Introduction
When people talk about job hunting, you'll often hear "just send out enough applications and something will stick."
But applying to everything at random and deliberately building up a healthy number of applications are two very different things.
In this article, I'll look at a job search as a problem of exploring the market, and explain why "don't get emotionally attached, just keep applying steadily" can actually help in some situations.
1. Applying Is Like Casting a Fishing Line
At the moment you apply, you know very little about the company.
So one approach is to work from this assumption:
- If it looks good, you keep going
- If it's not a fit, you drop it
and apply to several companies that meet your minimum requirements.
Think of it less as "betting your whole life on 15 companies" and more as "casting 15 fishing lines and seeing what bites."
2. Why Numbers Matter
Applying to more places or doing more job-search activity won't automatically land you a great job.
That said, a meta-analysis (a study that pools many studies) covering 165,933 people and 378 samples found that job search intensity was positively linked to the number of interviews (corrected correlation r=.23), the number of job offers (r=.14), and whether people ended up employed (r=.19). However, it wasn't linked to the quality of the job once people were hired. [1]
In other words, doing more gives you more chances to get interviews and offers you can compare. But quantity alone can't guarantee a good fit or good terms.
What matters isn't
applying to anything and everything
but
building a decent pool of applications among companies that meet your minimum requirements, then narrowing down as you see how they respond.
3. Keep Your Up-Front Investment Small
If you do heavy company research or get emotionally invested at the application stage, it's easy to fall into thoughts like:
- a sunk cost ("I've already spent so much on this")
- "I've researched this much, so I can't quit now"
- "This is the only company for me"
On the other hand, if you follow this order:
apply → see how they respond → evaluate once you have more information
it's easier to keep the cost of backing out low in the early stages.
That said, the documents you need and the depth of company research vary by type of job. This doesn't mean skipping even the basic check of whether the job fits you.
4. Why You're Less Likely to Burn Out
If you pin all your hopes on one company, every rejection can hurt a lot.
But if you treat things like this:
- an application is an inquiry to the market
- an interview is information gathering
- a job offer is something to compare against
it becomes easier to avoid depending on the result from any single company.
This doesn't mean having zero expectations. It means
shifting your expectations to a later stage, after the information has come in.
5. Update Your Assessment as Information Comes In
When you apply, you don't know much. So instead of putting high confidence in one company from the start, you update your view as the selection process gives you new information.
For example, each time you get things like:
- your résumé passes the first screening
- details about the work, learned in an interview
- an offer of terms and conditions
- conversations with interviewers or possible future teammates
you revise your sense of whether the company suits you.
This is close to Bayesian thinking, in the sense that you update your judgment each time you get new information while things are still uncertain. Here, "Bayesian" doesn't mean doing strict probability calculations.
With this order, you can later invest more time and emotion in the companies that turn out to look promising once you know more.
6. What "Spray and Pray" Really Means
This approach isn't about simply maximizing the number of applications.
Apply to a certain number of companies that meet your requirements, build up candidates you can compare and new information, and get more selective as you go
That's the search strategy.
In other words, it combines:
- spreading your options across several candidates
- keeping early costs low
- updating your view step by step
- staying alert to sunk costs
- spreading your mental energy wisely
Recent research on job seekers also finds that the number of applications and interview invitations are linked in stages, but results aren't the same for everyone, depending on how broadly people search and what strategy they use. [2]
Conclusion
In a job search, you don't need to be deeply attached to each company from the start.
An application is just the starting point, and both the company and the applicant are sizing each other up.
That's why an attitude of
"If it's good, I'll go. If it's not a fit, on to the next one."
is one useful way to set things up, as long as you hold to your minimum requirements and keep adding things to compare. After all, a job hunt tends to turn into a long haul.
Quantity alone can't create quality. Use quantity as a way to add more observation points, so you can compare and learn.
References (2)
- van Hooft EAJ, et al. Job Search and Employment Success: A Quantitative Review and Future Research Agenda. Journal of Applied Psychology. 2021. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32658493/
- Buchmann M, et al. Jobseekers' skills and job search behaviour. Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics. 2025. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12537773/
