When I was entering the job market in early 2023, I caught up with my friend Fadeke. She had just started a really good job at DigitalOcean. She shared her process with me, and let me know that she did fewer than 20 job applications.

This quantity was a really helpful anchor for when I start applying to jobs. Fadeke had started up a spreadsheet to help her keep track of her progress, so I did that too with Airtable.

I looked for jobs pretty much full-time. In 2 months, I applied to 18 jobs. I did four first round interviews. Two of these opportunities became more serious prospects. One of the companies couldn’t hire me as soon as they had thought, and so I ended up doing a contract with them so I could just start working with the team.

I went through six rounds of interviews with the other opportunity, and I got an offer to join. That was Figma.

So my approach turned out to be, pick a few opportunities, and go all-in. In hindsight, I think this worked because I didn’t apply to that  many jobs—not in spite of it. Because I applied to relatively few jobs, I prioritized very carefully and intentionally. Every couple of days, I looked for new opportunities and put them into Airtable. I caught up with friends and acquaintances.

I often put at least a couple of hours of effort into a job application. I researched the company and let the recruiter or leader know where I saw the opportunity to contribute. I prioritized the opportunities where I could find someone to refer me to the company. If I couldn’t, I would apply and reach out to the person who I thought was hiring. One of the hiring managers told me she got over a thousand job applications and I was the only one who emailed her. That’s how low the bar is.

I also practised my interviews thoroughly. The recruiter would let me know as I progressed what the interviews would be about, and I made guesses as to what questions I would be asked and prepared very thorough talking points. I prepared questions to ask each person who interviewed me and had a look at their profiles to see if we had anything in common.

I rehearsed each answer while I recorded myself, and I listened to how I sounded and refined my answers accordingly. I prepared for each interview and I spent a lot of time doing the take-home assignments.

None of this would’ve been possible if I applied to over 50 jobs in that time span. I wouldn’t be able to put intention into each application. Quantity would not have worked in my favour, because I wouldn’t have improved the quality of each job application. 

This is the type of principle that my friend Michael Karnjanaprakorn is talking about in his latest post, which is about how to get a job at startups. There’s some great specific advice there, and I think the general principle is picking a few opportunities and going all in. The key is feeling out how much is enough. Too few and timing may not work out, but too many and you won’t stand out.