Danny Thompson, technical director for This Dot Labs and a respected tech career pundit has unwittingly admitted that 99% of job applicants have no chance of a job, an interview, or even a conversation. Let me explain...

Modern Web is one of many podcasts I listen to faithfully.

I'm going to paraphrase, but you should listen to the full episode here:

• April 17th 2025 : What Makes TanStack Form Different from Other Form State Managers?

... In fact, you should listen to the show regularly. It's a pretty good podcast.

They started talking about the current state of the job market and suggested that, even though the job market is tough right now, it's going to get better. They might have made a convincing argument, but then Danny started talking about jobs with an overwhelming number of applicants...

You will always be competing for roles... There's a competition. Especially now more than ever of people fighting for roles. You apply for a role and you see now there's 1000 applicants... You know how many times at ThisDot we've put up a job post and we get like 900 applicantion and maybe 10 of them were worth having a conversation with? And I think I'm very generous.

I cut that down a bit so that I could get to the point, but I didn't misrepresent what he said. Those are his words and he's absolutely right! It's pretty bleak, though... Being generous, maybe 10 out of 900 applicants for a given role are "worth having a conversation with". That's 1.1%. The rest don't even get a conversation, much less an interview.

I'd wager that most hiring managers aren't so generous. In fact, I don't think hiring managers are even involved in the process. There's strong evidence that most opportunities are handled by recruiters who use Applicant Tracking Systems software to ensure that hiring managers only see the top 1% of applicants.

I don't have a dog in this fight. My career's bright future is far in the past and, unlike most tech pundits, I haven't found a way to monetize toxic career optimism. Is there a tech job in your future?