The Application: a job application game

The job application game puts you across the desk from HR at the last step: the offer. HR makes you six offers, one job at a time, and names a salary for each.

Hold the button to ask for more. The figure in HR’s speech bubble climbs while you hold, and HR gets less happy about it. Let go to take the figure on the table.

• Let go in time. The résumés get an Accepted stamp with your points on it.
• Hold too long. HR pulls the offer, the stamp says Withdrawn, and that job scores nothing.

HR’s face is the warning. It goes from calm to sweating, then glaring, then steam out of the ears. With each step HR throws a perk onto the desk to calm you down: a slice of pizza, a ping-pong paddle, a trophy. Once the steam starts, the limit is close.

Good to know

• Every offer has its own limit and climbs at its own pace, so count nothing. Watch the face.
• The figures climb faster as the round goes on.
• On a Bidding war day, every figure climbs faster.
• The sign taped to HR’s desk names the job, from 151 entry-level jobs.

Each offer scores how far you got from HR’s first figure to HR’s limit.

The best possible score is 600, with all six offers taken right at the limit.

Daily rounds

Press “Play yesterday’s round” to play the previous day’s offers again. It won’t set a best score.

Entry level, five years required

Some “entry-level” job posts ask for up to 5 years of experience.

Remote jobs that come with a city

Some ads for remote jobs name the one city you have to live in. Hybrid work drifts the same way, gaining one office day at a time.

Ghosted after the interview

Most job seekers have been ghosted after an interview. Some of the jobs they applied for were never going to be filled.

The rejection that describes someone else

Some rejection emails list what the team wanted. The list describes the person who already works there.

“Comfortable with ambiguity” is corporate jargon. It means nobody has decided what the job is yet. The phrase usually comes paired with team player.

Upload your résumé, then type it in

Nearly half of US candidates give up on a form that asks for a résumé, then wants the same job titles and dates typed into boxes.

The form isn’t the only thing in the way.

• Applications per job have about doubled since late 2022.
• Most US job seekers have faced an AI interview. Half of those who finished one never heard back.

Applying from your desk

Plenty of US workers job hunt from the office.