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All the best advice we could find on how to get a job | The 80,000 Hours career guide (2023 edition)
- Early career stages typically require 20 to 100 leads to secure employment, with 20 rejections being a standard occurrence and the average US unemployment spell lasting six months.
- Positions focused on critical problems are highly selective and may require expanding applications across different areas until reaching a threshold of at least 30 leads, as 10 leads for specific fields like pandemic prevention are often insufficient.
- Cold emailing yields approximately a 1 in 1,000 success rate, meaning 100 resumes are needed for a 10% chance of success, while responding to job boards offers a 1% success rate and primarily lists large company roles rather than the best positions.
- Roughly 50% of jobs are found through connections or remain unadvertised, so neglecting referrals misses significant opportunities, and leveraging a network of 200 connections with 200 non-overlapping contacts can reach at least 10,000 people.
- Submitting portfolio or pre-interview projects places applicants in the top 20%, and asking more questions during interactions is statistically associated with success.
- Effective communication relies on three key points, concrete stories, and prepared selling points to ensure memorability.
- If an applicant has 5-10 interviews without advancing or 20+ applications without interviews, a reassessment of fit or presentation strategy is necessary.
- The interview funnel typically narrows to three-to-ten finalists, requiring a minimum of five final-stage interviews to receive an offer.
- Employers frequently create roles for strong candidates, often promote internal staff over new applicants, and rarely retract offers due to polite negotiations, which are viable if they risk losing a candidate who cost them thousands in investment.
- Negotiation strategies should include salary, charity matching, flexible hours, remote work, or skill acquisition, with stronger leverage available when holding multiple offers or after demonstrating excellent work performance.
- Career capital accumulation makes subsequent job hunts easier, with word-of-mouth referrals being a primary driver for those performing well.
- Productivity can be increased by writing down task schedules, treating the search as a 9-to-5 job, and dedicating at least 5% of a 40-hour work week, with results improving as more time is invested.