Who are you competing against when you apply for a new job in tech in the US?

How to win in a game where everything's made up and the points don't matter.

Any "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" fans? Drew Carey’s jokes about how nothing in the “gameshow” really mattered were always so funny to me.

He would start every show like "The show where everything is made up and the points don't matter! That's right, the points are just like...

...the talent portion of a beauty contest."

...vows at a celebrity wedding."

...a suggestion box at Tienanmen Square."

And if those offend you, DM Drew Carey, not me.

Carly, why are we talking about your boomer gameshow?

I reflect on this because it is very reminiscent of the job market (see, I told you we’d find the point eventually).

When I look at the number of people searching for a job and the sheer amount of tired advice being offered to them, I am reminded that the job market is literally just made up. The number of applications you send seemingly don’t matter.

But instead of being funny and irreverent, it’s legitimately depressing.

I feel like job seekers have been sold a lie based on outdated hiring practices and the hot job market of 2020. A lot of folks who started school back then are graduating now and looking around like “…I was told there would be cake.”

So who are you competing against nowadays for a job in tech?

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 All of the folks who were/are being laid off.

According to the latest data from TrueUp's Layoffs Tracker, as of early 2025, approximately 355 people per day have been laid off in the tech industry, based on 11,705 people impacted across 72 tech company layoffs. In 2024, there were 1,115 layoffs at tech companies w/ 238,461 people impacted (653 people per day).

🧑‍🎓 New grads

The number of students in the U.S. majoring in computer and information science jumped 40% in five years, to more than 600,000 as of 2023, with over 100,000 graduating successfully in 2021, according to the Department of Education. This is a 129% rise from 10 years earlier.

And while the US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a 25% increase in software developers over the next decade, that is clearly not enough to keep up with the huge number of graduates.

Why? Because big tech just isn’t hiring junior candidates. And AI is adding increased uncertainty for entry-level candidates as well.

💸 People who don’t want to return to office (RTO)

I’ve written before about “quiet firing” which is an alarming trend of companies making work more and more challenging and eliminating things, like remote work, that increase employee happiness.

It’s clear they want people to quit, but they don’t want the PR nightmare of yet another round of layoffs. But sadly the only folks who are able to make a quick move in a market like this are the extremely hireable ones.

💼 And a bunch of other people

Career transitioners, H1B visa holders, AI… the list goes on and on.

And when you think about it this way, it makes sense why we’re seeing 100+ applicants within a day of a job being posted.

At this point, getting a new job is purely a numbers game.

So, how do I get a job?

Well, I can tell you that by the time you apply for a job on LinkedIn, it’s too late. And I say this with full transparency that every job on my resume was found through LinkedIn.

7 years ago everyone was sleeping on how awesome LinkedIn was for finding jobs. My hit rate was so high I refused to even waste time on ridiculous platforms like Indeed and Ziprecruiter. Applying through LinkedIn as a premium user was almost a guarantee your resume would be seen.

It was awesome and totally unscaleable.

Nowadays everyone is throwing resumes at every single posting they can find on LinkedIn. New grads are applying to director-level roles, while your friends aunt who still uses SAS is throwing her hat in the ring for that machine learning engineer role.

And why wouldn’t they?

Any one individual *should* mass apply to roles regardless of their qualifications. There is no immediate downside to this behavior.

This is the tragedy of the commons.

Its popularity has become its downfall. “Easy Apply” might as well be rebranded as “Don’t Bother.” Applying on LinkedIn has become the equivalent of sitting in rush hour traffic to go somewhere popular, where the only thing that awaits you is trying to find parking amidst a bunch of oblivious mouth breathers.

So what’s the best way to find a job?

If I told you, we’d all ruin it again.

Carly, stop it and tell me.

Ok fine. But you’re not going to like it because it’s pretty tired advice.

I agree with Eric Walker-Rawson who says the best way to get a job is through networking. And he also jokingly reminds us that it’s “Pretty hard to ruin that because if you are annoying people won't help you 😄”

In short, keep your volume of applications high, keep your skills sharp, and keep expanding your network (see, I told you that you weren’t going to like it).