How Many Jobs Should You Apply To Daily?

As a college student, managing your time effectively is essential, especially when balancing your studies with a job search. The question of how many jobs to apply for each day is common. Based on your search, I recommend aiming for 2 to 5 job applications daily. Yes, it may seem like a lot, but this is the range I find most manageable. Here’s why:
Quality over Quantity
I know applying to countless openings and plastering your resume everywhere is tempting; I have been there before. However, this tactic often leads to stress and burnout, and sometimes, given that companies frequently post the same positions on multiple different sites, it wastes your time. It also shows a need for more effort in applying since companies want enthusiastic candidates to look into everything and anything about them. So, focus on sending applications to 2-5 listings daily and tailor your application to fit their idea of candidacy. And let’s face it: Do you have time to do that when actively applying for 20 a day?
Time Management
Let’s face it: we’re in college! We now want to do everything and wish the day lasted more than 24 hours to achieve everything we wanted. Luckily for us, you can do it with good time management! If you can, allocate one or two hours to career development, resume building, and other proactive steps like networking or applying for jobs. It doesn’t have to be all at once; you can split it up throughout the day, but that is approximately when someone can work on 2 or 3 applications and garner success.
Following Up
Based on this subtitle alone, you can already imagine the hassle of following up on applications and keeping track of who interviewed you for who. While you can argue that you keep track of these in an Excel sheet or notebook, it is still complicated to retain everything from each interview or communication you go through in the job search process. Similar to quality over quantity, focus on making connections with impacting results on your career as opposed to making the most connections. Because the more people know about you, the better your chances at securing a job.
Obviously, everyone has a different resume, circumstance, and opinion, so if you can take on more applications a day feel free to do so! You also don’t have to stick to just doing that rate a day, but feel free to switch up these recommendations to enhance your job search. Good luck!