the-math-of-applying-for-jobs
To have a high probability of being hired for a job, it takes a two pronged approach...
Volume. You must apply to many jobs. At least 50. A good number to aim for is 100. Applying to 1000 jobs is somewhat reasonable.
Probability. For each job you apply to the probability of that job leading to you getting hired is what matters most in your job search.
No matter how qualifed you are to work at big tech, there's about a 1% chance your resume is even ever taken out of the pile. This means that to have good odds of being hired, you'll need to apply to something like 500 jobs.
You can lower the number of jobs you need to apply for to have a good chance of being hired by raising the odds that each job you apply to will lead to you getting hired. You can raise your odds of getting hired for any individual application you submit in multiple ways...
Be a good match. Just hitting LinkedIn easy apply on 6000+ job postings is a sure fire way to fail. You must not only read the full job description, but mirror three key points in what they want to hire in your application materials. This means a custom tailored application and cover letter for each application you submit. If you have to stretch the truth or stuggle to know how to tailor your materials, you are not a good match. You are simply wasting your time in applying because the probability you will be hired will tank to the floor. For each application you submit as a bad match, you'll have to submit another high odds application to make up the difference. By applying as a bad match, you bury yourself in annoying repetitive work that doesn't increase your odds of getting hired.
Get a referral. You can increase your chances to 10% - 30% via a referral. This is essentaily non-negotiable. If you don't have some kind of referral for a position, it's not worth your time and effort to apply. You're better off using that time to seek referrals. It's a sad truth, but these are the tough times we're in right now. You won't be taken out of the pile of hundreds of applicants unless you're referred. In a world where people apply en masse with AI, the chances of your application even being taken out of the pile are very low.
Be first in line. Step into the shoes of the hiring team. They have a very annoying labor intensive process to deal with. They're heavily incentivized to pick a winning candidate early in the process, and cognitively offload by holding a bias that later applicants are "not as good". If you apply late in the process the chances are that they've already "got their guy" and your application only serves to annoy them by increasing their workload. Make sure you apply on job boards with filtering features that allow you to apply for jobs posted a most one week ago, ideally in less than 24 hours.
With all these boxes checked and a 10% chance that every application you hand in will actually lead to you being hired, you'll still need to apply 44 times. The number 10% is very generous. In today's market I'd say that a 3% chance of being hired for any single application you submit is abnormally good. You have to do everything possible to bump this number up, or else you are just wasting your time.
Here's the discussion thread I had with ChatGPT to figure all of this out: https://chatgpt.com/c/68c57948-edfc-832f-8f4d-3663883aa266
Here is an example of an astromonically low probability job posting: https://openai.com/careers/data-center-security-technical-lead/
An example of a very high probability post would be something like going to work at McDonalds or Starbucks, so of course you need to find a balance of want you want vs who wants you. A 10% probability post is amazing. Myself, I should easily be able to find 50 or more 10% probability posts in my current career field as an experienced technology professional, leading to a 99% chance of being hired.
Here's what OpenAI wants each of their applicants to know. Groking all of this material is an excellent use of time because it will increase the chances of being hired to smaller AI companies: https://openai.com/interview-guide/ https://spinningup.openai.com/en/latest/ https://www.deeplearningbook.org/
I expect AI related jobs to explode over the next few years. What you get with AI today is running on very dinky datacenters. The state of the art AI datacenters are literially being built from the ground up as we speak. We are still in the very very early stages of AI. The actual physical walls and foundations of these datacenters are what is being built right now. The tech jobs like data center technician or data center network engineer are coming soon, but the equipment for these jobs likely have not even been designed by manufacturs yet. They certainly have not been ordered and delivered to the data center sites yet. Dirt is being dug right now.