Ask HN: Recruiters, how many hours after a job posting is too late to apply?

Tech recruiter, I've got a question for ya:

I'll see a job posting I'm interested in on LinkedIn and will go about my day for a few hours, only to find after I've returned that over 100 people have applied.

I'm assuming at a certain point, it becomes a pain to go through 100s to 1000s of resumes, so you pick a cut off point.

What is the cut off point?

Is it really required to jump on the role the minute its posted?

What can we do to help optimize our job applications to at least get eyes on it?

I am not a recruiter. But my experience, backed up by _plenty_ of anecdata here and on Reddit, is that applying for jobs on LinkedIn and other job listing sites is GIGANTIC waste of time unless you already have a connection in the company you are applying for.

I myself spent the better part of my free time in 2023 scouring LinkedIn for potential jobs. I was careful not to overreach, I only applied to jobs where I was sure I had the skills they were looking for. The whole year, I got ZERO responses. Until I noticed that one of the companies I was applying for looked familiar. A few minutes of digging revealed that an old co-worker of mine had moved to that company a few months prior. I called him up, we chatted about the company, he agreed to refer me. Long story short, I got the job.

If you are serious about finding a job, you HAVE to rely on your network. It's how I have landed 100% of my civilian jobs over the past 20-something years. If you don't have a network, the second best time to plant a tree is now.

(I suppose you could also work with an independent recruiter, but a lot of companies won't work with them because they charge the hiring company a fee. I don't have any experience with recruiters.)

> that applying for jobs on LinkedIn and other job listing sites is GIGANTIC waste of time unless you already have a connection in the company you are applying for.

In my experience, that's not my case. I found my last 2 jobs by applying to a post in linkedin... but I also contacted the recruiter that posted the job ad via DM. In my whole career (+10 years) I've never relied on my "network" to get a job (mainly because I don't have one).

> rely on your network

This has been conventional wisdom for my entire (half century now) life, but every job I've been referred into has ended up being a nightmare. The best jobs I've ever gotten were the "cold approach" ones... hopefully those aren't going away forever.

I (also half a century life now) have always relied on my network for work, mainly because almost no interview time wasting (interviews are short and 'with the boss', no homework or other nonsense), higher wages and work from home. My first network were my classmates; some fathers worked in positions that were able to get me in; grew from there.

It would make sense because theyre hiring based on networking being a higher priority than qualifications.

Most jobs I've had, I got by cold applying to a website. In a few cases recruiters reached out to me by email/LinkedIn (this is also fairly unreliable). The approach you're describing is definitely higher yield and you absolutely should cultivate and use a network, but all is not lost without a referral.

In answer to the overall question, I think most places leave a job posting up for a few days/week at least just as standard practice. Within that window I don't think it matters.

I’ve worked in recruiting and with countless career coaches.

This is the best advice for anyone looking for a job. Thanks for sharing.

My friend Sarah’s company has some free resources that can help you get started if networking for a job feels uncomfortable: https://www.briefcasecoach.com/

One thing I found interesting is people saying DM me for a req on Blind. Might be a side door around the network barrier to entry.

A better approach is probably to figure out what recruiter the company is using and contact them directly, indicating that you're looking for a job.

Even if they can't get you in there, they can link you up with other openings they have available.

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Keep in mind two things:

1. The number of applications reported by LinkedIn is often wrong. If the "apply" link goes to the company's own HR/application page, then every time that link is clicked, LinkedIn counts it as an application. The number LI reports can far exceed the number of actual applications.

2. Many applicants are often wholly unqualified. We're talking entry-level people applying for senior+ level positions or even people with zero tech skills/experience applying for tech jobs.

So if LI says 100 people have applied, likely your competition is closer to 10-20.

Ignore anybody who says the only way to get a job is through networking with people you already know. Only 1 of the 4 tech jobs I've had were via someone I knew, and even that 1 was an internal transfer inside the company.

And even my current job was gotten through LinkedIn's Easy Apply, so ignore anybody who says that's worthless.

LinkedIn counts of applicants aren’t real.

When you click “Apply” to see the job advert on the companies website and don’t actually apply, it still counts on LinkedIn. When I’ve done hiring in the past it’s said 100 applicants on my advert and then we’ve only had a few candidates.

With that said, Easy Apply jobs are pointless applying through. We got spammed so much we turned that off.

There is also under count, as people who apply outside of LinkedIn won't be counted.

I'd assume they've found showing a number improves a metric like sales of LinkedIn Premium.

Actual recruiter here with over a decade of experience hiring engineers at every level, internally as VP Talent and externally as an independent recruiter.

All the comments about the application numbers being inflated are correct. On top of that, the quality of applicants that come via LinkedIn (particularly for engineering roles) is consistently poor. If a job post says there's been 200 applicants, I'd be surprised if there were more than a couple of legit strong applications.

If you see a job you like on LinkedIn and have no way of having a direct conversation with someone that already works there, go to their own hosted careers page and apply there instead.

>What can we do to help optimize our job applications to at least get eyes on it?

Say the obvious thing out loud. What I mean is, if the job ad is titled "Senior Python Engineer" then your resume should say "Charlie B Writes - Senior Python Engineer" in a big old sans serif header. The first (current or most recent) job on your resume should also mirror this. If your actual job title is "software engineer" and you spend most of your time writing python, it is 100% acceptable and recommended for your resume to say "Python Engineer".

Ultimately the answer to your question is to make all the headlines of your resume as blatantly relevant to the job you're applying for as possible and make it as easy as possible for someone skimming your resume to assume you're a close match for what they need.

The cutoff point is not related to how many applicants there are. It's related to how qualified you are. I'm sorry there's no clear answer here. We've all just got to keep applying until we land that job.

Sounds like you might need to redo your resume. When i started emphasizing my cloud experience, it got me way more responses(from recruiters on linkedin)

Also word on the street is that a lot of recruiters are using LLMs to scan resumes. So including lots of key words in there, especially ones that show up in the actual job ad might be necessary to get beyond that filter

…Unless one of the recruiter’s prompts has something about keyword stuffing being a negative signal.

It's possible to talk yourself out of anything. Just be straightforward.

By now you should assume that they are collecting as much personal information as possible, so you will never get an honest answer to this