Member-only story
Why applying to 100+ jobs doesn’t work
How I got a job at Figma by picking a few opportunities and going all in
19th century via The Met
When I was entering the job market in early 2023, I caught up with my friend Fadeke. She had just started a really good job at DigitalOcean. She shared her process with me, and let me know that she did fewer than 20 job applications.
This quantity was a really helpful anchor for when I start applying to jobs. Fadeke had started up a spreadsheet to help her keep track of her progress, so I did that too with Airtable.
I looked for jobs pretty much full-time. In 2 months, I applied to 18 jobs. I did four first round interviews. Two of these opportunities became more serious prospects. One of the companies couldn’t hire me as soon as they had thought, and so I ended up doing a contract with them so I could just start working with the team.
I went through six rounds of interviews with the other opportunity, and I got an offer to join. That was Figma.
So my approach turned out to be, pick a few opportunities, and go all-in. In hindsight, I think this worked because I didn’t apply to that many jobs-not in spite of it. Because I applied to relatively few jobs, I prioritized very carefully and intentionally. Every couple of days, I looked for new opportunities and…
