You always want to be working with warm leads. I've only ever applied through the following:
- college OCR postings
- a recruiting firm run by people i personally know (specializing in smaller startups)
- companies that ex-co-workers work at
- FAANG recruiters that reached out via LinkedIn
- personalized emails from in-house recruiters or hiring managers
So, in all these cases, I'm already connected with someone who is incentivized to get me hired, and I start off with a recruiter screen or initial technical screen, depending on the company. And then from there, it's up to your own skills at interviewing (which are slightly correlated with your skills as an engineer).
If I was just randomly dropping resumes everywhere, no way I would ever even make it to that first screening call. You need to be paired with someone who's going to handhold your resume through the whole process until you are either hired or bomb your interview.
- college OCR postings
- a recruiting firm run by people i personally know (specializing in smaller startups)
- companies that ex-co-workers work at
- FAANG recruiters that reached out via LinkedIn
- personalized emails from in-house recruiters or hiring managers
So, in all these cases, I'm already connected with someone who is incentivized to get me hired, and I start off with a recruiter screen or initial technical screen, depending on the company. And then from there, it's up to your own skills at interviewing (which are slightly correlated with your skills as an engineer).
If I was just randomly dropping resumes everywhere, no way I would ever even make it to that first screening call. You need to be paired with someone who's going to handhold your resume through the whole process until you are either hired or bomb your interview.