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Comment by linkregister | Hacker News Reader

That's fascinating. I know only a handful of people who got their jobs through cold applying. The majority of my friends were either referred by colleagues or received inbound recruiter email. That is, with the exception of my cohort in CS undergrad; we attended our university career fair for out entry into the workforce.

It's heartening to know that the cold apply method can be successful.

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Cold applying works reasonably well IME, but you have to be able to nail the interviews for it to make sense. I'm great at what I do, I only apply to jobs which should be a good fit, and I still only get interviews 1-2% of the time. I then get offers 95% of the time, which keeps the process manageable.

I've gotten 3/4 of my tech jobs through cold applying though [0], and been offered many, many more. I know it's possible.

Ok that note, I love my current job, and I would've never found anything like it through my network. Cold applying was a literal game-changer in that regard.

[0] One was through Google Foo Bar, and one was through Codefights (now Codesignal or something), so those were slightly more tailored than cold applying.

That's fantastic. I love my current role (also fairly niche) and I would never have heard of it without the recruiter reaching out to me.

I'll take your advice to heart next time I am looking for a role.

Every job I’ve ever gotten has been cold apply, with no degree except a GED high school diploma equivalent. You can certainly get jobs through cold apply, I get a job offer for basically every job that gets to the interview, even when I hadn’t worked as a dev I had two job offers I had to pick from. I like to think my passion, knowledge, and genuine interest shines through in my cover letters and my interviews.

When did you last do that? I’ve heard from multiple friends that the job market has completely collapsed in the last couple of years & that it’s much tougher than in the past.

For me it is more curiosity about what they are doing. If you work in the same field you should be able to have a chat. If it doesn't flow you can't work there if you get along perfectly it would be dumb not to hire you.

Every one of my jobs has been cold applying. I don’t like maintaining networks explicitly because it takes a lot of work I have no interest in doing.

The thing is, some people don't view "maintaining networks" as work, and it's something that not only comes naturally when they do it, but they actually do it naturally, automatically.

These people have a real advantage.

It's like how I may have a real durable advantage because I really enjoy reading about software, computers, etc, so I just consume a lot of information passively.

Or maybe how I get a lot of practice arguing or convincing people on reddit or space battles.com.

If someone viewed reading Hacker News as work, I'm not sure they'd EVER do it.

Nepotism, (existing for better or for worse), varies wildly from firm to firm,

region to region.

How did they get colleagues in the first place without cold-applying?

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