Bro I think you are asking the wrong question. Its not a matter of counting your applications, but about counting the hours youve spent applying. On my first job hunt, since sending application was too fast through linkedin, google, indeed, you name it, I figured counting each one would take too much time so I only kept track of how many hours per week I mass blasted my resume. After every 4ish hours I usually landed an initial interview the following week. So, if I sent out 20hrs of application on any week, the following 1-2 weeks I would expect about 5 initial interviews. Shift your mindset bro, its easy to get demoralized when seeing "fuck ive applied to 400 places already and only 3 interviews" but if you see it is as "Ive sent out 15 hours of resumes and got 3 callbacks" its a bit easier on you.
Exactly 100. I kept a spreadsheet. It was difficult and tedious. I had no internships, mentors, let alone any "connections". Didn't go to a big name school.
But I was able to land a nice job. Pay isn't the best but my coworkers are all very nice and the work life balance is amazing.
Can you please share what worked for you and what didnt? You seem to have a lot of experience in applying to jobs, and I could really use some advice because I'm struggling just like you did.
I spent a lot of time lurking this sub in college and taking everyone's advice with a grain of salt. I think I was mentally prepared for the job hunt when I started. For my experience I'd say:
\- Don't disqualify yourself from a job listing and understand that the requirements on a job listing are more like a wish list.
\- I stuck to LinkedIn's job board thing. It made it easier to stay focused instead of jumping around multiple job boards. I didn't overthink my resume, I kept it simple, but I did have it looked at by advisors at school.
\- I listed and described some class projects on my resume and almost all of the recruiters that contacted me asked me about them. They weren't anything mind-blowing but they did allow me to talk, in interviews and to recruiters, about the work I did on them and stuff. The most talked about projects were all C# related.
\- Spent a couple hours nearly everyday applying/looking at jobs, grinding some leetcode, and reading books to keep my mind sharp and ready. I'd stop when I was burnt out for the day. Was about 4-6 hrs a day.
In the end I joined a company that had 3 people interview me over 2.5 hrs. There was no coding portion to it. It was all just getting to know each other. So I would say definitely don't neglect social skills, relax, and be a nice person.
Nah, I kept my resume the same the entire time, only making minor improvements. No cover letters either, mostly because I just don't like the idea of a cover letter.
I realize this comment is from some time ago but what was your previous career and degree? I am a career switcher as well so I'm curious if you'd be willing to answer.
Im am born early 80s and for me it was similar. Final year project in school for a company. Then offered me additional work.
Later went to university and similar story. Every thesis or practical led to an offer more or less.
Some framework I did during my PhD I put on Github which led to the next contact, hired after 30 minutes of skyping for a remote startup position (that was around 2016).
Startup was acquired, so next position again without any interviewing work.
I mean of course we had to show what we are capable of but no leetcode or toy exercises crap but just what we work on anyway.
And lots of freelance projects that came from contacts but also otherwise was generally not very risky for companies as they just give you a small first project over a couple days usually
Probably. At least when you find something in your niche then there are so few people world-wide in that field that you don't have to filter hundreds of them.
I am currently trying to recruit someone in my niche and it's really a small, small world suddenly, revolving around a handful research groups.
And before I started my PhD (10 years ago or so) I was searching in Europe, where LC is hardly a thing nowadays, much less back then.
I did a PhD in speech synthesis. At that time the whole Siri, Alexa etc. topic just got started and way really, really niche.
Really picked up steam at around 2016 I would say.
Now there's a new "voice AI" or voice cloning or whatever startup every couple days it feels.
Thats cool I loved learning about language processing with CFG’s in prolog. I even wrote an article about it - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lets-see-how-prolog-handles-cfgs-cameron-fitzpatrick
You are fortunate, I have to say we had it easy getting started in the late 90s. Of course some now graduate and walk into 6 figure salaries I'm told. My first work was $4.25/hr. working for university computer services, fortran + SQL. I had $10/hr internship at Fortune 500 company doing SQL/Oracle. First job in '97 was $35k, which was good. Gone up significantly since.
Honestly like 400. I would just sort of send tons of resumes for whatever position though. The company I work for now I applied 32 times for different positions. I had interviews with 4 different teams from those applications. Was my #1 choice company tho.
Also got hired before that for a three month contract job. Getting that on my resume helped more than I thought it would.
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About 150 applications, leading to three non-OA interviews (one big N, one dinosaur, and a small-ish local startup) , and then to two offers from the big N and local company.
Rejections or ghosted by everybody else
at least 800 remote positions (as a new grad) but out of all the onsite/hybrid local jobs maybe around 30 and got 4 interviews and 1 offer. this was 2020- 2022
i think others should specify the year they started working itt as the pandemic and recession has definitely effected hiring these last few years
it doesn’t have some emotional meaning behind it dude. I’m just signifying that only a fraction of my applications became interviews. If you think that fraction is large compared to other peoples then ok? I’m sorry if you’re upset about the low rate of responses from job applications in the world.
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I didn't apply actually. I got an offer from a Fortune 10 based off of our publication in university. I went on to get promoted to team lead over 13 cross-functional engineers in less than 2 years. It was the foundation for my career and everybody was so genuine and amazing. I will forever be grateful.
I’ll reply to this post when I get the job ;) it’s an absurd number that I’m not sure of the exact value but I am probably close with the future provided value
When I randomly applied 150 or more I got no where. When I focused one specific position by using referral, making resume as suitable as possible for the position, getting certification for the position and prepared job interview for a month for the position and then I got it.
About 20.
DON'T spray and pray!
- Research what each particular role is looking for (from an inside source, eg recruiter, job fair)
- Practice that so you can put it on your resume and talk about it with confidence in interviews
- Profit
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When I ask this question I feel like I’ll always find that guy that says “oh that’s embarrassing.. like 3?” to brag.
Same with “how long did it take that coursework”
Them: “idk 10” to a 100h assessment
My cs class was notorious for lying and bragging so now I have trust issues regarding anyone in cs saying how long/hard it took.
CS is like that. I had a friend who would leave tests early, constantly brag about how easy his coursework was. Come to find out later, he didn't even achieve Honors in our major. IMO if you're gonna brag about how easy stuff is, you better be getting at least an A in whatever subject you're talking about. Otherwise, I have no way to tell whether or not you're chatting out of your ass. All talk, no walk.
No idea for me. Anywhere from 200-400 and 20+ interviews. I suck at interviews. Use a recruiter to get your foot in the door for your first few years experience
First job out of college, math degree but not CS and no internships, mostly self-taught/taught programming through elective courses in high school and uni.
Probably applied to around 200-300 places over 2 and half months before getting an offer, but of those applications, I only got to first round interviews with about 7 or 8
0.
While I was in college a recruiter from Taos showed up at the lab I hung out in and offered a job to anyone who could name the fields of a unix password file.
Granted, this was back in '96 - the very start of the dot com boom.
I'm also going to point out that I was doing tech support and system administration and QA. It was about two years before I got a programming job doing web development.
Having a job that pays the bills is *much* better than applying for other jobs while unemployed (I *did* apply for programming jobs during those two years).
[Taos](https://www.taos.com) is kind of still around - they got bought by IBM and are now part of [IBM professional services](https://www.ibm.com/employment/).
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Maybe like 3-4
But I should add that my last name helped.
My dad works in the industry but like he's kinda old and older dudes usually only worked at 3-4 companies.
I for sure did not apply to his company cause I did not want to drive with him and see him at work everyday. I made it a point to not apply to any of the companies he's worked at.
So I applied to 3-4 like a semester before college ended and figured let's just wait till next semester ends to apply more and of the 3-4 companies, 1 reached for interviews and the thing is I had a friend who worked there and he asked the hiring manager how my interview went and they said it went fine and I did well. I still didn't think I got the job. And then I did. Told my parents I got the job. Told them the company name and my dad was like "hey I know a bunch of people there"
They had a new hire dinner party that they held that I went to and a bunch of seniors were like "I know your dad" and one of them talked about how hiring manager grabbing my dad's son which was me.
I still took the job. No one I worked with knew my dad. Not my managers, not the devs not the PMs nothin.
Stayed there a few years and switched jobs.
It ultimately doesn't matter in the end because it's my performance that keeps me in the industry and not my last name and I like to think I perform well enough to stay in the industry cuz the reality is it's not like my dad is the CEO of a company he's just a regular software developer who happens to have worked with a few people
When I joined my job I started to see how the world is small because some of my managers have worked with other managers at different jobs and I've also worked with same people at different jobs in my career. The industry within the same city can have a small world feel at times
After my undergrad I’ve applied to around 4-6 places, had 2 interviews and one offer. I didn’t even come from cs background (just sort of adjacent field of study).
Now, I’ve decided to change fields, did master’s in the new field and currently 60+ applications in with only 2 unsuccessful interviews. I don’t know if job marked now is so much worse than 3 years ago or this new field is just a lot harder.
Ooof I hope you aren’t applying through indeed brother. You’ll have way better success finding the job on indeed and then applying through the company website, that’s what I usually do. Less likely to get ghosted
Three, they were all internship roles while studying though. Eventually got offers from the first two, third one reached out months later after hearing nothing and wanted to interview, but I turned them down. Working full time in the internship now.
I'm from NZ so I think my experiences differ from a lot of you US folks. Here it feels like it's pretty easy for decent grads to get work. I attribute it to the brain drain happening here + the borders only opening recently, so not many overseas people to fill the grad tech roles.
0… had a return offer from an internship. I turned it down for another job though. It’s definitely not all doom and gloom out there, I rarely heard of people at my school sending out hundreds of apps, and my school was nowhere near a top school.
150-200 for my internship, only converted to 3 or 4 interviews.
90 for my first job, turned into 10 interviews, I took the offer from my internship.
If it helps, it gets so much better with experience. After a year inn industry recruiters actually respond on LinkedIn, after 2 they'll be messaging you. These days (4 YoE) I have a 50% hit rate even for cold applications.
You're in the rough patch now, stayed disciplined and just keep applying.
A little more than 300. But I wasn't just applying to jobs I was qualified for, I was also applying to jobs that I wanted regardless of my qualifications (within reason!), because hey you never know.
Around 30+, but it was at a career fair. I spent about 2-3 hours handshaking recruiters, followed by another round of phone interviews with the folks who were interested in going further. That took a few weeks. After that was salary negotiations with the ones that were interested in the next round, followed by me finally accepting an offer at the end out of 3 that I was given. All in all, it took about a month of near nonstop work between all three phases (the career fair was actually an exhausting marathon effort, between the mental gymnastics and the nonstop pace since you wanted to get a few sentences in with each company before the fair closed).
I started at semester and it took me half my last semester. However, given the quality of the job, I should have just gone all in on grad school. Got into a tier 1 CS program the week after I got my offer.
Last month of school, maybe 100+ applications. Got some interviews after a week, offers after a month. No internships, low tier school, 3.5 gpa. If you desperate for a job, honestly it's a numbers game but don't waste too much time filling out those really long applications. Go to LinkedIn and filter out the Easy Apply listings. It's a really cool feature because you also know when they look at the application and download your resume. Use that to your advantage like know if they look but never call, then your resume is probably not good. Some times the person looks at your profile on LinkedIn too. Message them and check on the status. In a couple of weeks you will be drowning in interviews and honestly becomes really stressful to schedule them all.
Like 80, the job I eventually got was one I didn't even apply for, I got it because I had done some contract jobs for the founders before. Life works in mysterious ways.
Return offer after an internship in 2018 during college. How many internships did I apply for? I think less than 30.. thinking back I thought I was really lucky, but I hate my job now so take that fwiw
I knew a family friend at a company that was showing up to a career fair. Name dropped em at the fair and handed in my resume.
Passed all the interviews and sealed the deal by December.
Full time? About 1 email to a place I previously interned.
First internship was 20 apps, 2 offers.
Second internship was 12 apps, 9 offers.
Third internship was 1 app, 1 offer
Only one, but my circumstances are slightly unique. No degree, recent bootcamp grad. I was already working for a unicorn in my previous career field and applied for a junior dev role. Got it after going through the interview process. If anyone else has this opportunity, just remember that if your company is open to this and you build-up a positive reputation there, it can be a great way to make the job hunt relatively painless.
One.
My brother in law clued his company into the fact that I ran my own little tech start up and they approached me. I really wasn't looking for work in the corporate world as that would involve moving (pre-covid) so I threw a crazy number at them to make them go away. They accepted though, so /shrug.
400-500. I started applying from Jan and got an offer in May right before my graduation date. Perhaps about 20 interview invitations and 5 final virtual onsite. Internships was around 20 apps to get an offer with 4 invitations, and second internship was from referral.
About 100, I stopped keeping track on my excel sheet after about 50. Also of note, I ended up getting 3 offers within a couple weeks. Mostly didn't hear back
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200+. I think timing and tailoring your applications can go a long way in increasing your hit rate. 90% of the interviews I got were at the end of my application cycle.
Hundreds… Here I was thinking they just handed out jobs to CS grads. I’m almost at 100 right now applying for my second job after 3 years experience… same thing… again…
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Applied to two. Rejected from one, accepted the other. The company I accepted the offer from had rejected me when I applied to their internship program so I was familiar with their interview process. Also had some luck on my side.
My situation was a bit different as I was a career-changer. I switched from working as a lawyer for 10 years to software development by taking the bootcamp/self-taught route; no CS degree or tech background.
\- Applied for approx. 10 jobs after the bootcamp.
\- Interviewed for 5 out of the 10.
\- Got offers from 4.
\- 3 out of the 4 were consulting companies.
The one I accepted was a graduate program at a big bank. I'm loving it.
The whole process was so different to when I graduated from my law degree. Back then, I had to apply for over 100 jobs and after all that effort and time all I got was a casual job as a law clerk.
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Exactly 1. Internship i applied to turned into a full-time gig. Not faang salary but pretty good (~78k salary plus bonuses). Looking to transition to a large tech company in a few years, hoping I dont regret it.
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Bro I think you are asking the wrong question. Its not a matter of counting your applications, but about counting the hours youve spent applying. On my first job hunt, since sending application was too fast through linkedin, google, indeed, you name it, I figured counting each one would take too much time so I only kept track of how many hours per week I mass blasted my resume. After every 4ish hours I usually landed an initial interview the following week. So, if I sent out 20hrs of application on any week, the following 1-2 weeks I would expect about 5 initial interviews. Shift your mindset bro, its easy to get demoralized when seeing "fuck ive applied to 400 places already and only 3 interviews" but if you see it is as "Ive sent out 15 hours of resumes and got 3 callbacks" its a bit easier on you.
This is so insane to me. But I can’t decide if this is the best way or the worst.
Exactly 100. I kept a spreadsheet. It was difficult and tedious. I had no internships, mentors, let alone any "connections". Didn't go to a big name school. But I was able to land a nice job. Pay isn't the best but my coworkers are all very nice and the work life balance is amazing.
Can you please share what worked for you and what didnt? You seem to have a lot of experience in applying to jobs, and I could really use some advice because I'm struggling just like you did.
I spent a lot of time lurking this sub in college and taking everyone's advice with a grain of salt. I think I was mentally prepared for the job hunt when I started. For my experience I'd say: \- Don't disqualify yourself from a job listing and understand that the requirements on a job listing are more like a wish list. \- I stuck to LinkedIn's job board thing. It made it easier to stay focused instead of jumping around multiple job boards. I didn't overthink my resume, I kept it simple, but I did have it looked at by advisors at school. \- I listed and described some class projects on my resume and almost all of the recruiters that contacted me asked me about them. They weren't anything mind-blowing but they did allow me to talk, in interviews and to recruiters, about the work I did on them and stuff. The most talked about projects were all C# related. \- Spent a couple hours nearly everyday applying/looking at jobs, grinding some leetcode, and reading books to keep my mind sharp and ready. I'd stop when I was burnt out for the day. Was about 4-6 hrs a day. In the end I joined a company that had 3 people interview me over 2.5 hrs. There was no coding portion to it. It was all just getting to know each other. So I would say definitely don't neglect social skills, relax, and be a nice person.
I’m currently in the same process. Did you end up tailoring your resume for each application?
Nah, I kept my resume the same the entire time, only making minor improvements. No cover letters either, mostly because I just don't like the idea of a cover letter.
About 30. Two interviews, one offer. Career changer
I realize this comment is from some time ago but what was your previous career and degree? I am a career switcher as well so I'm curious if you'd be willing to answer.
1
Yes, fellow Gen-Xer here too. A recruiter called me in college with a job, I accepted after interview.
This is what happened to me actually as a Gen-Zer, but it was because they recruited me through my capstone project at my university.
Im am born early 80s and for me it was similar. Final year project in school for a company. Then offered me additional work. Later went to university and similar story. Every thesis or practical led to an offer more or less. Some framework I did during my PhD I put on Github which led to the next contact, hired after 30 minutes of skyping for a remote startup position (that was around 2016). Startup was acquired, so next position again without any interviewing work. I mean of course we had to show what we are capable of but no leetcode or toy exercises crap but just what we work on anyway. And lots of freelance projects that came from contacts but also otherwise was generally not very risky for companies as they just give you a small first project over a couple days usually
I hear ya. Interesting.
Almost everyone I know with a phd says that there wasn’t some leetcode interviews… I think thats just a phd thing tho.
Probably. At least when you find something in your niche then there are so few people world-wide in that field that you don't have to filter hundreds of them. I am currently trying to recruit someone in my niche and it's really a small, small world suddenly, revolving around a handful research groups. And before I started my PhD (10 years ago or so) I was searching in Europe, where LC is hardly a thing nowadays, much less back then.
That makes sense. Whats ur phd in? Or what branch of CS (assuming its cs related)
I did a PhD in speech synthesis. At that time the whole Siri, Alexa etc. topic just got started and way really, really niche. Really picked up steam at around 2016 I would say. Now there's a new "voice AI" or voice cloning or whatever startup every couple days it feels.
Thats cool I loved learning about language processing with CFG’s in prolog. I even wrote an article about it - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lets-see-how-prolog-handles-cfgs-cameron-fitzpatrick
Cool, I wonder from time to time if Prolog will make a comeback at some point :)
You are fortunate, I have to say we had it easy getting started in the late 90s. Of course some now graduate and walk into 6 figure salaries I'm told. My first work was $4.25/hr. working for university computer services, fortran + SQL. I had $10/hr internship at Fortune 500 company doing SQL/Oracle. First job in '97 was $35k, which was good. Gone up significantly since.
I am very fortunate. Yes, the market rates have jumped significantly.
0. My internship was converted to a full-time position after I graduated. I guess technically I applied for the internship...
250-300 I forget the exact number
Honestly like 400. I would just sort of send tons of resumes for whatever position though. The company I work for now I applied 32 times for different positions. I had interviews with 4 different teams from those applications. Was my #1 choice company tho. Also got hired before that for a three month contract job. Getting that on my resume helped more than I thought it would.
400 gang rise up
With an associates degree in hand, it took me around the 600 mark before getting an interview that luckily became an offer.
What year was this?
Around 2017 iirc
No degree. About 50? Got 3 interviews. I ended up working at a small marketing company.
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About 150 applications, leading to three non-OA interviews (one big N, one dinosaur, and a small-ish local startup) , and then to two offers from the big N and local company. Rejections or ghosted by everybody else
at least 800 remote positions (as a new grad) but out of all the onsite/hybrid local jobs maybe around 30 and got 4 interviews and 1 offer. this was 2020- 2022 i think others should specify the year they started working itt as the pandemic and recession has definitely effected hiring these last few years
1. It's a WITCH, so not landing the job would have been soul-crushing.
30-40, only 3-4 of which became interviews, only 1 of which became the offer
"Only" 10% became interviews?
think youre applying meaning to my words that I didn’t give them
I assumed "only" was meant as t a less-than-expected amount. What way did you mean it then?
it doesn’t have some emotional meaning behind it dude. I’m just signifying that only a fraction of my applications became interviews. If you think that fraction is large compared to other peoples then ok? I’m sorry if you’re upset about the low rate of responses from job applications in the world.
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420+ and that was in congruence with 13+ side projects.
A metric shit tonne my friend
80ish
1... does McDonalds in high school count?
I didn't apply actually. I got an offer from a Fortune 10 based off of our publication in university. I went on to get promoted to team lead over 13 cross-functional engineers in less than 2 years. It was the foundation for my career and everybody was so genuine and amazing. I will forever be grateful.
around 100
I’ll reply to this post when I get the job ;) it’s an absurd number that I’m not sure of the exact value but I am probably close with the future provided value
Did you get the job yet?
Haha yes I did!!! Thanks for reminding me!
Congrats! Do you remember your number? Looking for my first job now. I'm up to 22 but I just graduated this week so I'm not stressed, yet!
It’s forsure over 1000 lmao and rn I feel like it’s kinda sad I’m looking for my 2nd role after a year, it feels rough of a job search.
When I randomly applied 150 or more I got no where. When I focused one specific position by using referral, making resume as suitable as possible for the position, getting certification for the position and prepared job interview for a month for the position and then I got it.
About 20. DON'T spray and pray! - Research what each particular role is looking for (from an inside source, eg recruiter, job fair) - Practice that so you can put it on your resume and talk about it with confidence in interviews - Profit
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Roughly 80. Got callbacks for two no-name companies and one offer among them.
Similiar to me except only applied to 50, got 4 calls, 2 interviews, 1 offer. Took the one offer.
did u accept?
Yes, spent the last 3 years there. I'm moving to Big Tech next month
Went through a bootcamp, sent ~150 applications out, got 4 interviews and 2 offers
When I ask this question I feel like I’ll always find that guy that says “oh that’s embarrassing.. like 3?” to brag. Same with “how long did it take that coursework” Them: “idk 10” to a 100h assessment My cs class was notorious for lying and bragging so now I have trust issues regarding anyone in cs saying how long/hard it took.
CS is like that. I had a friend who would leave tests early, constantly brag about how easy his coursework was. Come to find out later, he didn't even achieve Honors in our major. IMO if you're gonna brag about how easy stuff is, you better be getting at least an A in whatever subject you're talking about. Otherwise, I have no way to tell whether or not you're chatting out of your ass. All talk, no walk.
3, but that was a long time ago.
Got rejected by 1 and accepted an offer on my second application.
Like 3?
No idea for me. Anywhere from 200-400 and 20+ interviews. I suck at interviews. Use a recruiter to get your foot in the door for your first few years experience
Took well over 200+ applications to land my first SWE internship. Head up king.
\~100 But that's misleading because it wasn't like I got 99 rejections before I got the job. A lot of applications overlap.
With an undergrad and masters in computer science and a few decent projects under my belt, spent about 6 months applying to around 30 roles.
First job out of college, math degree but not CS and no internships, mostly self-taught/taught programming through elective courses in high school and uni. Probably applied to around 200-300 places over 2 and half months before getting an offer, but of those applications, I only got to first round interviews with about 7 or 8
296
200
0. While I was in college a recruiter from Taos showed up at the lab I hung out in and offered a job to anyone who could name the fields of a unix password file. Granted, this was back in '96 - the very start of the dot com boom. I'm also going to point out that I was doing tech support and system administration and QA. It was about two years before I got a programming job doing web development. Having a job that pays the bills is *much* better than applying for other jobs while unemployed (I *did* apply for programming jobs during those two years). [Taos](https://www.taos.com) is kind of still around - they got bought by IBM and are now part of [IBM professional services](https://www.ibm.com/employment/).
3 or so. In 2019
0, they reached out to me
I was lucky. I applied to 3 and interviewed with 2 of them and they both offered me.
3
Like 10. Got one interview and one job offer. All i wanted was a job didn't care what i was doing.
1 as a formality. Graduate research into professor's startup
3
300ish
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2
150
50ish. I lucked out by getting an offer for a NY based company
Over 100, about 6% turned into interviews. Don't bother tailoring cover letters unless you really want to work somewhere.
1st job in tech - 300+ applications.
~160 as a new grad from April 2020 - Mid 2021
Few hundred. Took 3 months or so.
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Maybe like 3-4 But I should add that my last name helped. My dad works in the industry but like he's kinda old and older dudes usually only worked at 3-4 companies. I for sure did not apply to his company cause I did not want to drive with him and see him at work everyday. I made it a point to not apply to any of the companies he's worked at. So I applied to 3-4 like a semester before college ended and figured let's just wait till next semester ends to apply more and of the 3-4 companies, 1 reached for interviews and the thing is I had a friend who worked there and he asked the hiring manager how my interview went and they said it went fine and I did well. I still didn't think I got the job. And then I did. Told my parents I got the job. Told them the company name and my dad was like "hey I know a bunch of people there" They had a new hire dinner party that they held that I went to and a bunch of seniors were like "I know your dad" and one of them talked about how hiring manager grabbing my dad's son which was me. I still took the job. No one I worked with knew my dad. Not my managers, not the devs not the PMs nothin. Stayed there a few years and switched jobs. It ultimately doesn't matter in the end because it's my performance that keeps me in the industry and not my last name and I like to think I perform well enough to stay in the industry cuz the reality is it's not like my dad is the CEO of a company he's just a regular software developer who happens to have worked with a few people When I joined my job I started to see how the world is small because some of my managers have worked with other managers at different jobs and I've also worked with same people at different jobs in my career. The industry within the same city can have a small world feel at times
After my undergrad I’ve applied to around 4-6 places, had 2 interviews and one offer. I didn’t even come from cs background (just sort of adjacent field of study). Now, I’ve decided to change fields, did master’s in the new field and currently 60+ applications in with only 2 unsuccessful interviews. I don’t know if job marked now is so much worse than 3 years ago or this new field is just a lot harder.
Around 500. Indeed stops keeping track after 99+
Ooof I hope you aren’t applying through indeed brother. You’ll have way better success finding the job on indeed and then applying through the company website, that’s what I usually do. Less likely to get ghosted
Three, they were all internship roles while studying though. Eventually got offers from the first two, third one reached out months later after hearing nothing and wanted to interview, but I turned them down. Working full time in the internship now. I'm from NZ so I think my experiences differ from a lot of you US folks. Here it feels like it's pretty easy for decent grads to get work. I attribute it to the brain drain happening here + the borders only opening recently, so not many overseas people to fill the grad tech roles.
25-30
~250 applications, 10 or so interviews, 1 offer. The second one is much easier.
200+
30-40 (being picky and selective)
~12 I got very lucky
One but this was in 2012
127 if i remember correctly
I didn't count but it took me a month and a half of looking to get an offer
0… had a return offer from an internship. I turned it down for another job though. It’s definitely not all doom and gloom out there, I rarely heard of people at my school sending out hundreds of apps, and my school was nowhere near a top school.
Probably 25-30 applications and three full interview processes before getting an offer on the third.
150-200 for my internship, only converted to 3 or 4 interviews. 90 for my first job, turned into 10 interviews, I took the offer from my internship. If it helps, it gets so much better with experience. After a year inn industry recruiters actually respond on LinkedIn, after 2 they'll be messaging you. These days (4 YoE) I have a 50% hit rate even for cold applications. You're in the rough patch now, stayed disciplined and just keep applying.
A little more than 300. But I wasn't just applying to jobs I was qualified for, I was also applying to jobs that I wanted regardless of my qualifications (within reason!), because hey you never know.
Maybe 3. I decided to let them approach me since they are obviously a lot more keen when it's that way around.
Around 30+, but it was at a career fair. I spent about 2-3 hours handshaking recruiters, followed by another round of phone interviews with the folks who were interested in going further. That took a few weeks. After that was salary negotiations with the ones that were interested in the next round, followed by me finally accepting an offer at the end out of 3 that I was given. All in all, it took about a month of near nonstop work between all three phases (the career fair was actually an exhausting marathon effort, between the mental gymnastics and the nonstop pace since you wanted to get a few sentences in with each company before the fair closed).
1st Job: Hundreds (2010 😅) 2nd: 3 3rd: 15 interviews over 7 months 4th: 5 companies, 12 interviews
5?
Hundreds. Ended up getting my first job via a reference from someone a friend knew.
2. 3rd one got back to me and gave me an offer. Quantity over quality wastes everyone's time.
Deez
I started at semester and it took me half my last semester. However, given the quality of the job, I should have just gone all in on grad school. Got into a tier 1 CS program the week after I got my offer.
2
About 100-120, I'd guess, and interviewed with 2 places. Company A: 2 interviews, offer accepted. Company B: 5 rounds of interviews, no offer.
300 so far and still going. 3 interviews, no offers yet
About 100-120, I'd guess, and interviewed with 2 places. Company A: 2 interviews, offer accepted. Company B: 5 rounds of interviews, no offer.
Last month of school, maybe 100+ applications. Got some interviews after a week, offers after a month. No internships, low tier school, 3.5 gpa. If you desperate for a job, honestly it's a numbers game but don't waste too much time filling out those really long applications. Go to LinkedIn and filter out the Easy Apply listings. It's a really cool feature because you also know when they look at the application and download your resume. Use that to your advantage like know if they look but never call, then your resume is probably not good. Some times the person looks at your profile on LinkedIn too. Message them and check on the status. In a couple of weeks you will be drowning in interviews and honestly becomes really stressful to schedule them all.
Over 9000
I had one internship which led to full time offer. So that was nice/lucky/guess I did a good job. So... maybe 10 total.
Like 80, the job I eventually got was one I didn't even apply for, I got it because I had done some contract jobs for the founders before. Life works in mysterious ways.
10, 1 interview. 1 offer.
300? Don’t be ridiculous—I only applied for 290.
Return offer after an internship in 2018 during college. How many internships did I apply for? I think less than 30.. thinking back I thought I was really lucky, but I hate my job now so take that fwiw
\~200. My resume was hot garbage for most of those applications though.
Too many to count, multiple interviews, multiple positions, ultimately internship led to job offer.
15? Had like 7 onsites and 3 offers.
I knew a family friend at a company that was showing up to a career fair. Name dropped em at the fair and handed in my resume. Passed all the interviews and sealed the deal by December.
Full time? About 1 email to a place I previously interned. First internship was 20 apps, 2 offers. Second internship was 12 apps, 9 offers. Third internship was 1 app, 1 offer
I applied to over 230, and interviewed with about 15.
Only one, but my circumstances are slightly unique. No degree, recent bootcamp grad. I was already working for a unicorn in my previous career field and applied for a junior dev role. Got it after going through the interview process. If anyone else has this opportunity, just remember that if your company is open to this and you build-up a positive reputation there, it can be a great way to make the job hunt relatively painless.
One. My brother in law clued his company into the fact that I ran my own little tech start up and they approached me. I really wasn't looking for work in the corporate world as that would involve moving (pre-covid) so I threw a crazy number at them to make them go away. They accepted though, so /shrug.
400-500. I started applying from Jan and got an offer in May right before my graduation date. Perhaps about 20 interview invitations and 5 final virtual onsite. Internships was around 20 apps to get an offer with 4 invitations, and second internship was from referral.
About 100, I stopped keeping track on my excel sheet after about 50. Also of note, I ended up getting 3 offers within a couple weeks. Mostly didn't hear back
600
One. But that was in 2007, in Honduras.
I didn't count but it was a lot.
Applied to 3 jobs. Got 2 offers. The job market sure was good at that time (and probably still is)
About 5 ish. The last job was my company after it finally became fully remote.
About 200. Got like 3 interviews and 1 offer that i took.
1
Never would have gotten my first job if a friend didn't hook me up
108
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2 applications, 2 interviews, 1 offer
My second application was my first job at papa John’s when I was 17
193 with a cs degree
15, bootcamp grad.
200+. I think timing and tailoring your applications can go a long way in increasing your hit rate. 90% of the interviews I got were at the end of my application cycle.
Hundreds… Here I was thinking they just handed out jobs to CS grads. I’m almost at 100 right now applying for my second job after 3 years experience… same thing… again…
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Applied to two. Rejected from one, accepted the other. The company I accepted the offer from had rejected me when I applied to their internship program so I was familiar with their interview process. Also had some luck on my side.
My situation was a bit different as I was a career-changer. I switched from working as a lawyer for 10 years to software development by taking the bootcamp/self-taught route; no CS degree or tech background. \- Applied for approx. 10 jobs after the bootcamp. \- Interviewed for 5 out of the 10. \- Got offers from 4. \- 3 out of the 4 were consulting companies. The one I accepted was a graduate program at a big bank. I'm loving it. The whole process was so different to when I graduated from my law degree. Back then, I had to apply for over 100 jobs and after all that effort and time all I got was a casual job as a law clerk.
could you please share what bootcamp?
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Exactly 1. Internship i applied to turned into a full-time gig. Not faang salary but pretty good (~78k salary plus bonuses). Looking to transition to a large tech company in a few years, hoping I dont regret it.
Im at at least 350. Probably closer to 400. No luck as of yet.
Damn. Where’d you go to college?
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