On Hiring
For some time I've been convinced that we are experiencing similar transition as so called industrial revolution was. If industrial revolution was characterized by mass production, information age is characterized by networks.
Reading https://tech.lgbt/@tanysfoster/110850140753851894 made me think what that means for job seeking and hiring. In terms of mass production, you have a profession that is standardized which enables you to mass produce workers for that profession and you can hire people for a position secure in knowledge that they have a certification of having certain skill set.
In information age you are trying to use information available to find best possible candidate for the job, not some generic candidate with a specific skill set. It is no longer enough that candidate has a specific college degree or even specific college degree from a specific college.
This means quality of your applications matter more than the amount. There is no point to apply for a job if you know that there probably is someone who is obviously better match applying the same job. Lottery tickets never win. Be selective, but remember you are not necessarily looking for your dream job, but a job you are (provably) good at. They are not the same, but they are related since you get good at something by doing it a lot and you do something a lot if you like it.
To maximize available information, you need to build your professional networks. These help in three ways when you're looking for work. Firstly, they put you on the map for people using their professional networks to find candidates for a job. Secondly, they give you information about available job opportunities. And thirdly, they provide merits to prove you have specific skills needed for the job.
I've had three programming jobs. First one I got the “traditional” way. I was a CS student looking for a summer job and sent applications until one company looking for CS student summer trainees offered me a job. For second job I stood out of the crowd by being an administrator of programming newsgroup FAQ. That got me an invitation to a recruitment event that led to a job. That job gave me over 10 year Linux programmer career, which helped me get a job as a Linux programmer.