I'm neck deep in my job search, and I'm getting to the HR interview at rates around 30-40%, but that's because I'm getting to the HR interview at rates near 90% where I was able to get someone to refer me or send my resume straight to the hiring manager. For non-referrals, I'm seeing closer to 100->10-15.
I think that's just insane.
That you are seeing 30-40% HR interview rates shows you've got something on your resume (or your referrals) that's pushing your resume higher on the stack.
>It's a number's game. You must send a fuckload of resumes ...
So you recommend not bothering with personalized cover letters? At this point I'm really starting to see the sense in this.
You should always send a cover letter because it can't hurt, can only help, and therefore game theory or some shit.
Because we've yet to define what that "tank" is, and because assigning a graduates likelihood to become employed to the depth of their "tank" was unacceptable, it was always taught to instead remove yourself as much as possible from every application.
Remind yourself for every one that a rejection will happen for any reason that has nothing to do with you. A lost resume. A position closed. You'll never know. Therefore, any emotional investment is wasted.
Gotta get robotic about it mang
From a recruitment standpoint, this guy's "sales funnel" is remarkably efficient. I'm more used to seeing a ration of 100 applications > 10-15 phone calls > 5 onsites/technicals > 1 offer. Needless to say he blew the initial phone call / interview numbers out of the water, though it did eventually narrow down to about the expected number of offers.
I don't like the current state of recruitment and job hunting. In fact, I have literally never met anybody that did. Recruiters whose living depends on it, our managers, the engineering managers we pitched to, our candidates, fucking nobody is happy with it.
Nobody has solved it though so now that we can all it agree that it sucks, it would be irrational to sit around and complain about how it sucks instead of adapting (and fixing it when you're not trying to figure out how to get health insurance before yours runs out and you gotta spend 400 on COBRA):
It's a number's game. You must send a fuckload of resumes because sometimes a resume for the perfect job will fall off the recruiter's desk or get lost in their email, or get lost in their spam folder, or the recruiter just won't understand what they're looking at, or there's a candidate slated for the position already, or somebody didn't like the formatting of your resume and got frustrated and threw it away. Or 50 other reasons.
That same randomness applies to each of the up to 10 steps (usually 3-5) before you get an offer. They couldn't get you scheduled for an interview in time. You came in and somebody thought your shirt was stupid or too casual. You came in and somebody thought you were dressed too well and a tryhard. They gave you a dumb algorithm that had nothing to do with a job and it created salty feelings on both sides. I mean, there's just so many variables.
So in this system, your best bet is to increase the resolution as high as you can. That gives you realistic access to the greatest number of opportunities you'll actually like, and the luxury (or burden, I suppose) of choice.
Until someone fixes this systems. Lord alive, somebody please fix this fucking system. The best progress I've seen on this front has been by coding test websites that hyper-tailor your profile to companies with specific needs, i.e. completely useless for every other job in the world. Beyond that your best bet is to just align yourself with a god-tier recruiter that actually cares about their relationship with you and their candidates (the established ones that don't have a manager breathing down their neck to randomly spam out resumes cause their numbers aren't high enough).