113. Mass Applying to CS Jobs Is Seriously A Horrible Idea. I’ll Explain Why

Real quick, we talked to 1,500 customer success professionals about why they're leaving their jobs and the results were surprising. Turns out the vast majority are leaving because they're unhappy. Not because of money, not because of layoffs, they're unhappy. So if you're a CS leader worried about keeping your top CSMs or if you're a CSM feeling stuck and wondering if it's just you, we just released a free report called why CSMs leave the growth crisis in customer success. Go to CarlyAgar.com/tallantreport to get your free copy right now. What if the only thing standing between you and your next big career milestone is just a strategy you haven't heard yet? I'm Carly Agar, customer success veteran award-winning career coach and you're go to for getting hired and promoted in customer success. Whether you're breaking into the field or ready to level up into leadership, this podcast is your shortcut to real career growth. Every episode is packed with practical takeaways, data-back strategies and zero fluff advice that actually works. So you can start making moves towards your goals immediately. If you're ready to take control of your career, well then you're in the right place. Welcome to the customer success career coach podcast. Okay, I need to talk about something that is genuinely pissing me off right now. Sorry for your listening to this and your kids are in the car. The keyword is not that bad. Okay, but the thing I want to talk about is there are tools out there and people in this space charging you to use these tools that will auto apply to hundreds of jobs on your behalf. And over the last couple of months, almost for the better part of a year, I have been doing my research. I have been talking to recruiters. I have been studying how all of these systems talk to each other. I've been really digging into what actually happens when someone uses one of these mass supply tools. And I need you to hear this clearly. If you take nothing else away from this episode, it is bad. Like actually bad for your career to use these tools. And if your job search feels like you're just screaming into a void, throwing your resumes into piles, not getting anywhere, applying, applying, hearing nothing back, using mass supply tools, could be the reason why. And if you're not already using them, it is certainly not the answer. So today we're going to get into all of it. I'm going to talk about what mass applying actually does for you and to you as a candidate. And I'm also going to talk about the long term consequences that most people would never even consider just from using a mass apply tool. And I'll also, of course, share what the data says about what's actually working much better. So let's just jump right in. Okay, I want to start with what is working on a positive note because I have all of this data. Our clients who apply to fewer better fit roles, they're targeting their applications at jobs they're actually excited about that to some level match their qualifications, not necessarily a hundred percent match, but make sense for where they've been in their career where they want to go. They land jobs in an average of 90 days. They're also seeing an average 18% OTE increase over what they were making before. And this is a new data point I've never shared before, but I now can share that 25% of our clients, these are all customers to set success job seekers of all levels. 25% of them get promoted within 15 months of landing that role. One in four promoted within 15 months. That is a it's crazy. B, this is not some like weird coincidence. That is what happens when someone is in the right role. And here's the other thing we see when a candidate shows real signal to a potential employer real signal meaning they send a personalized note. The employer can tell that this person applied because their background matches what this company does or what they're looking for. If anything about their application or outreach shows that they actually want this job at this company, they are two times more likely to book an interview than someone who just applies and just nothing. A, a mass applying or even just applying regularly and then doing nothing with that application or nothing after that application. Two times more likely to book an interview. So if you are currently applying to everything and hoping something sticks, I want you to sit with that for a second. Because yes, logically we think back to I don't know, I took statistics, I think in high school, I was not very good at it, to be honest. We think statistically speaking, okay, the more jobs I apply to you, the more likely I am to get an interview. It makes a lot of sense, logically, makes a ton of sense. But the data says the opposite. Fewer, better applications are producing dramatically better outcomes in terms of booking interviews and ending up in roles where you are happy and performing and getting promoted. Which like, I don't know about you, but I think a big part of job seeking is not just landing a job but landing a job where you are happy and making a lot of money and likely to perform well and get promoted and keep making more money and keep being happy. Right. It's not just about like get the job right now. And that brings me to the thing that has me extremely fired up right now. If you take, seriously, if you take nothing else from this episode, what I'm about to walk through is why this is not just a job search problem. Mass applying to roles is a career hindering problem. And I wouldn't expect anyone to understand this or realize it until right now because I don't think anyone has studied this like I have. So this is probably the first time you're ever even hearing about this. But even if it's new information, I need you to take it incredibly seriously like mass applying to jobs does not just negatively impact your job search. It negatively impacts your career. So let's talk about what mass applying tools. I'm talking about tools like simple apply ladders. There's a bunch of them. That auto blast your resume to hundreds of jobs. What they actually do to you. Problem number one, in a lot of cases. Coming through one of those tools filters you out before any human reads your resume. I talked to recruiters about this. I talked to hiring managers about this. This is not speculation. Mass apply tools have become a huge problem on the hiring side of table because what happens is they post a roll. And then they get hundreds and hundreds of shitty applications when I say shitty. I mean these people have not even a sliver of experience that is close to what the job description is looking for. Now there are some good applicants that come through mass apply tools. I'm not saying 100% of them are bad. But the vast majority of the applications that come through those mass apply channels are terrible. So what happens is because these tools have now been around for a little while is recruiters have gotten smarter. So now what they're well, what a lot of them are doing is saying when I go into my ETFs, I'm filtering by channel. If you came from a tool like simple apply, I'm automatically rejecting you because even if there's one in that bucket of 400 candidates, that's great. I'm not spending my time going through that. The odds are not in my favor to find a good candidate. So sorry to the rest of you, but you're all getting filtered out. The worst part of this is on the job seeker side, what just like makes me upset is you have no idea that that's happening. These tools do a really good job in some quote unquote coaches do a really good job of making you feel like the problem with your job search is that like you don't have time. And you don't have time to apply to all these jobs and the more jobs you apply to the more likely you are to get an interview and again that logically makes sense. So it's really easy to buy into it. But you don't understand what's happening on the back end is that's bucketing you in with all these crappy applications. And so recruiters aren't even looking at your stuff if you come through those channels. The second problem is even for those recruiters because not 100% of them are automatically filtering out these channels. But even for those that aren't automatically filtering you out, it still makes you look lazy. And I know that sounds harsh, but here's the thing I need you to understand. Hiring has changed just like job seeking has changed hiring has changed there are so many people applying to every single open job that's. does not just affect you as a job seeker, it also really affects recruiters and hiring managers. Gone are the days where recruiters could just say, like, beep, beep, let me just throw in these couple of keywords and I'll find my 10 perfect candidates because they do that beep, beep, beep, and they have 500 candidates that still meet the qualifications. That's a problem. They don't have time to read 500 resumes. So what happens is they've had to create new filters, they've had to get creative in like, okay, now I have these 500 candidates, now what am I doing to dwindle down this list? How am I getting this list to a reasonable number where I can then open these resumes and read them? Well, one of the new filters they're using is signal. Signal meaning, are you genuinely interested and excited about this role at this company? And yeah, part of that comes from them wanting people that are excited to work for them. Like, that's totally normal. Another part to that though that I think a lot of CSM's, like I have not realized is being intentional and positioning yourself properly in the job market and showing enthusiasm for jobs says a lot about how you operate as a CSM. You are strategic, you're intentional, you do your research, you're not always looking for shortcuts. And hiring managers and recruiters understand this parallel. Like how you behave in your job search is how you probably operate as a CSM. So when they see a candidate who has clearly applied to probably 200 companies this month 'cause they came through a channel like Simple Apply, that is not a green flag. That tells them you are not operating with any strategy and in a role where strategy is literally the job that matters a lot. Problem number three, if using a mass applied tool somehow does work, in most instances you end up in the wrong job. And that is where the real damage happens to your career. This is the thing that nobody's talking about. If mass applying works and you land somewhere you probably land somewhere that was never perfect for you. You took this job because you were exhausted and it felt like a sure thing. And then what? You're unhappy, you disengage, you underperform or you leave, you get pushed out in 12 months or less. And now you have a short tenure on your resume and you're starting the whole search over again. Except this time you're starting it from a worse position 'cause you now have this short tenure on your resume. This is just a spiral that you will find yourself in if you are being lazy and constantly settling. Now I'm gonna just add a quick caveat in here. I firmly, firmly agree with taking a job because you need money. That is fine. If you are desperate for financial income and you have to take a job that you're settling for, that is fine. That is great. You should do that. I encourage that, in fact. However, if you're just ending up in a job because you were too damn lazy to apply to jobs yourself and you decided to let a tool do it for you, I'm sorry, but that's just a horrible strategy. That tells me you do not give a shit about your career. And I know that this is something that plagues a lot of people because about 40% of the clients who come to work with us are coming to us because they took the wrong job. Not because they were laid off, not because they got pushed out, not because they wanna make more money. It's because they took a job that they hate. And now they're back to square one. And now they have this additional baggage of having a short tenure. And what they all say to me is, I wish I would have been more strategic and intentional from the jump because I would not be in this position less than 12 months later. Now, here's what the other side looks like. The people who are being intentional, the people who are applying to jobs that, I don't know, they're excited about, that match their qualifications and experience, that line up with where they want to take their career, not just now, but five years from now. When looking at our clients, because this is the job search strategy that we teach them, 90% are still in their roles at 15 months later. 90%, that's huge. And like I said earlier, 25% of them have already been promoted within 15 months of joining their company. I have clients like Kaylyn always comes to mind, she's been with her company for three years and has been promoted twice. She went from CSM to strategic CSM to enterprise team lead. I have a client who took a founding CSM role and now leads a three person team. I have countless clients who are finally working in the industries that they have always wanted to be in. That is not a result of mass applying to jobs. That is not the result of throwing your resume in a tool, adjusting some settings and saying, yeah, just apply for me. That is not the result of hiring someone to throw your resume into the same tool that you could probably just do yourself for free or for very little money and letting them apply to jobs for you. That is what happens when you are a little bit intentional. A little bit more strategic and you put a little extra effort into the jobs that you apply for. And guys, I'll be honest. Like when I was preparing to sit down and record this episode, I was like, okay, I need to also come into this. By the way, this is just how my brain thinks. I need to also come into this with the other side. Like what is the argument for these tools? What is the benefit of mass applying? I tried to think of every possible scenario where this could be a good thing where this can really make sense. Maybe if you're like absolutely strapped for time and you just need to throw something at the wall, but even then is it really worth it? Maybe saving a little bit of time, like getting your resume into different ATS. This sounds like actually physically applying to roles. But are you actually saving time because now you're just creating more problems down stream? First of all, you're getting way more rejection email. So I would imagine just the time that you're spending opening all those rejection emails is time you would have been better off spending being more intentional from the jump. Just spending 10 extra minutes applying to jobs that you actually like and want to work in and are qualified for as opposed to spending 10 minutes reading rejection emails from all these jobs you don't care about anyway. But it's also again, you're getting flagged in these systems. It makes you look lazy. Even if you are landing somewhere, you're probably not gonna be happy or you're gonna underperform and you're gonna be back at square one in six months. So at some point, like I just have to call it what it is. And for me, it just comes down to laziness. And I'm not saying if you've been doing this up until this point, you are lazy because that's not fair because you did not have this information. I 1,000% understand the draw of these solutions of these mass apply tools or coaches that say, like we apply to jobs for you. I completely understand why that is appealing. And if you've done that up until this very point in time, I pass no judgment. I do not think you're lazy. However, now that you have this information, if you choose to continue with that strategy, then we have to be fair and call it what it is. And it is just laziness because we know the data says, if you spend a little extra time being intentional applying to jobs yourself, you're more likely A to land interviews. B to make more money in your next role. C to get promoted in 15 months. So it's like, if you're not willing to spend those 10 minutes for all of those things, then I don't know what else to say other than it's lazy. And then what really gets me and I really try to stay away from this conversation, but it needs to be said. There are coaches in this space right now who are claiming to apply to jobs for you as a service. Like that is their pitch. We will apply to jobs on your behalf so you can just sit back and let the interviews roll in. What they are actually doing is plugging your resume into a tool like simple apply, go Google it. You can literally sign up for it yourself and auto-blasting your resume to hundreds of roles and then charging you for it. So not only are you paying for a service, you're paying someone to do something that you could do yourself, but also something that is getting you flagged as a low-quality candidate makes you look like you have no strategy. And if it works, most likely lands you in a job you're going to be miserable in. And lands you back in square one six months from now. I'm sorry, but to me that is not coaching, that is not a strategy, that is someone taking your money and actively making your career worse. And I just can't let that go without saying something. So I appreciate you letting me vent if you made it this far. Hopefully through my anger and passion on the topic you learned something from this and you are going to take something from it because that's all I really care about. And you know what, if you decide to keep doing mass supply, that's fine, but at least I can sleep at night knowing that I shared all of this information that I worked so hard over the last year to gather. Then you are making an informed decision and whatever you choose to do next is whatever you choose to do. But the bottom line is your job search in customer success is not a numbers game. Maybe it isn't product management. Maybe it is in sales. I don't know. I'm not an expert in those areas. But in customer success, your job search is not a numbers game. The goal is not to apply to as many jobs as possible. The goal is to position yourself well, apply to the right roles, show genuine interest in those roles and land somewhere you are going to thrive. The next job you land is not just a job. It is the next chapter of your career and it sets the tone for the chapter that comes after that. And if you settle because your job search wasn't working, you don't just end up unhappy. You're setting yourself behind in your career. And that can have a real long-term impact. Forget on your career. Real long-term impact on your life, on your earning potential, on your freedom, on what traveling you're able or not able to do or the family that you're able to have or not have or the home that you're able to buy or not buy. Like, we're talking about an impact on your life. This is why I get so worked up about this. If you're in this cycle right now, if you're just like applying everywhere, you're not seeing results, you are mass applying. You're starting to wonder like, how do I get out of this cycle? That is exactly why my team and I exist. That is exactly what we do all day, every day, Monday through Friday. If you want to chat with us, learn more about how we help job seekers and customer success. Link is in the show notes to apply. Let's just have a conversation. I hope you took something away from this episode. Do me a favor. If you are in a community with other job seekers, whether it's like a formal Slack community or an informal whatever texting group, whatever it is. If you know another job seeker and customer success, please share this episode with them. Do your part to help others make more informed decisions. I'll catch you in the next episode.