them all away and hired internally.

      Whether they actually threw them out or not, that one always sticks with me. Submitting 100k apps is literally a lifetime of human work. All of that wasted effort is a form of social murder in my opinion.

    • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      I have twenty years experience and it took me 300+ applications to get my current job.

      Times are changing.

    • BillBurBaggins@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      It sounds like the same amount of effort that it would take to make a really good open source project, or contribute to an existing one.

      I find it hard to believe you wouldn’t get a job with something like that under your belt. Also 3000 applications is probably a bit shotgun rather than targeted and HR would be able to pick up on it

      • Krono@lemmy.today
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        18 days ago

        You’re right that my time was wasted, and knowing the outcome, I wish I could go back and do more project work before trying to enter the job market.

        But I don’t think that is a financial possibility for most Americans. Going to school drained my savings, when I graduated I had almost nothing except for school debt, medical debt, and high rent. Saying “I’m gonna take off and work for free for a year” never really seemed like a possibility.

        And as for my apps, the 3000 were not shotgun, they were all personalized, custom cover letters, keywords, etc. It only averaged out to 3/day. I did not track the apps where I used AI to submit them- the AI ones were definitely shotgun.

      • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        18 days ago

        Well believe it gramps, most of the open source projects contributors now either just do content creation as a side hustle or are permanently looking for work, at least in my experience