Quality > quantity in your job applications

Originally published on August 17, 2017 at www.linkedin.com.

Every so often during the course of my work as a career coach, I will hear something like this: “I’ve applied to at least 100 jobs in the past week and I haven’t heard anything back. What am I doing wrong?” While I can empathize with the instinct to apply to as many jobs as possible, especially when you are feeling a strong sense of urgency to find a new role, there are many reasons why this approach is not recommended — and why it may actually be doing more harm than good. Here are a few:

1) The quality of your applications will suffer. I’ll go out on a limb and posit that the quality of your job applications is inversely proportional to the volume of applications you’re submitting. If you’re submitting 100 applications per week, there is simply no way that you can customize your resume(s) and cover letter(s) to the degree that I would recommend. Even when a position doesn’t call for a cover letter, I still strongly recommend customizing your resume to ensure that your achievements align with the job for which you’re applying. This will ensure that the recruiter and/or hiring manager perceive your skills to be relevant. For cover letters, it goes without saying that you should also be customizing the letter to articulate your genuine interest in (and clear ability to be successful in) the target company/job.

If you do all of this, it should probably take about an hour of work for each application.

2) You will not have time to engage in networking. Even if you do customize every resume and cover letter, the apply-and-wait method for job hunting is not going to get you very far. For every application you submit, you should also make a strong effort to contact someone you know at the company (or someone that your friend, classmate, or former colleague knows) to express your interest — and hopefully get on the hiring manager’s radar. If there isn’t anyone in your immediate or 2nd-degree network (to borrow LinkedIn parlance), you could reach out directly via email to someone at the company to express your interest. While this may seem aggressive, my opinion is that an expression of interest, if done tactfully, can only help your chances of securing an interview. [Note that I do NOT recommend attaching your resume or any other documents when you do this outreach.]

Bottom line: for every application you submit, the subsequent networking — which I believe to be essential — should take at least another 45 minutes.

3) You will not be able to prepare for interviews. There is no way you can prepare for 100 interviews simultaneously. If you are applying to that many jobs per week, you are going to be in a precarious position if/when one of those companies does invite you to interview. This is because you will need to quickly get up to speed and do your research on the company and position in an extremely short amount of time. Ideally, this research process should take place even before you get that first phone call, so that you are ready to discuss your interest and fit with the position and secure the 2nd-round interview. I once heard a horror story from a recruiter in which they called someone for an initial discussion and the individual responded by asking, “Which position is this again?” You don’t want to be that person. Don’t spread yourself too thin and forget which jobs you applied to.

In my view, the preliminary research process on a company/job (to prepare for a potential interview) should take another 45 minutes or so beyond the research that you did for the application itself.

When you add all of this up, you get the following:

60 minutes (customized application) + 45 minutes (networking) + 45 minutes (preliminary interview prep) = 2.5 hours per quality application.

So, even if you dedicate yourself to applying to jobs 10 hours/day, every weekday, minus 2 hours/day to socialize, eat, and exercise (strongly recommend that you take care of these basic human needs), you are looking at 40 hours/2.5 = 16 quality job applications per week, maximum. Of course, this is not a prescription. And it’s definitely not about the number. But I do hope that this will help you make your application process more a labor of love than an exercise in anonymity.

As always, I welcome your thoughts and comments.