The CEO of a recruiting-software company that works with Slack, Airbnb, and Venmo says you can reverse-engineer your job search to get the best offers possible

Courtesy of Greenhouse

Daniel Chait.

• Think carefully about your job search, says Greenhouse CEO Daniel Chait.
• If you want two offers to choose from, for example, how many interviews should you go through and how many applications should you submit?
• Even if you're applying to dozens of roles, you should still make an effort to distinguish each application.

Daniel Chait recently chatted with a friend who was in the throes of job hunting. This person had applied to two companies: Netflix and Facebook.

"They're two of the most sought-after employers in the whole country," Chait remembers telling his friend. "What do you think the chances are that you're going to get a job offer from both of those companies? Do you think this is setting you up for success? Let's do the math."

Chait is the CEO of Greenhouse, a recruiting-software company whose clients include Slack, Airbnb, Venmo, Pinterest, and HubSpot. He said that, when one of these companies posts a job opening, they're typically flooded with hundreds or even thousands of applications.

Read more: The CEO of a recruiting-software company that works with Slack, Airbnb, and Venmo says there's a simple way to stand out among a sea of talented applicants

Chait's advice to job-seekers isn't not to apply to these selective employers, but to be more thoughtful about their search. If you know you want to land two job offers, the next step is to work backward and figure out how many interviews you'll have to go through and how many applications you'll realistically have to submit.

In the case of Chait's friend, he realized that instead of applying to two roles, he'd need to apply to 50.

Make an effort to distinguish each application you submit

To be sure, every job candidate's circumstance is different.

But on the blog Ask a Manager, Alison Green writes that a 10% interview rate is standard for a recent graduate: "If you're getting fewer than one interview request (including phone interviews) per 10 applications, it's time to take a look at your résumé and cover letter, as well as at how strongly qualified you really are for the jobs you're applying for," she writes. And the National Association of Colleges and Employers' website indicates that 46% of college graduates who interviewed for a job in 2017 received an offer.

Taken together, those statistics suggest that if you apply to 50 jobs, you'll presumably end up with two offers.

Read More: A former Google exec who asks job candidates about the chapters of their life story is listening closely for a common red flag

Yes, 50 applications is a lot, and it can be tempting to approach some of them carelessly. But Chait was careful to note that the "spray-and-pray" strategy - sending the exact same application to dozens of employers - typically doesn't work either. You'll be more successful if you specialize your search, Chait said.

For example, if you're applying to a creative role and a project-manager role, you may submit two different versions of your résumé.

Other experts recommend going even further to distinguish your application at the companies you really want to work for.

Personal-finance expert Ramit Sethi previously shared a tip he learned from BJ Fogg, a psychologist and the director of the Behavior Design Lab at Stanford: "Find the one person who does what you want to do there. Every week send them some kind of report or analysis and just say, 'Look, I thought you might find this interesting. I'll write you back next Wednesday with the next analysis.'" Sethi remembered Fogg saying, "How long can they ignore you?"

As for that friend who initially planned to apply to just Netflix and Facebook, "he's a smart guy," Chait said. "But he hadn't thought about the funnel."