Job applications take seconds to do. But good ones don't.

118 people apply for a job for every opening.

But…

About 40% of job seekers still negotiate for a higher salary when they are in final negotiations.

Why?

The average amount of days it takes to fill a position is 36.
The average programming job takes over 100 days to fill.
The average job which needs a real certification, over 5 years experience or a skill that needs a college degree takes over 3 months to fill.
One third of new employees leave before the six month mark.
65% don’t make it 2 years.
Only 20% get any follow up to application.
Only 2-3% of people will get any form of interview.

And the US economy still has 1 million more jobs available to people looking for jobs.

My partner in a venture we’re doing just sent me a piece by Forbes, where a VC said they have had hundreds of people reach out over projects in our industry.

I looked at him and just said “Name 5”

Every company
Every investor
Every college

They always brag about rejection.

And why?

Because every single logical reason for them exist to make them look exclusive and hard to get.

Create scarcity
Create exclusivity
Create leverage

But companies hiring never mention it takes them about 100 days on average to find skilled labor.

Investors don’t love to mention that 70% of companies they invest in fail and never turn a profit.

Even colleges get rejected. NYU in 2015 bragged that they had the lowest acceptance rate they’ve ever had. 100,000 applications for the freshman class and only 12,500 got in. They don’t mention that of those 12,500 who got in, only 6,700 actually ended up going, meaning NYU has almost a 50% rejection rate, where qualified people have other options and say no.

And why do all these groups get so many applications?

A person can go on indeed or LinkedIn and spam auto apply onto 100 jobs in 20 minutes, applying for countless jobs that don’t apply to them.
A person can go to a VC’s website and type in an email “I have an idea. Facebook, but better…”
A person with a 2.5 GPA and a 900 on the SAT’s can apply to Harvard if they want.

Applications take seconds to do.
Good ones don’t.

Companies are just as desperate for good labor as employees are for good jobs, I’d argue companies are even more desperate now.

VC’s are just as desperate for good startups as startups are for funding and I’d argue most new VC firms or accelerators that aren’t groups like YC are more desperate.

Colleges are just as desperate for people who will click “accept” as applicants who want a letter in the mail saying “accepted”.

I wrote this with my partner in mind, but I think probably everyone at some point needs to hear this.

There’s always going to be a meeting where someone says something like “We had hundreds of people want to be in your chair”.

We need more people to have a mentality which is “Okay, why am I in the chair and the other hundreds never got a response?”