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Thanks for the feedback. I built this as a senior in college, when my classmates and I didn't really have any useful connections to people in the industry. I did try cold-emailing and cold LinkedIn messaging people, but received few to no replies. It's definitely something that can be integrated into this webapp though, adding support for emailing/reaching out directly to hiring managers.

If you'll send me one of your cold emails, i'll tell you why you got no response. I've seen it all.

I am mostly a senior programmer but I'm still very interested in a fresh perspective about how do I contact business people. How can I reach you?

Regarding job applications: when hiring people the first applications we send to the bin are generic ones. I really despise them because we get so many of them. We spend so much of time reading applications that if an applicant can't have the courtesy of writing a personal email it really leaves a sour taste.

So to actually answer your question - when applying, write why you are interested in the job. Make it at least sound like you know what the company you're applying to does. Ask questions about the job. If it's just some generic "I'm good at this and that" we'll just throw it in the bin even if you seem to have the skills.

I understand and appreciate that -- plus I always write personalized messages. It's a very worthy time investment!

That being said, many firms don't have enough information on their websites -- and even in their job application info page! -- about what do they do technically and what is their current need.

That makes it hard to make a proper addressing to them while doing a sales pitch of your abilities and profile. And I refuse to engage in vague guess-work, too.

Thank you, I realize some people might not have responded because I didn't have enough info to go on to try and tell them why would I like working with them.

That's some good feedback! I will try to think about making sure that our job ads contain enough information about the role. Hadn't thought about that. Thanks!

Something I've never ever seen a company do is...

Tell me what business need my work will solve!

Just out of curiosity: Do you have difficulty hiring people?

Everyone has difficulty hiring people. The most popular companies, like Google, may have a glut of applicants, but it's still incredibly difficult to know whom to choose.

For almost everyone else, there are two problems: not enough applicants and no infallible way to screen them.

Hiring is (and should be) the most difficult thing a company does. It's the most important thing a company does for sure.

I'm not interested in the generic "everybody." I'm intersted in accatyyc's experience specifically. Not every company bins generic applications. It would be interesting to see if accatyyc's company can afford to do so because they have a glut of qualified applicants or if they're artificially limiting their candidate pool for some other reason.

To expand on my other answer in regards to this - I wouldn't say we have a glut of qualified applicants. It's pretty hard to find the great developers, and the reason we bin the generic ones is that we have never found a fit through one of those. Also it simply takes too much time to move further with those applications. I'd rather be programming :)

Thanks for responding! This answer had one interesting tidbit the other one didn't have, which is:

> the reason we bin the generic ones is that we have never found a fit through one of those.

That's an interesting bit of pattern recognition and something I hadn't considered.

> I'd rather be programming :)

Haha, fair enough. :)

Sorry to barge in yet again. IMO showing the job applicants the significance of their work if they are hired is motivating.

Many people aren't only about the money. I feel many employers grossly underestimate this point.

Depends on your point of view. In terms of amount of applications, no. Loads of people apply, but in terms of finding the right person, yes I think it's very hard. It takes a huge amount of time, and all the generic/automatic applications certainly don't speed up the process.

5 minutes of internet searching should find my email based on my username and bio :)

But that could be unsolicited -- and is obtained by looking you up without your consent. I prefer getting your consent first.

I know you worked hard on this and it solves a perceived need. All I'm saying is that optimizing for quantity won't get the best result.

There's no substitute for meeting people and creating genuine relationships, and there's no way to "hack" or speed up that process. That really is a numbers game: you may make 20 friends, and only one of them results in a job. But each friend requires genuine time and effort.

As far as being a senior in college, what about talking to alumni, especially recent ones? What about connections from internships?

Machines can't do the most important part of finding a job, which is to increase the number of people in the world who know your name and like you.

I don't know about you, but making real friends takes years.

> That really is a numbers game: you may make 20 friends, and only one of them results in a job.

Comparing the difficulty and social capital required to maintain 20 friends to having an app send out job applications is...not even in the same ballpark? People seem to have vastly different interpretations for the word friend, but making 20 friends certainly isn't trivial.

Having to wait that long for a better job shouldn't be necessary. Keep in mind, the goal isn't to get the best result, it's to get a better result than where you currently are.

> For others, who have no useful connections, it's possible to make these connections by cold-messaging people on LinkedIn, especially alumni from your school.

This. If the job you're applying to pays >= 50k/year, you owe it to yourself to take 30 minutes or so before you apply and find a way to differentiate yourself and make a connection. Ideally you reach out to someone on the inside that you have a shared experience/interest with, but if you can't, just prepare a highly personalized cover letter explaining why you're excited about the position and a great fit for it. For a position with 50 applicants maybe 3 of them will have done this, and those 3 are likely the first ones to get called in for interviews.

Treating job applications like an indiscriminate numbers game is doing a disservice to yourself and the companies you apply to.

Unless those jobs don't pay >50k/yr. straight out of college most are going for low run entry jobs.

CS grads in good markets make significantly more than 50k/yr.

I'd be very interested to know about any market where they don't make significantly more than $50k/yr. Even in the town where I grew up (40,000 people in a dying state), new CS grads make more than that.

I've gone down that dead end. 1. Spend weeks researching the company, 2. Craft the perfect (after a few drafts) resume and cover letter tailored directly to that company, 3. Meticulously make sure all the online form fields filled in. Subsequently receive an auto-reply 10 minutes after you submit it with a generic "We considered your application and decided NO." E-mail. All it takes is a few of these, and I would be an idiot to continue to believe it's about taking the time and tailoring your application.

> only an idiot would continue to believe it's about taking the time and tailoring your application

Personal attacks aren't allowed on HN and cheapen your response.

Many other commenters, including myself, are responsible for hiring and immediately discard applications that aren't tailored.

When someone spends time customizing their application, it means my company is near the top of their list. That indicates a higher potential for a good fit.

If someone is mindlessly applying, there's a good chance they're wasting time for both of us. Only a big, badly-run organization would hire people from pools of robo-applications. I've never heard of any organization that has been happy hiring someone who did no research on the company ahead of time or didn't really care if they got the job or not.

I've edited my comment--it was certainly not meant to be a personal attack against anyone but that hypothetical job applicant!

Yup. Been there. Done that. The numbers game gets a better result because very few companies can accurately describe what they're looking for in a position or a candidate. Unless you can directly talk to somebody with hiring authority, you're playing the same numbers game everybody else is.

There's a middle ground between that and applying to "hundreds of jobs in under two minutes". What I do, what I assume most people do, is spend an hour hand-crafting the perfect response for the first application, and then use that as a template and spend five minutes tweaking it for each subsequent one.

Anything more than that would be better spent on things that improve your chances for every job you apply for (improving your resume, adding to your github, taking a course, etc).

Right out of college, staffing firms were the way to go for me. Big companies seem to like hiring on a contract-to-hire basis because it avoids the unemployment risk if they hire somebody who isn't a good fit for some reason after the first 90 days.

I applied for companies directly and ended up getting the exact same job through a staffing firm instead. For getting in the door, it's a big help starting out.

I agree, but also it is true that the mechanical process of actually filling in an application is very tedious. If that bit can be eliminated then it is definitely worth it.

That said, I think you can apply to jobs with a single click on LinkedIn (and I assume StackOverflow?) so that has kind of been solved. Ish.

I've never gotten a job with a resume I didn't taylor for the job in question. Thoughtful tweaking is overwhelmingly the longest part of applying for any job. I've never found the 10 minutes (or so) of filling out the internet forms difficult.

On the first point, I've spent a lot of time tayloring for jobs in question and never got more than a form letter of rejection, if any, even though it was a short note of alignment with abilities.

And, you're flat out wrong about the 'longest part' of applying for a job if you have to go through each company's individual "Job Applicant System" and fill out basic info over and over and over because the auto-fill systems are garbage 80% of the time. Redundant data entry is overwhelmingly the worst part, and Employers/HR people love to pretend that's not the case.

I strongly agree with your second point. Especially for Amazon, Blizzard, and other companies that subscribe to multi-page registrant forms. I'll often come across a job posting, or a mention from a recruiter that just points me to the standard application portal. If I'm thinking "Hey this looks right up my alley, maybe I'll send them my resume. Long shot at best though" please don't make me do this. Running into these arduous forms turns a long-shot application on a whim into a long-shot 40 min enthusiasm crushing affair.

Too many Taylor series, methinks! It's 'tailor'.

I've heard it said that if you send an application online, you're already screwed. Or, to put it another way: if the first person who sees your application is a computer or HR person, you're screwed.

Unfortunately this is the only avenue open to people who do not have the privilege of having a rolodex full of industry contacts who they keep regular enough contact with that it's not awkward to reach out for help.

Let's say I've worked with roughly 1,000 people throughout my 20 year career. Let's say generously 20% of them I worked with closely enough that they know who I am and have a vague sense that I'm an awesome worker. 20% of those I've actually developed a friendly relationship with beyond water cooler chit chat, where we'd trust each other enough to be willing to help with a job search. Maybe 20% of those are now in companies where I'd want to work. And further 20% of that list are in positions so close to the hiring manager at one of those companies where they could actually speak up and have some influence on a decision. We're down to one or two people in the entire industry.

These numbers are guesstimates (pretty much match my own situation), but I just don't see how "networking" is the silver bullet everyone says it is. I'm sure when it works it really works, but I wouldn't rely on it.

I've seen it work well for people. Those people spend a lot of time talking to, getting to know and befriending people on the business side of things, like managers, VPs, and technical leads.

Think of it like sales. Salesmen don't only sell to people they happen to run into at home or at the office. They go out of their way to target (ie: chat up and befriend) people who buy what they sell.

Definitely not true. Most jobs are given to people that apply online.

That's false in my anecdotal experience. It's also false according to common wisdom, so it seems that most people share my anecdote.

I couldn't find any data suggesting that it's true, but I did find this survey that backs up my assessment: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/new-survey-reveals-85-all-job...