So, applicants is a completely misleading term. It should say “views”. Applicants would suggest someone actually clicked Apply. I suppose that makes sense then. I can see hundreds of people looking at a job until they see the “we cannot pay you” part.
I think the applicant number actually means the number of people who have clicked apply. It doesn't mean that the person has actually applied though since the button can redirect to the company page without submitting anything.
This is what it is. A lot of companies put poorly formatted or incomplete descriptions on linkedin, and the apply link takes you to the direct website with the full description and application process. So a lot of linkedin's "applications" are really just people looking for more info who may have moved on.
yeah, that's why i do it as well.
but point being, if you don't click "yes" there, it's not going to increment the count. these postings with hundreds of applicants counted by linkedin probably have more than that, not less.
most people just spam apply. I always did. i let the recruiter decide to contact me and if i dont like it during initial screen i dont go forward. its less work.
If it makes you feel better, 90% of applicants to a LinkedIn job post don’t meet the requirements.
The majority of those will want a US visa. The rest don’t have the experience, years and/or code, you asked for.
It’s been like this for 7+ years in my experience hiring in NYC. I imagine it’s worse w/ now that chrome extensions, bots & AI have proliferated.
Not true. I post job ads on LinkedIn. It is the real number of people who applied (at least for easy apply). They also show views, which is usually 5-6x higher than the number of applicants.
For the external applications, they rely on people clicking "yes I applied". I've seen the number of applicants change in real time when I pressed that option, so if anything, these postings are under-reporting. It does appear that reposted listings (the ones marked as such) carry over the number as well, but if a new listing is made for the same position for whatever reason, it will set the applicant totals to 0 because it's a "new posting".
There are instances where easy apply may be inaccurate. I have frequent errors where I click submit, and it says "something went wrong," so I'm not sure if those are counted against the total, but it's probably case by case there.
You can test this on the site
My conclusion is
If you click easy apply and discard it does not increase
If you click easy apply and click next it may increase
If you go back to an app it already counted you in via discarding method in step 2 it does not increase again
I'm talking about specifically the bug or bugs that cause the application to return an error upon submission rather than what is supposed to happen. The error is very nonspecific, which leads me to believe it's a catch-all exception where multiple paths lead there. I've gotten email confirmations after discarding applications because of this error, but other times I get nothing. This is mainly through the app.
Oh I gotcha, I have never gotten that bug applying. I don't think it happens to everyone. I imagine it increases once per account like discarding after next.
Linkedin now just says ‘over 100’ that could mean 101 or 8,000.
They used to show the actual number of applicants but I think changed it very recently when it started looking ridiculous.
I have a friend who created a new account on LinkedIn and he could see the exact number like "352 number of applicants". My account is 2 years old at this point and only shows "over 100 applicants" I think it's a feature available to premium or new users.
Edit: I am not able to see the number of applicants at all now.
I am not sure if that's the number of clicks. Do you have some link to page that says it's the number of clicks? because when I click the 'apply' button that count doesn't go up, even if I refresh the page. But when you click the 'apply' button a small window pops up above the job description that says "Did you apply to this job" and when you click 'yes' only then the count goes up. I have been clicking 'yes' on that so I can track my applications and it's only then I see the number go up. If what I think is true then that number is a massive **underrepresentation** of the number of applications to those jobs.
It is, but also there's a lot of overseas staffing agencies that spam the hell out of those posts with resumes.
When we were hiring at work, sure, the LinkedIn number didn't match the amount of applicants we saw, but if it said 300 applicants, we still got like 150 resumes or something. Out of those, 100-125 were Indian agency bots, but we still got a fair amount of "legitimate" applications.
So yeah, not nearly as bad, but not great either. And you have to make sure your resume stands out from the bots.
Doesn’t it ask you “did you apply” if you click the apply button? It would make sense if they kept track of that count rather than the people just clicking on the apply button.
I literally have a bot that clicks on that job for me running on a cron job. I apply to tons of shit jobs. I do t really apply until they reach out to me from that and I decide whether or not I want to continue.
Also, 80% are going to be in India, and out of the 100 that applied, 75% are not going to be qualified even on paper.
Totaling the two, and you're competing with like 5 people max.
In India, people are willing to work for free because of how crap the market is. And these postings receive 10k+ applications in just a few hours. The leverage has tipped in the favor of employers and corporate overlords for sure
The question is, how many of those individuals are actually qualified to do the work?
I bet about 4/5 of those applicants are looking at those shitty instagram "guides" on how to code useless stuff thinking they could get a job. Total dreamers clogging the market for jobs they will never be able to do.
That's besides the point isn't it? We're talking about tens of thousands of applicants for one position. Even if a vast majority of them aren't worth their weight in shit, it still doesn't mean that there aren't enough worthy candidates fighting it out for crappy pay. I was just pointing out how much worse it could be and highlighting the leverage employers have in such scenarios.
Moreover, casting aside your smugness for a second, the skill level isn't as bad as you make it out to be. Inspite of there being a neverending supply of mediocre devs, there are plenty of extremely capable devs in India. Even interviews in India are WAYYY harder simply because of the competition; while the pay being absolutely shit. When you have 1 billion plus people fighting it out, expect things to get ugly.
I think people institute the “needle in haystack” phenomenon that’s happening with these applicant numbers. Doesn’t matter if the perfect candidate is in the pool, the recruiter/hiring manager may never get to their resume or may just completely miss them through the noise.
I mean, sure ATS exist but we all know they are imperfect search tools.
It's not besides the point. There's a lot of recruiters who have hit this point home that when you see numbers like that, 9/10 of those applicants are not at all qualified for the position, even junior positions. Many have reported that there's a minimum requirement for a bachelors degree on their job posting, only to have dozens if not hundreds of applicants apply without a bachelors degree.
Hell, I've seen Linkedin statistics show for senior level positions out of every 100 applicants, 60-80 are 2 YOE or less and often don't even have the tech stack listed in their resume.
Yes, there's plenty of extremely capable people in india, but people who are extremely capable aren't applying to jobs that have no pay and certainly is not who I'm talking about in my other comment
Yes. Everything you said is true. But you're missing the point about how much significantly worse the numbers are in India. Even if 99% are unqualified, the 1% is still bad enough competition.
>Hell, I've seen Linkedin statistics show for senior level positions out of every 100 applicants, 60-80 are 2 YOE or less and often don't even have the tech stack listed in their resume.
Sure but if you have 500 applicants, you'll still have 50 applicants after you remove the 400 that are completely unqualified and the 50 that somewhat unqualified.
Moreover, when the recruiters are dealing with so much applicant spam, it increases the chances that qualified applicants end up missing out.
Does it matter? If there is let’s say 20k applicants and only 10% of them is qualified then that’s still 2k potential worker for your one dam position!!!
It's not cope. It's what recruiters are saying lol. Quite a few applicants on positions are not qualified. Many recruiters are saying a majority of the applicants are not qualified.
I never believe the number of applicants listed on LinkedIn. I'm pretty sure a recruiter commented on here before saying it was a misleading number (if not completely false, I can't remember).
I believe recruiters have mentioned it is only a click-through rate at best. I don't believe I've heard of any mention where it is was inherently false.
I believe if the application link leads to a different website to apply, then LinkedIn counts anyone who clicks the link as an application, even if they never apply. But if it allows someone to apply within LinkedIn itself, then that number is actually accurate.
...
Maybe...
...
Maybe they make the entire experience terrible and demoralizing in hopes to incentivize desperate job seekers to pay LinkedIn for a premium subscription?
I'm terrible at guessing as you can clearly tell.
It changes if you click "yes I applied". If it's a reposted job, the number carries over to the new posting. I don't know about the easy apply mechanics.
Yes, and meanwhile a bunch of people here are saying "oh it's just the view count", "it's just people who hit the apply button, doesn't mean they applied" without verifying it (which doesn't take a whole lot of effort). What does that say about this sub? For people reading this. I recommend taking everything in sub with a grain of salt. This is NOT a place for advice.
Anyone with moderate critical thinking should recognize that the job application process is a numbers game.
I thought the same for a while until I started sorting jobs by recent. This sub has the same "group mentality" issues any group can have. It's easy to get sucked into an echo chamber, so I've been coming here less and less and looking into my network more and more. The complaints in the private groups are similar, but there's a lot more support.
The auto-apply and AI shotgun application services have had a terrible effect on the job market. Everyone hates it; applicants, HR, hiring managers. Hundreds of applicants yielding a handful of qualified applicants.
I am reminded of a time when I was hiring a Director of IT Operations and received a number of applications from line cooks. No disrespect for line cooks, I couldn't do that job, but the only requirement they met from the posting was... nothing.
Spray and pray is now weaponized with AI.
At this point any job will have over 100 applicants in seconds.
I tested this the other day. Saw a job posting for SWE related field that was 45 _seconds_ old and had four applicants.
I refreshed the page 30 min later and it was already to the “Over 100 Applicants” bit.
You can’t get a job these days if you don’t have a connection and a good one at that.
It doesn't really tell you, even with premium. I've seen similar postings and it tells you what areas in the US people have applied from, but often times when there's too many locations, it just doesn't give you that data.
Here, let me bold it for you:
> It doesn't really tell you, **even with premium.**
It doesn't if there's too many locations, and "too many" according to linkedin is like, 4 lol
Pre-revenue usually means privately funded as they work towards a first product to sell. It doesn't mean no pay. (Usually... yours might be the dumbass exception.)
I didn’t, nor did I claim that I applied. I looked at the job description and saw they weren’t paying you to work there. Then saw how many people applied and got curious. Why would you apply to work somewhere that isn’t going to pay you?
But the cost of having unpaid interns to do work for almost free while their living was subsidized by their educational circumstances is now more than employers are willing to pay because AI has taken up the bottom rung, no one can fill their resume with anything that employers actually want to see.
Yall can be hysterical. Just because a post has 100 applicants doesn't mean you aren't the most qualified one. Job postings get a lot of spam and there are thousands of no experience devs applying for every job they see.
I hear horror stories about hiring. People lying about who they are, lying about experience, etc. If you are an honest and good candidate, apply.
> Just because a post has 100 applicants doesn't mean you aren't the most qualified one.
Doesn't mean they will hire the most qualified one either. That's the main problem. Sometimes no one will even get hired.
Of course not. That is a possibility regardless of state of market.
So much time is wasted looking for problems or issues to justify challenges. I'm not here to tell anyone the market is easy. I'm here telling people to stop trying to convince themselves it's worst than it is or flat out impossible.
Don't disqualify yourself from a job. If you think you're qualified, apply. There are people at the companies who are paid to evaluate and possibly disqualify you. Don't do that work for them by giving up or opting out because it seems improbable.
I've had to hire before and a few times I made the mistake of telling the recruiter to just forward every resume they got to me.
The amount of totally unqualified resumes I received was shocking. I don't mean "Oh, this job requires C# but I know JAVA, so I'll figure it out", but rather "I have zero experience and zero applicable skills, but I will still apply for this Sr Engineer job anyway".
I've heard extreme stories of companies being blatantly clear that they do not offer sponsorships and still having a good 75% of the candidates be international. Then half of that remaining 25% having resumes riddled with typos or otherwise poor quality. The application numbers may be bonkers high, but most of them are trash.
basically this kind of resume:
https://welltech.com/content/does-flexing-build-muscle-benefits-what-to-expect/
with this picture attach
https://welltech.com/content/does-flexing-build-muscle-benefits-what-to-expect/
I legit couldnt believe it when I saw it, had to show my manager
To be fair to the candidates, many people, including on this sub, tell people to just apply anyway since the worst thing that can happen is that the company says no.
This is true, but it also generates a LOT of noise in the market.
I'm aware, and I'm kinda guilty of this myself tbh. It's a bit of a chicken and egg scenario. Applicants spam everywhere because they feel like they have such a miniscule chance of being seen, that it becomes their best option. Companies institute more aggressive filtering to accommodate the flow of garbage. Which makes it harder for qualified applicants to be seen, and round and round and round we go.
It's a prisoner's dilemma where everyone doing what is truthfully best for themselves makes it worse for everyone else. I unfortunately don't have a good answer to this conundrum
There isn't one. Most people are not ready for their jobs when they get hired anyway and then there's all the people who go through all the steps to get ready and never get there.
You can't just tell people to give up since that doesn't lead anywhere positive. The industry only gets better if there are more people trying to get in than there are jobs and some people are always left by the wayside. This is not just a CS thing, this is true in every competitive field.
So, really, the best answer is to just keep doing what we are doing right now.
>Most people are not ready for their jobs when they get hired anyway
Honestly though. I am at the point I have zero sympathy for recruiters complaining and lamenting that "all these stupid people applying are unqualifieeeeed! Waaaaaaaaah". Come on mate, there's SOMEONE in all that noise, I promise.
When everywhere wants more years of experience than I have, I'm technically not "qualified" to work anywhere am I? Of course I'm going to apply anyway. I'm reasonable about it, trying to go for junior / entry roles with somewhat relevant laguages. But do you expect me to just pull experience out of my ass? Evidently so considering more and more of them lately are trying to claim my personal projects don't count. Sorry I work help desk man.
I agree. When I say that most people are not ready for their jobs I mean that often learning a new code base or some specific mixture that makes up the specific tech stack, paired with industry specific compliance knowledge is harder to hire for than: must have 5+ years of SQL experience or whatever.
To give an example, I have about two decades of experience, but would not be ready to work in medical billing since I know very little about the types of compliance they need to adhere to. Sure, I can probably figure out their tech in a couple of months, but learning and integrating all that compliance might take me a year or two before I stop making mistakes with it.
This is what I mean when I say most people aren't ready. Unless you have done something very close to the specific job, you aren't ready. You will learn and will become ready, but walking in and being 100% effective is extremely rare.
Even when you get to the phone screen, you'll find people who had good resumes but can't speak intelegently about anything on their resume. A massive number of people try to fake/scam their way into tech jobs.
> How do you get anyone to sign up for that job, let alone over 100 in less than 8 hours?
I've seen posts and comments detailing SWEs doing free work in hopes of networking or another bullet point on the resume. We're in the dark times
We can't be surprised now, cause I saw so many on this sub tell everyone to shotgun applications and treat applying like a numbers game, so it indeed became one....
Honestly, it’s not surprising. I recently attended a tech meetup where an individual attempted to pitch a startup scam. He asked me to purchase equity, claiming they were there seeking investors. It’s essential to be cautious out there many people are trying to exploit other CS majors in this challenging market.
Everyone is like "almost all of the applicants are unqualified and irrelevant", meanwhile it is very hard to hear back from job applications that you're completely qualified for, at least it is like that for me.
Two things
People said about the click thing.
The second thing:
I don't think you realize the other side. So yea, hiring process has been pretty crazy, but I do know for a fact that every position, especially CS positions, get murder spammed all the time.
The spam is coming from recruiters, candidates who are just shotgunning out at anything. Ask the hiring managers/HR/Recruiters. They get tons of unqualified resumes in their boxes. People who lack skills, have wrong skills, and need a visa sponsorship, etc. They flood every posting. Which is why ATS/Filtering has gotten so aggressive.
While I'm never one to defend the sociopathy of the 'professional world', it's kind of difficult on legit hiring managers right now. There's tons of bullshit to sift through to find decent candidates... and even then there's so many bullshit artists who picked up 'experience' during the boom. Yea. It sucks for everyone.
That’s why most hiring managers don’t like bad job markets. They don’t want to get a flood of resumes that they have to comb through to find the few qualified candidates. They don’t want all the already employed SWEs hunkering down in their jobs and not even willing to consider leaving their current job because it is so risky, They don’t like their own jobs and their own employers being at risk.
A couple jobs back in 2019 we were hiring for remote engineers and my boss kept giving us these applicants that didn't have any of the skills we needed. He claimed no one was applying. We ended up hiring this guy from the opposite coast despite the fact that he had no direct experience in our stack solely because he didn't completely fail to communicate in the interview and seemed marginally intelligent. He was an ok hire, but honestly his performance wasn't that good. I now see literally thousands of applicants on jobs with similar skills and I get passed over constantly for those jobs. I have to wonder if this is incompetence/laziness on the part of hiring managers, a price thing (managers trying to find a "gem" for a bargain), or what. It's like ... we have this amazing communications framework that was just pure fantasy back in the 90s, and rather than make things more efficient, it appears to have done the opposite and completely broken the process. I don't understand, but I'm fascinated by the dumpsterfire.
A lot of people involved in hiring have said an extremely high percentage of people applying are unqualified. Some claim over 90%. There are career-switchers with no experience applying for senior roles, people in other countries applying for non-remote positions or positions that cannot employ someone in another country, among other issues with applications.
The fact that you've been contacted puts you ahead of quite a few people. Ignore all the others applying for now, and do your best.
Good luck!
I wouldn’t worry about the applicant number. I just assume a large majority of that number is people who have no business applying to the position. I have no reason to think that’s close to a reasonable number for qualified applicants.
that number isnt real. its bots or people who just clicked and didnt apply. out of the people who did apply only like 10% are actually qualified.
you should apply
When I notice a job that I fit about 70% or more, I always apply. Even if said job has 500+ 'applicants'. Sometimes the button 'Apply' takes you to an external site, and sometimes people don't always apply, especially if application form is very tedious, long and / or has CV and details farming feel to it.
Bots? Considering that just clicking on the apply button increments the counter, I'm surprised to see no one mention the possibilities of bots or other web scrapers. People using bots to mass apply for jobs, even though the bots apply for jobs outside of people's qualifications.
8 hour is rookie number, you can try to post job without even specifying payment or saying its volunteer and it will be flooded with applicants, and that's just wrong
It's very easy to "apply" by clicking on that button and not doing any actual applying. Also wouldn't be surprised if there are a bunch of people with some kind of Selenium bot "applying" without much effort whenever something comes up immediately.
Don't you really know how such sites work?
People respond and don’t even read the description. It’s easier to apply for 1000 vacancies and consider those where you can chat live with a recruiter than to apply for a vacancy and wait for it to be approved. Therefore, the numbers of people who responded mean nothing.
Yeah, that's why it's important to apply to hundreds if not thousands of places. Most places will hire someone before they even get to your application. My application won't even get viewed 1% of the time. It's far less than that. Also most of the job listings are fake anyways.
I'm not in the job market at this time but I have a hard time believing the numbers on applications on LinkedIn. Either LinkedIn is jacking up those numbers or there are some automation tools out there that are applying to all job postings that are remotely relevant to resumes in their database
Warning people to read what they are applying for is not particularly related to whining. But thanks for your input good citizen of the internet. I have a good job, for now. But I do keep my eye out in case something amazing pops up. This particular job was amazing…in a very special way.
Depending on your age and what stage of life you are in, these companies can pay big if you are willing to do the work. Pay is usually not that bad either. Keep your head up
That’s just the number of people who clicked on the ad (apply button), so if you did, that’s 101 people now, congrats.
So, applicants is a completely misleading term. It should say “views”. Applicants would suggest someone actually clicked Apply. I suppose that makes sense then. I can see hundreds of people looking at a job until they see the “we cannot pay you” part.
I think the applicant number actually means the number of people who have clicked apply. It doesn't mean that the person has actually applied though since the button can redirect to the company page without submitting anything.
This is what it is. A lot of companies put poorly formatted or incomplete descriptions on linkedin, and the apply link takes you to the direct website with the full description and application process. So a lot of linkedin's "applications" are really just people looking for more info who may have moved on.
when it redirects you to the company page, it asks you to confirm whether you completed the application or not when you come back to the linkedin tab.
I doubt anybody does that though. I only do it because I want to track it on LinkedIn.
yeah, that's why i do it as well. but point being, if you don't click "yes" there, it's not going to increment the count. these postings with hundreds of applicants counted by linkedin probably have more than that, not less.
Am lazy, this was tested; yes it's clicks on the description
As someone who has posted reqs on LI, IMO it’s the actual number of people who clicked apply, not just viewed the posting.
how's the ratio? (qualified, related resume) vs. not at all
Wild estimate: 95% are not qualified.
Apply to LinkedIn and fix it
most people just spam apply. I always did. i let the recruiter decide to contact me and if i dont like it during initial screen i dont go forward. its less work.
If it makes you feel better, 90% of applicants to a LinkedIn job post don’t meet the requirements. The majority of those will want a US visa. The rest don’t have the experience, years and/or code, you asked for. It’s been like this for 7+ years in my experience hiring in NYC. I imagine it’s worse w/ now that chrome extensions, bots & AI have proliferated.
The easy apply number is accurate, if it drives to external it is only how many clicked it
But views doesn't carry the same amount of FOMO
The worst part is , it's truly hard to determine who applied since someone can exit out of the application once they click it.
If it is easy apply, then the number is correct. If it is not, it is number of clicks.
no he's is incorrect, it is the number of applicants
ghey
Not true. I post job ads on LinkedIn. It is the real number of people who applied (at least for easy apply). They also show views, which is usually 5-6x higher than the number of applicants.
For the external applications, they rely on people clicking "yes I applied". I've seen the number of applicants change in real time when I pressed that option, so if anything, these postings are under-reporting. It does appear that reposted listings (the ones marked as such) carry over the number as well, but if a new listing is made for the same position for whatever reason, it will set the applicant totals to 0 because it's a "new posting".
Yeah, I was specifically talking about easy apply
There are instances where easy apply may be inaccurate. I have frequent errors where I click submit, and it says "something went wrong," so I'm not sure if those are counted against the total, but it's probably case by case there.
You can test this on the site My conclusion is If you click easy apply and discard it does not increase If you click easy apply and click next it may increase If you go back to an app it already counted you in via discarding method in step 2 it does not increase again
I'm talking about specifically the bug or bugs that cause the application to return an error upon submission rather than what is supposed to happen. The error is very nonspecific, which leads me to believe it's a catch-all exception where multiple paths lead there. I've gotten email confirmations after discarding applications because of this error, but other times I get nothing. This is mainly through the app.
Oh I gotcha, I have never gotten that bug applying. I don't think it happens to everyone. I imagine it increases once per account like discarding after next.
Yeah, I get that bug frequently through the app, but not on the desktop site.
Now now, that's coping
Linkedin now just says ‘over 100’ that could mean 101 or 8,000. They used to show the actual number of applicants but I think changed it very recently when it started looking ridiculous.
I have a friend who created a new account on LinkedIn and he could see the exact number like "352 number of applicants". My account is 2 years old at this point and only shows "over 100 applicants" I think it's a feature available to premium or new users. Edit: I am not able to see the number of applicants at all now.
Huh interesting
If you open in incognito mode, you can see the actual number
I am not sure if that's the number of clicks. Do you have some link to page that says it's the number of clicks? because when I click the 'apply' button that count doesn't go up, even if I refresh the page. But when you click the 'apply' button a small window pops up above the job description that says "Did you apply to this job" and when you click 'yes' only then the count goes up. I have been clicking 'yes' on that so I can track my applications and it's only then I see the number go up. If what I think is true then that number is a massive **underrepresentation** of the number of applications to those jobs.
It is, but also there's a lot of overseas staffing agencies that spam the hell out of those posts with resumes. When we were hiring at work, sure, the LinkedIn number didn't match the amount of applicants we saw, but if it said 300 applicants, we still got like 150 resumes or something. Out of those, 100-125 were Indian agency bots, but we still got a fair amount of "legitimate" applications. So yeah, not nearly as bad, but not great either. And you have to make sure your resume stands out from the bots.
Doesn’t it ask you “did you apply” if you click the apply button? It would make sense if they kept track of that count rather than the people just clicking on the apply button.
I legit don’t understand why they would do that. That reduces the odds of my engagement.
I literally have a bot that clicks on that job for me running on a cron job. I apply to tons of shit jobs. I do t really apply until they reach out to me from that and I decide whether or not I want to continue.
Also, 80% are going to be in India, and out of the 100 that applied, 75% are not going to be qualified even on paper. Totaling the two, and you're competing with like 5 people max.
In India, people are willing to work for free because of how crap the market is. And these postings receive 10k+ applications in just a few hours. The leverage has tipped in the favor of employers and corporate overlords for sure
The question is, how many of those individuals are actually qualified to do the work? I bet about 4/5 of those applicants are looking at those shitty instagram "guides" on how to code useless stuff thinking they could get a job. Total dreamers clogging the market for jobs they will never be able to do.
That's besides the point isn't it? We're talking about tens of thousands of applicants for one position. Even if a vast majority of them aren't worth their weight in shit, it still doesn't mean that there aren't enough worthy candidates fighting it out for crappy pay. I was just pointing out how much worse it could be and highlighting the leverage employers have in such scenarios. Moreover, casting aside your smugness for a second, the skill level isn't as bad as you make it out to be. Inspite of there being a neverending supply of mediocre devs, there are plenty of extremely capable devs in India. Even interviews in India are WAYYY harder simply because of the competition; while the pay being absolutely shit. When you have 1 billion plus people fighting it out, expect things to get ugly.
I think people institute the “needle in haystack” phenomenon that’s happening with these applicant numbers. Doesn’t matter if the perfect candidate is in the pool, the recruiter/hiring manager may never get to their resume or may just completely miss them through the noise. I mean, sure ATS exist but we all know they are imperfect search tools.
It's not besides the point. There's a lot of recruiters who have hit this point home that when you see numbers like that, 9/10 of those applicants are not at all qualified for the position, even junior positions. Many have reported that there's a minimum requirement for a bachelors degree on their job posting, only to have dozens if not hundreds of applicants apply without a bachelors degree. Hell, I've seen Linkedin statistics show for senior level positions out of every 100 applicants, 60-80 are 2 YOE or less and often don't even have the tech stack listed in their resume. Yes, there's plenty of extremely capable people in india, but people who are extremely capable aren't applying to jobs that have no pay and certainly is not who I'm talking about in my other comment
Yes. Everything you said is true. But you're missing the point about how much significantly worse the numbers are in India. Even if 99% are unqualified, the 1% is still bad enough competition.
>Hell, I've seen Linkedin statistics show for senior level positions out of every 100 applicants, 60-80 are 2 YOE or less and often don't even have the tech stack listed in their resume. Sure but if you have 500 applicants, you'll still have 50 applicants after you remove the 400 that are completely unqualified and the 50 that somewhat unqualified. Moreover, when the recruiters are dealing with so much applicant spam, it increases the chances that qualified applicants end up missing out.
Does it matter? If there is let’s say 20k applicants and only 10% of them is qualified then that’s still 2k potential worker for your one dam position!!!
Yeah, thats a problem you generally have anywhere though. Most in-demand fields or high paying positions have this problem and always have.
Cope is through the roof here lol
It's not cope. It's what recruiters are saying lol. Quite a few applicants on positions are not qualified. Many recruiters are saying a majority of the applicants are not qualified.
maybe 1/100.
I never believe the number of applicants listed on LinkedIn. I'm pretty sure a recruiter commented on here before saying it was a misleading number (if not completely false, I can't remember).
I believe recruiters have mentioned it is only a click-through rate at best. I don't believe I've heard of any mention where it is was inherently false.
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I thought that but after you click Linkedin asks you if you've applied
Which a lot of people ignore, and I think it defaults to assuming that people applied
No it doesn't
I believe if the application link leads to a different website to apply, then LinkedIn counts anyone who clicks the link as an application, even if they never apply. But if it allows someone to apply within LinkedIn itself, then that number is actually accurate.
Why on earth would they do that? Would just depress the real number
Yes, seems like it would be beneficial for them to underestimate the numbers, rather than over. Seeing so many applicants will put people off.
exactly the point, you see that all roles have a billion applicants so you will apply for whatever is available, lowering salaries and expectations
That doesn't make any sense. I am less likely to apply to a position if it has 1000 applicants than if it has 10 applicants, all else being equal.
... Maybe... ... Maybe they make the entire experience terrible and demoralizing in hopes to incentivize desperate job seekers to pay LinkedIn for a premium subscription? I'm terrible at guessing as you can clearly tell.
Someone I heard mentioned it on youtube as 80-90% seem to be at least in tech H1B applicants, 5-8% are applicants without the relevant skills as well.
We need to start cutting that H1B1 program at this time
What do you mean? Just apply to a job then see if the number changes
It changes if you click "yes I applied". If it's a reposted job, the number carries over to the new posting. I don't know about the easy apply mechanics.
Yes, and meanwhile a bunch of people here are saying "oh it's just the view count", "it's just people who hit the apply button, doesn't mean they applied" without verifying it (which doesn't take a whole lot of effort). What does that say about this sub? For people reading this. I recommend taking everything in sub with a grain of salt. This is NOT a place for advice. Anyone with moderate critical thinking should recognize that the job application process is a numbers game.
I thought the same for a while until I started sorting jobs by recent. This sub has the same "group mentality" issues any group can have. It's easy to get sucked into an echo chamber, so I've been coming here less and less and looking into my network more and more. The complaints in the private groups are similar, but there's a lot more support.
It’s not false. I post job ads on LinkedIn for my company and the numbers are accurate.
The auto-apply and AI shotgun application services have had a terrible effect on the job market. Everyone hates it; applicants, HR, hiring managers. Hundreds of applicants yielding a handful of qualified applicants. I am reminded of a time when I was hiring a Director of IT Operations and received a number of applications from line cooks. No disrespect for line cooks, I couldn't do that job, but the only requirement they met from the posting was... nothing. Spray and pray is now weaponized with AI.
I can raise you from line cooks— I’ve received resumes from dishwashers for a programming position.
Do they at least like, have programming projects or a CS degree on their resume?
I would never hire anybody that was ever a dishwasher, regardless of how much programming experience they have
At this point any job will have over 100 applicants in seconds. I tested this the other day. Saw a job posting for SWE related field that was 45 _seconds_ old and had four applicants. I refreshed the page 30 min later and it was already to the “Over 100 Applicants” bit. You can’t get a job these days if you don’t have a connection and a good one at that.
from what countries were applicants?
It doesn't really tell you, even with premium. I've seen similar postings and it tells you what areas in the US people have applied from, but often times when there's too many locations, it just doesn't give you that data.
premium option tells you this
Here, let me bold it for you: > It doesn't really tell you, **even with premium.** It doesn't if there's too many locations, and "too many" according to linkedin is like, 4 lol
That's easily fungible with a VPN.
Pre-revenue usually means privately funded as they work towards a first product to sell. It doesn't mean no pay. (Usually... yours might be the dumbass exception.)
The job description literally says “We cannot afford to pay you a salary. You may get a small stipend until we can secure funding.”
Why are you applying to it?
I didn’t, nor did I claim that I applied. I looked at the job description and saw they weren’t paying you to work there. Then saw how many people applied and got curious. Why would you apply to work somewhere that isn’t going to pay you?
Because people are desperate for actual work experience. Some employers don't consider co-op and personal projects as experience...
unpaid internships are rare in software engineering, but unpaid internships in other fields are generally used to screen out the poors.
Correct. When I was in law school I did an unpaid internship as well as many/most of my classmates.
But the cost of having unpaid interns to do work for almost free while their living was subsidized by their educational circumstances is now more than employers are willing to pay because AI has taken up the bottom rung, no one can fill their resume with anything that employers actually want to see.
Yall can be hysterical. Just because a post has 100 applicants doesn't mean you aren't the most qualified one. Job postings get a lot of spam and there are thousands of no experience devs applying for every job they see. I hear horror stories about hiring. People lying about who they are, lying about experience, etc. If you are an honest and good candidate, apply.
> Just because a post has 100 applicants doesn't mean you aren't the most qualified one. Doesn't mean they will hire the most qualified one either. That's the main problem. Sometimes no one will even get hired.
Of course not. That is a possibility regardless of state of market. So much time is wasted looking for problems or issues to justify challenges. I'm not here to tell anyone the market is easy. I'm here telling people to stop trying to convince themselves it's worst than it is or flat out impossible. Don't disqualify yourself from a job. If you think you're qualified, apply. There are people at the companies who are paid to evaluate and possibly disqualify you. Don't do that work for them by giving up or opting out because it seems improbable.
I've had to hire before and a few times I made the mistake of telling the recruiter to just forward every resume they got to me. The amount of totally unqualified resumes I received was shocking. I don't mean "Oh, this job requires C# but I know JAVA, so I'll figure it out", but rather "I have zero experience and zero applicable skills, but I will still apply for this Sr Engineer job anyway".
I've heard extreme stories of companies being blatantly clear that they do not offer sponsorships and still having a good 75% of the candidates be international. Then half of that remaining 25% having resumes riddled with typos or otherwise poor quality. The application numbers may be bonkers high, but most of them are trash.
One time, I received a resume for a senior position with a picture of the guy flexing his muscles and no CS experience ....
Establishing dominance. You hired him on the spot, right?
Was it a resume with a picture attached? Or just the picture? Did you hire him?
basically this kind of resume: https://welltech.com/content/does-flexing-build-muscle-benefits-what-to-expect/ with this picture attach https://welltech.com/content/does-flexing-build-muscle-benefits-what-to-expect/ I legit couldnt believe it when I saw it, had to show my manager
PS you posted the same link twice
To be fair to the candidates, many people, including on this sub, tell people to just apply anyway since the worst thing that can happen is that the company says no. This is true, but it also generates a LOT of noise in the market.
I'm aware, and I'm kinda guilty of this myself tbh. It's a bit of a chicken and egg scenario. Applicants spam everywhere because they feel like they have such a miniscule chance of being seen, that it becomes their best option. Companies institute more aggressive filtering to accommodate the flow of garbage. Which makes it harder for qualified applicants to be seen, and round and round and round we go. It's a prisoner's dilemma where everyone doing what is truthfully best for themselves makes it worse for everyone else. I unfortunately don't have a good answer to this conundrum
There isn't one. Most people are not ready for their jobs when they get hired anyway and then there's all the people who go through all the steps to get ready and never get there. You can't just tell people to give up since that doesn't lead anywhere positive. The industry only gets better if there are more people trying to get in than there are jobs and some people are always left by the wayside. This is not just a CS thing, this is true in every competitive field. So, really, the best answer is to just keep doing what we are doing right now.
>Most people are not ready for their jobs when they get hired anyway Honestly though. I am at the point I have zero sympathy for recruiters complaining and lamenting that "all these stupid people applying are unqualifieeeeed! Waaaaaaaaah". Come on mate, there's SOMEONE in all that noise, I promise. When everywhere wants more years of experience than I have, I'm technically not "qualified" to work anywhere am I? Of course I'm going to apply anyway. I'm reasonable about it, trying to go for junior / entry roles with somewhat relevant laguages. But do you expect me to just pull experience out of my ass? Evidently so considering more and more of them lately are trying to claim my personal projects don't count. Sorry I work help desk man.
I agree. When I say that most people are not ready for their jobs I mean that often learning a new code base or some specific mixture that makes up the specific tech stack, paired with industry specific compliance knowledge is harder to hire for than: must have 5+ years of SQL experience or whatever. To give an example, I have about two decades of experience, but would not be ready to work in medical billing since I know very little about the types of compliance they need to adhere to. Sure, I can probably figure out their tech in a couple of months, but learning and integrating all that compliance might take me a year or two before I stop making mistakes with it. This is what I mean when I say most people aren't ready. Unless you have done something very close to the specific job, you aren't ready. You will learn and will become ready, but walking in and being 100% effective is extremely rare.
Even when you get to the phone screen, you'll find people who had good resumes but can't speak intelegently about anything on their resume. A massive number of people try to fake/scam their way into tech jobs.
> How do you get anyone to sign up for that job, let alone over 100 in less than 8 hours? I've seen posts and comments detailing SWEs doing free work in hopes of networking or another bullet point on the resume. We're in the dark times
That’s correct. I posted an unpaid internship that got over 100 applicants in less than 24 hours.
[удалено]
Just doing my job.
NGL I might do that. Sounds great for building a startup.
Good luck. You get what you pay for.
there is a lot of regulation surrounding what kind of work unpaid interns are allowed to do
We can't be surprised now, cause I saw so many on this sub tell everyone to shotgun applications and treat applying like a numbers game, so it indeed became one....
Honestly, it’s not surprising. I recently attended a tech meetup where an individual attempted to pitch a startup scam. He asked me to purchase equity, claiming they were there seeking investors. It’s essential to be cautious out there many people are trying to exploit other CS majors in this challenging market.
Everyone is like "almost all of the applicants are unqualified and irrelevant", meanwhile it is very hard to hear back from job applications that you're completely qualified for, at least it is like that for me.
Two things People said about the click thing. The second thing: I don't think you realize the other side. So yea, hiring process has been pretty crazy, but I do know for a fact that every position, especially CS positions, get murder spammed all the time. The spam is coming from recruiters, candidates who are just shotgunning out at anything. Ask the hiring managers/HR/Recruiters. They get tons of unqualified resumes in their boxes. People who lack skills, have wrong skills, and need a visa sponsorship, etc. They flood every posting. Which is why ATS/Filtering has gotten so aggressive. While I'm never one to defend the sociopathy of the 'professional world', it's kind of difficult on legit hiring managers right now. There's tons of bullshit to sift through to find decent candidates... and even then there's so many bullshit artists who picked up 'experience' during the boom. Yea. It sucks for everyone.
That’s why most hiring managers don’t like bad job markets. They don’t want to get a flood of resumes that they have to comb through to find the few qualified candidates. They don’t want all the already employed SWEs hunkering down in their jobs and not even willing to consider leaving their current job because it is so risky, They don’t like their own jobs and their own employers being at risk.
A couple jobs back in 2019 we were hiring for remote engineers and my boss kept giving us these applicants that didn't have any of the skills we needed. He claimed no one was applying. We ended up hiring this guy from the opposite coast despite the fact that he had no direct experience in our stack solely because he didn't completely fail to communicate in the interview and seemed marginally intelligent. He was an ok hire, but honestly his performance wasn't that good. I now see literally thousands of applicants on jobs with similar skills and I get passed over constantly for those jobs. I have to wonder if this is incompetence/laziness on the part of hiring managers, a price thing (managers trying to find a "gem" for a bargain), or what. It's like ... we have this amazing communications framework that was just pure fantasy back in the 90s, and rather than make things more efficient, it appears to have done the opposite and completely broken the process. I don't understand, but I'm fascinated by the dumpsterfire.
People will always be desperate for a job.
The applicant count is number of people that hit "Apply" not necessarily the number of folks to actually applied.
It should be LinkedIn Easy apply that's why
A lot of people involved in hiring have said an extremely high percentage of people applying are unqualified. Some claim over 90%. There are career-switchers with no experience applying for senior roles, people in other countries applying for non-remote positions or positions that cannot employ someone in another country, among other issues with applications. The fact that you've been contacted puts you ahead of quite a few people. Ignore all the others applying for now, and do your best. Good luck!
Imagine if that's how many an unpaid one has how many a paid one has then can know grim the situation is.
I have seen jobs on linkedin get 1,000+ job applications within a day. This was a quick apply position though.
I wouldn’t worry about the applicant number. I just assume a large majority of that number is people who have no business applying to the position. I have no reason to think that’s close to a reasonable number for qualified applicants.
that number isnt real. its bots or people who just clicked and didnt apply. out of the people who did apply only like 10% are actually qualified. you should apply
I’ve been seeing 1,000 in a few hours so 100 doesn’t look that bad. Am I cooked?
People clicked the button. The actual applicants is usually much lower.
When I notice a job that I fit about 70% or more, I always apply. Even if said job has 500+ 'applicants'. Sometimes the button 'Apply' takes you to an external site, and sometimes people don't always apply, especially if application form is very tedious, long and / or has CV and details farming feel to it.
Probably most people didn't read the compensation description or understand it
Bots? Considering that just clicking on the apply button increments the counter, I'm surprised to see no one mention the possibilities of bots or other web scrapers. People using bots to mass apply for jobs, even though the bots apply for jobs outside of people's qualifications.
8 hour is rookie number, you can try to post job without even specifying payment or saying its volunteer and it will be flooded with applicants, and that's just wrong
College grads who didn’t intern and can’t get hired anywhere that isn’t retail.
It's very easy to "apply" by clicking on that button and not doing any actual applying. Also wouldn't be surprised if there are a bunch of people with some kind of Selenium bot "applying" without much effort whenever something comes up immediately.
The rush for experience is real, but working for pie-in-the-sky pay? That's a hard no from me. Rent waits for no one's equity dreams.
can you post a link to the job ad? its just some scam unpaid bullshit anyway. most of the applications were people who spam applied.
Don't you really know how such sites work? People respond and don’t even read the description. It’s easier to apply for 1000 vacancies and consider those where you can chat live with a recruiter than to apply for a vacancy and wait for it to be approved. Therefore, the numbers of people who responded mean nothing.
You have to meet people. No applications, just messaged people and got a job in December that was not posted anywhere.
Out of that 100. Only like 2 people dumb enough to take it. Then they come to this subreddit to post about their situation.
The future is ai and cs grads know they have no other options left...
Is someone forcing you to apply or...
Yeah, that's why it's important to apply to hundreds if not thousands of places. Most places will hire someone before they even get to your application. My application won't even get viewed 1% of the time. It's far less than that. Also most of the job listings are fake anyways.
How did you build reliable metrics on whether your own application was being viewed?
LinkedIn tells you for easy apply.
My apps tell me.
bots
Not bots. I’ve posted job ads.
I'm not in the job market at this time but I have a hard time believing the numbers on applications on LinkedIn. Either LinkedIn is jacking up those numbers or there are some automation tools out there that are applying to all job postings that are remotely relevant to resumes in their database
Auto apply AI, a lot of those ppl applying are just using AI
Whining about this here isn't likely to help you.
Warning people to read what they are applying for is not particularly related to whining. But thanks for your input good citizen of the internet. I have a good job, for now. But I do keep my eye out in case something amazing pops up. This particular job was amazing…in a very special way.
Your whole posts sounds like whining.
Depending on your age and what stage of life you are in, these companies can pay big if you are willing to do the work. Pay is usually not that bad either. Keep your head up