BEST Way to Apply for Software Engineering Jobs (2024)

If you've ever found yourself spending hours upon hours sending out job applications only to get rejection emails and be back to square one, then this video is made for you. I've applied to over 700 software engineering jobs, so I know exactly what you're going through. Today, I'll unveil the exact system that I use to get multiple offers from companies like Figma, Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, and more, all while avoiding burnout. By the end of this video, you will have the blueprint to position yourself better than 99% of applicants out there. You will learn how to send out applications 10 times faster with no downside. You'll know the hiring advice that my former Netflix manager shared with me on how applicants can stand out, and I'll also share my secret tip for acing recruiter calls that no one even talks about. Look, you don't need an inside connection at every company, nor do you need to have the world's best resume. I know the job search can be brutal, which is why everything in this video is streamlined for making the application process as simple as possible. Let's dig in. Hey, everyone. My name is Marc Benlian, and within two years of studying computer science at UCLA, I was able to do six software engineering internships at companies like Figma, Netflix, NASA, and Tinder. On this channel, I help other students navigate the world of software engineering and land their dream jobs. Finding a software engineering internship, new grad role, or any other job really just takes a ton of applications. If you've ever heard the term that recruiting is a numbers game, this is exactly what they're referring to. The sooner you get comfortable with the fact that you're going to be sending out hundreds of applications and expecting to receive hundreds of rejections in return, the better off you'll be. But since we're in the business of sending out as many applications as possible, we want to optimize for how quickly we're able to send out each application. That's where this really awesome Chrome extension called Simplify comes in. And for full transparency, I'm in no way sponsored or affiliated with Simplify. They've just built a really awesome product that helped me a ton during my job search, and so it wouldn't make sense to make this video without mentioning them. After you install the Simplify Chrome extension, you're going to be asked to fill out basic information about yourself, sort of like the things you'd see on a job application. That could be your education, your previous experience, your resume, and so on. You can think of this as filling out another job application, except this one you'll only have to fill out once. Then, when you go to apply to another job, Simplify will have a little pop-up up here, and with the click of a button, they will autofill all of your information into the new job that you're applying for. This has been an absolutely massive speed-up for me in the application process, and was honestly a huge game-changer. Not only did it make applying to jobs quicker, honestly, I found the entire job search process more enjoyable by having this sort of rapid-fire application trick. And it actually made me realize that one of the heaviest lifts of the job search is having to fill out the same information over and over and over again, which can get really repetitive and also leave you in a position where a few hours have gone by and all you've done is send out a few applications. And for those of you who are wondering, yes, Simplify does work on workday applications as well. So no more spending 20 minutes on a single application, which makes literally no logical sense. And also, while playing a numbers game, workday applications just have such a low ROI, or I guess ROT, with the investment being your time. And if you're watching this and you're like, what is Mark talking about, I've never heard of a workday in my life, then just be grateful and move on. So there are two more things you should know. Simplify does work on the majority of job boards you'll go on, but it's not foolproof. There are certainly some job applications out there that I've run into that Simplify just doesn't support yet. But they did think of a neat trick where even if you're on an application that they can't autofill, you can click on the Simplify extension and view your profile. And from here, all of the information that you provided to them is accessible and you can click on either one of the fields and it'll copy paste it. So this still ended up saving me some time on the other applications I'd fill out. There are also some quirks with the platform, but I guess that's to be expected. I think they're a pretty lean startup. The one that I discovered was actually related to education. So say I study at Santa Monica Community College, then when I go to fill out my Simplify one time job application for education, they don't have Santa Monica Community College in their dropdown list. This means that on Simplify, I have to select other. The issue with this is that some job boards out there actually do recognize Santa Monica Community College as one of their universities. And so if you just stick to the Simplify autofill in this case, you'll actually end up autofilling other, even though the school you go to is actually one of the available choices. And I'm sure there are other little quirks like this. So all that to say, it's always worth reviewing the autofill that Simplify does do and see if it missed any questions or kind of just put something in wrong. But it does work well in honestly 90% of cases. And so that actually wraps up my first tip. Sending out applications faster with a tool like Simplify really supercharges your output. And the final note that I'll give on this topic is I have heard some misconceptions out there where people are worried that employers are going to find out that they have an extension like this and some fear that they're now going to be blacklisted by the employer. And I'm here to tell you, you have nothing to worry about. I've sent out hundreds of applications using tools like Simplify and I've heard back and interviewed with tons of tech companies. So the truth is they don't care. And in all honesty, it's totally legal and okay. You're not breaking any rules by using something like this. It's just kind of manipulating the website input fields. And so just don't worry about it. So now that we have the ability to send out applications at the speed of light, this brings me to my next tip. Don't always do that. I had a conversation once with my former Netflix manager and he was talking about some of the things that he notices within candidates that apply to Netflix. One of the things that stood out to him was candidates that haven't applied to every single software engineering job out there. As a manager, you want to find people who seem excited about the work that your team in specific is doing. And so when you see a candidate has applied to roles across front end, back end, full stack, machine learning, for all different types of teams and organizations, it really is a turnoff. Instead, if you want to give a company the best impression, you want to find three to five jobs that you're most excited about and apply to those specifically. This just helps paint an overall more cohesive story about why you're interested in that company and in those roles in particular. So this next bit is something that I've actually seen other people talk about, but never for the right reason. I'm a firm believer that it's in your best interest to track all of the applications you send out. And the way that I did this, I had this Notion job application tracking template thing. And every time I would apply to a new role, I'd input that into the tracker, I would write down the company name and various information along with it, like any notes to self that I had, maybe the location that the role is in, and also a photo of the job description. And then as I would move along in different processes, I would kind of update the Notion template with a new status for where I am with that particular application. And so now you're probably wondering, Mark, that sounds like a lot of work. Why would I even bother? So some of the more obvious reasons is that this helps you feel like you're making some tangible progress, which was one of the things that I ran into during the job search. When your entire feedback loop is just application to rejection, it's very easy to kind of be two months into the search and feel like you've made no progress. And so in my opinion, having all of these roles to look back on, even if they're just rejections is a nice way to kind of know that you're working towards something. And the other reason is that this is honestly just a good overview of seeing where you're at, and it helps you stay more organized. But if you're anything like me, then this reason actually isn't convincing enough. And so the real reason you want to do this is that you always want to keep the job description. And the best way to do this is through screenshots of the job description. I know it sounds archaic, but in the past, I used to only keep the links to the job description until I showed up to some interviews, tried to click on the link, and realized the listing is already taken down. The reason you want to keep the job description is if you end up hearing back from the company, this is your golden ticket into the mind of the hiring manager. When trying to make your best impression with a company, you want to know things like what would their ideal candidate look like, what were the skills and qualifications they were looking for, and oftentimes what you're even expected to do in that role. These are all the types of things that are mentioned in job description. But as you and I both know as the applicant, we don't have the time to keep track of all of these job applications or remember the specifics of every role we applied to, which is why this tracker is so helpful. At the end of the day, interviews are all, in some sense, storytelling and honestly a bit of sales. To some degree, you want to frame your own personal story within the lens of what the company is looking for, which is impossible to do if you've completely forgotten what the company is looking for, apart from, say, a general title that says Software Engineering New Grad. This is a criminally underrated tactic, and it really is one of my favorite ways to stand out from the pool of generic applicants who are now going to be giving generic interview answers. And look, at the end of the day, it's worth optimizing for something that's going to be sustainable for you. If you're going to try to keep up with this and then burn out within a month and now you're not even sending out job applications anymore, then it really wasn't worth it. So the other suggestion I would give is if this is too much work for you to do for every single role you apply to, then instead consider doing it for the ones that you're really excited about. I'll also have a link in the bio for the exact job tracking template that I use, so feel free to go down there, duplicate it, and start tracking your own application. My last bit of advice will really ring true to the current 2023 recruiting season, which is when I'm filming this video. Job openings right now are closing faster than ever before. During this recruiting season, I've been posting job alerts for internships and new grad roles on my LinkedIn page, and I often include a link to the application on that post. And I've had so many students reach out to me like, hey, I think the link is broken or the link is no longer working. What's going on? And 99% of the time, it's just that the role has already been taken down and filled with too many applicants. Another example of this was Snapchat actually opened up their internship applications sometime in July, and literally within four days, the application was closed for the entire year. So my biggest tip in the current market is to move quickly. Once you see a job application that's open and you want to apply to, write it down and make sure you get your application in that day, and no later than one to two days out. Because honestly, you have no clue when the role is going to close, and you should always assume that now is the last time to apply. If you're interested in the systems that I use to find the best jobs out there, then you definitely want to check out this video.