
I Built a Bot to Apply to Thousands of Jobs at Once - miraj
https://www.fastcompany.com/3069166/i-built-a-bot-to-apply-to-thousands-of-jobs-at-once-heres-what-i-learned
======
r3bl
Am I the only one who's really interested in the actual bot? The article
doesn't say a lot about this, but from what it does, I can't figure out the
approach used.

Did he scrape LinkedIn? I would say no, LinkedIn has a high level of
understanding what bots are. Did he scrape some random websites? How did he
apply to a different number of jobs in two different versions of the software?
Was the whatever job posting his bot was looking at drastically changing the
number of open positions or something?

Also, how did he tweak the input over time? Did he had some set of, let's say,
10 different versions of the resume and the cover letter, and then the bot
just chose one randomly or was there something else?

There's so many things I'm unable to figure out on the technical side from the
article that I'm leaning towards this whole "I built a bot" thing is an over-
exaggeration from the author to get the message across.

------
donovanm
So according to this article, most jobs aren't posted and most jobs are filled
through referrals. Even if you somehow make it through the arbitrary automated
tracking system gatekeeper you're still really unlikely to get the job from a
random application. Any hiring managers here that can share if this matches
their experience?

~~~
amorphid
When I was recruiting, a generic application wasn't an automatic deal breaker,
but it wasn't good. If you can't take the time that you're applying to a
specific job for a specific reason, that's usually a sign that you've
basically "swiped right" on a job that sounded interesting. Usually a generic
application for a qualified person goes to the bottom of the pile of people
worth considering.

~~~
watwut
What specific reason would you expect me to cite when I apply for senior
developer position?

~~~
amorphid
Anything that makes you a strong fit or that makes you really like the
position. Even if you don't have much to say, anything that makes your
application not look like spam, and spamming out a resume is exactly what the
author of this article is doing, is a good start.

"I wrote one of the open source packages you use!"

"You make software used in my toaster!"

"Your office it two blocks from my house!"

~~~
alexashka
This'd imply your company is so interesting, that it warrants a cover letter.
When I job hunt, I email literally every posting, as does everyone I know.
When you're looking for 'strong fit' \- what you're really selecting for is
desparation.

When I was a junior, I wrote cover letters for every job. Now that I'm senior,
I haven't written one in years and get more callbacks than ever before.

~~~
amorphid
And I bet you don't need to write a spam bot to spam your resume out to N *
10^50 job postings. It sounds like you've outgrown the need to seeks answers
to questions you might have asked earlier in your career. That is a nice
position to be in :)

Still, one could argue that flirting w/ the company a bit at the point you
make a first impression, possibly in a cover letter, is in your best
interests. If someone needs you, they'll offer to pay what they need to. If
someone wants you, they'll pay whatever it takes to retain you. Sometimes
those numbers are the same. But if a company would be willing to go the extra
mile to make you happy, and you give them no reason to feel that way, you're
leaving money on the table.

------
bigiain
And people wonder why the hiring process is so broken. Of course recruiters
and HR departments need to treat every application/resume like crap... Except
yours. Because you're a unique snowflake and they can easily discern your
application from this guy's spam...

(And I fully expect commission-renumerated recruiters are doing this pro-
actively without even having any candidates yet to get ever-so-slightly-warmer
intros than their cow orkers...)

~~~
schrodinger
In my country we pay great money to those who ork the cows

~~~
oblio
Of course, we can't be really sure if you pay the orkers, one might say that
at the same time you pay them and you don't.

~~~
smoyer
I've learned the hard way not to look up what I believe to be non-words in the
urban dictionary.

------
KarinneLima
Good article! I've found out while working for the career center at a major
university in the US that one should spend 80% of their job-searching energy
in networking vs 20% applying. Even though applications are part of the
process and personalized cover letters and thank you notes take up a lot of
time, the odds are definitely in favor of those who make an effort to connect
with the right people, who show genuine interest in their experience and learn
as much as possible about the opportunities they pursue. Keeping a good
relationship with former coworkers and employers is another great way to keep
a healthy network. You never know where the next job or project will come
from.

~~~
watwut
but ... but ... we are ... meritocracy ...

------
logfromblammo
Nitpick here.

> _Referrals are the minority of applicants but are five times more likely to
> be hired._

From the article:

    
    
      P(referral) = 0.06
      P(non-referral) = 0.94
      P(referral|hired) = 0.29
      P(non-referral|hired) = 0.71
    

What we're looking for is

    
    
      P(hired|referral) / P(hired|non-referral) = ?
    

So reversing the two known conditionals, and dividing to eliminate the unknown
probability for P(hired):

    
    
      P(hired|referral) = P(referral|hired) * P(hired) / P(referral)
      P(hired|non-referral) = P(non-referral|hired) * P(hired) / P(non-referral)
      P(hired|referral) / P(hired|non-referral)
        = P(referral|hired) / P(non-referral|hired) * P(non-referral) / P(referral)
        = 0.40845 * 15.667 = 6.3991
    

Referrals are actually 6.4 times as likely to be hired. This is why stat and
math classes are important, journalists.

~~~
azurelogic
This. And I would bet that it's even higher if you focus exclusively on STEM
jobs.

------
abraae
Fascinating but flawed.

> By targeting internet companies in particular, I’d chosen an industry with a
> high likelihood of reliance on resume-processing algorithms.

Internet companies hire knowledge workers/creative types/snowflakes.

By contrast banks, insurance companies and departments like call center hire
armies of drones.

You are much more likely to find automated resume analysis in the latter, it
works much better there.

~~~
busterarm
Slight disagreement here. Former bank employee.

Banks hire knowledge workers/creative types/snowflakes.

In fact, they hire the absolute best-credentialed and most-experienced in the
market. Our receptionists, mail and facilities staff at minimum had a Masters
degree, went to a Tier 1 school and did something very interesting/exceptional
with their off-time.

They just try to turn them into drones via compensation schemes and internal
politics.

~~~
michaelt

      Our receptionists, mail and facilities staff at
      minimum had a Masters degree, went to a Tier 1 school
    

I'm curious as to how you convinced such people to take such jobs?

I would have thought it would be difficult to convince a graduate from an Ivy
League university or similar to take a janitorial job?

~~~
Humdeee
Girlfriend has climbed the ranks in a bank over the years to a pretty decent
pay right now. The tellers you talk to when you walk in generally have a
degree to a masters level education, and make about 28k to 35k CAD. Outside of
tech and a select few other industries, jobs like this are pretty competitive
with limited payoff. That 60k entry job (here at least) that is the norm for
CS and other eng disciplines is a pipe dream for many with more general
degrees.

It's a situation a lot of us here forget or don't even know exists.

------
failrate
The best jobs are not only not posted, they are jobs that don't exist until
you create them yourself.

~~~
wrsh07
You can kind of think about it probabilistically: good jobs should be filled
quickly because they're desirable (and they should be reasonably effective at
attracting good talent to fill them)

Good candidates should get offers quickly.

Thus, the best way to get a good job is to be there the moment it's posted (or
even better, before)

The dual is true for candidates, too.

~~~
twelve40
"good jobs" is very simplistic.

There are good jobs for every individual at every stage of their life. Are
they all the same?

Some like shit for salary while getting the thrill of being a cofounder, some
may like a flashy brand and half the comp in stock, others might prefer a
lesser brand but more cash. There are also boring 9-5 jobs that leave tons of
time to be with the family. Which one is a "good job"?

~~~
wrsh07
All models are wrong, some are useful. I don't think your nit undermines any
of the point I was making

------
azurelogic
Every time one of those "Ask HN: How do I get a job" comes around, I comment
on the importance of networking over throwing resumes into an abyss.
Inevitably, someone talks about how they got a great job with a cold
application. It's not that it is impossible, it is that it is less probable.
It's great to see articles that can support and explain this fact. As
engineers, we tend to want to see raw brain power and experience be the yard
stick for hiring. But for better or worse, "people" get involved, and suddenly
there are a whole bunch of other metrics. The reality is that the 100+ year
old phrase is still largely true today: "It's not what you know, it's who you
know"
([http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/its_...](http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/its_not_what_you_know_but_who_you_know/)).

~~~
antisthenes
It's because not knowing anyone is a catch-22.

You can't start networking if your baseline of knowing anyone is 0. For
example, I know of 0 people in the finance industry. The barrier to entry for
me to start networking in it is orders of magnitude higher than sending out
cold applications online.

This is additionally compounded that networking is extremely dependent on
factors entirely unrelated to your actual skills: attractiveness, charisma,
social skills, class signaling, quite possibly race and sex.

And you wonder why people don't "just network!".

~~~
azurelogic
Usually these posts are in regards to programming or related jobs (data
science). While I know that many devs are not wired up to be super outgoing,
it is not that hard to find a proper meetup in your area (as long as it
exists). And I have also found that even shy developers tend to relax and get
to know people once they realize that they're in a place that they can be
themselves. Just getting to know people and being nice can be enough to plant
the seeds.

------
blisterpeanuts
Larger employers usually use a recruiter, either in-house or external. They
simply don't have time to sift through tens of thousands of cold-call resumes.

The best thing, as the article admits, is simply to know people inside an
organization that you want to work for. There's no better or more reliable way
to get a foot in the door. You achieve that by networking like crazy and just
getting to know lots of people. Go to every conference and industry event that
you can, talk to lots of people there, get active in entrepreneurial groups
(in Massachusetts it's Enet and MITEF among others) and keep your LinkedIn
profile updated. You never know when that casual conversation around the
coffee urn turns into a more serious discussion that can lead to a job offer.
I've seen it many times.

The next best practice, at least with larger traditional companies, is to
cultivate a good recruiter or two, do a couple of contracting gigs and earn a
reputation as a reliable worker, and then they will enthusiastically promote
you to hiring managers. Stay away from the crappy, sleazy recruiters - you can
recognize them from their spam, lack of response to inquiries, lack of track
record. Go with one that has an industry track record and a reputation to
protect.

A bot to apply to thousands of jobs? It's a bit of a joke, really. The guy
didn't get an offer so that tells you how much that effort was worth.

------
ge96
I wonder if you could just scrape the text in the job application the key
words like "Bachelor's in Computer Science" and "3-5 years experience in .NET"
or whatever bundle of credentials they strap together and submitted that.
That's a definite match right? You'd get some notification, "Hey uhh... we saw
your resume." I'm just griping because I'm obsolete.

------
robert1er
I'm the guy who wrote the article. I just came across this conversation and I
have to say that you folks have touched on a ton of really interesting
elements that I didn't have the space to write. Overall, I agree with a ton of
what I'm reading here and the critiques are also mostly fair. I just joined so
that I could thank you all but I'd be happy to answer specific questions if
anyone would like. Honestly, this is one of the most thoughtful discussions
about the article I've come across. Thanks!

------
ploggingdev
Does anyone have experience with job marketplaces? I don't mean the mainstream
ones, but ones like Stackoverflow jobs or Github jobs. Do they get closer to
solving the problem of resume blackholes?

------
hocuspocus
I've interviewed with many tech companies and the impact of personalized
referrals has been completely anecdotal to me. I got my current job from a
cold application.

With some companies it can take months before being noticed once you've
applied online, but there's been a few cases where I could apply in just one
click and get contacted by a recruiter the same day!

Admittedly, I assume my experience might have been different if I applied for
jobs at early stage startups.

------
JSoet
I was disappointed with the direction this article took - when he said he
built a robot to send personalized applications I was hoping it would be
reading the requirements and then sending personalized resumes and cover
letters specifically built to get past the robot stage, but then waste the
recruiter's time to show how stupid the automated system is and how easy it is
to game... Something like that anti-spam bot that was posted here a few months
ago...

------
bryanrasmussen
he needs to do one with a nonsense cover letter, and one with varying length
cover letters. I bet the robots that check there are cover letters make sure
they are long enough to show that you care about getting the job, but not so
long that you come off as needy.

------
mcguire
" _It’s not how you apply, it’s who you know. And if you don’t know someone,
don’t bother._ "

~~~
taneq
If there's only a 0.1% chance of getting a job from a completely cold contact,
but you send out 1000 of them, your chances of getting a job out of it are
pretty high.

Of course, there's also the matter that if you keep it up, your name is going
to be instantly associated with application spam and probably blacklisted.

------
ghufran_syed
I think this data is interesting, like the author, I would have assumed _some_
difference between the version that effectively said "written by a bot" and
the other one. On the other hand, the conclusions are identical to what
Richard Bolles [1] has been telling job seekers for the last 47 years. If
you've never read this book, you really should, I remember when I first read
it and realized "Oh, THESE are the actual rules of how to get a job, no wonder
my job application success rate is so dismal" [1]
[http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/537247/what-color-
is...](http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/537247/what-color-is-your-
parachute-2017-by-richard-n-bolles/9780399578212/)

~~~
mdorazio
Perhaps you could actually tell HN readers what Richard Bolles said, rather
than teasing it and pointing to a book link?

~~~
ghufran_syed
Oh, my apologies, I thought the conclusion of the article was pretty
unambiguous: it ends with 3 paragraphs under a sub-heading of "Less applying,
more networking". Or did you draw some other conclusion from the article?
"Perhaps you could actually tell HN readers" what that alternative conclusion
was? :)

~~~
mdorazio
Based on a skim of Bolles's book, he actually comes to significantly broader
conclusions than this article. For example, I believe a significant chunk of
the book is about determining what you actually want to do before even looking
for a job. Another chunk of the book is about how to make a resume that
employers will look at and actually like. Another is about how looking for a
job should itself be a full-time job and how you should basically be applying
everywhere, networking non-stop, knocking on doors, etc. Another part is about
negotiating salary. Etc.

I have to disagree that Bolles entirely agrees with the conclusion of the
article - he takes a more holistic view of jobhunting.

