Side Doors

There is a saying that goes something like:

When the front door has a line around the block, find the side door.

When you're trying to find places to apply, look for side doors. Openings that rank highly on the big job boards often have hundreds of applicants, but there are other ways to get your foot in the door. For example:

• If you have a friend or family member that works at a company, ask for a referral.
• If you can find someone online that you don't know that works at the company, ask them what it's like to work there and have a real human conversation. If you hit it off, let them know you applied and ask them to mention your name.
• If you already work at a company that hires developers, but you're in a non-technical position, see if there are opportunities to transition into a developer role.
• Consistently engage on Twitter (X) with some of the employees at a company you admire. Build a relationship with them.
• Physically walk into the company's office with a paper copy of your resume and ask if you can drop it off with the hiring manager. This is bold, but at least it gets you noticed.

It's all about doing research on the company and digging around for some non-annoying way to get more attention on your application.

Not Every Application Needs a Side Door

I only recommend making the effort to find a side door on about 10% of your applications - the ones that you really, really want. If you try to do this for every application, you won't have time to apply to enough jobs.