We got 600+ applications for a PM role in a small start-up

What they don’t tell you about competition in the tech field

Thanks Greg for going to the LinkedIn office to capture this.

I left a pre-IPO gig recently to pursue education, much to the dismay of an amazing manager and an amazing team in a unicorn scale-up here in Europe.

While I did quit the tech rat race (that much is true), I’m still working here and there as a consultant and a designer for start-ups that would feed me and help me fund my new journey in Education.

I’m a start-up girlie at the end of the day; no glory, no cash, but I love the impact and the rush it brings.

Anyway, one of my main gigs is a pretty small start-up, and they were hiring for a PM (Project Manager) for a while. The role wasn’t advertised, but once LinkedIn picked it up, the number of applicants that came in shot up really quickly.

We had to close the job post within a week because we got a whooping 600+ applications, way more than we expected to process. For a very small start-up with under 50 employees, 600 applications within 7 days is massive amount. That’s nearly a hundred applicants in a day.

For context, start-ups are usually considered lucky to even see 50 applications for a role. So…