'Ignore the naysayers': Reddit pushes back on job market defeatism

A post on Reddit’s r/jobs talked about the general defeatism applications are feeling while applying for a job, noting how a 1% chance because 99 other people applied is not the same as a 1% chance because one person is 99 times more qualified than you.

In the first scenario, everyone starts equal. In the second, moving on makes sense, but most large application pools are the first scenario, not the second.

They went further, and this is the part that hit differently given everything else we know about the current market. Most of the people applying to any given role are not actually qualified for it. The spray-and-pray, also sometimes called the shotgun approach, means the real competition in most application pools is probably three or four genuinely qualified candidates, not 500.

The 500 are just noise. You are competing against the signal.

What Reddit said

The thread drew a constructive set of responses for a job market discussion.

One commenter who has served on hiring committees offered a perspective from the other side that reinforced the original poster’s point: “Many folks won’t even look at an application packet that is missing components or is poorly put together. That alone can improve your chances by quite a bit.”

Another pushed back with a timing caveat worth taking seriously: “You’re grossly underestimating how many people are also a great match once you start getting into hundreds of applicants, especially in a bad economy. When you apply absolutely matters.”

One commenter offered tactical advice in the thread: tailor the resume to the three most important requirements in the posting, quantify one achievement that proves you meet them, put both in the top third of the resume and the first line of a cover note, and message a current employee or recruiter directly. The referral and the specificity are what separate a genuine application from an easy-apply submission.

Two success stories grounded the whole discussion in something concrete. One commenter landed their current job after 50 applications. Another talked their way into a dream role despite having none of the listed degrees or certifications.

What the post is really about

The job market is genuinely brutal right now. The volume of applications per role is genuinely staggering. None of that is in dispute.

The defeatism is what the original poster is pushing back against. The “odds are too low to bother” logic is also self-reinforcing. That is why they are saying that assuming the worst may be unproductive, and persistently applying, despite the odds, may end up favourable for jobseekers.

That does not make the job market easy, but it can make applying worthwhile.

Read also: ‘It’s not you, it’s the market’: Reddit rallies behind honours graduate struggling to find work