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"Generally what happens is that you come into the system and we show the candidates in the order in which they come in."

Sometimes, if companies get a lot of applicants, they may look at referrals first, or look at the first 50, and once they have enough candidates that are "pretty good," they'll interview those and ignore the rest.

Being among the first to apply to a job, being relevant to the role and having an internal referral all help to make an applicant stand out.

A study by Ladders found that your chances of getting a call back plummet 72 hours after the job is published online, even if you were considered a good fit for the job.

If you find a job that you're truly interested in and a good fit for, buckle down and get that application out as soon as possible.

Out of curiosity, I went back over jobs I've applied for through LinkedIn and saw that out of 110 applications less than 25% of the recruiters viewed my resume. That really shocked me. And NONE of them contacted me.

I only got hired when I directly messaged a recruiter about a job that she had posted minutes earlier. I just happened to be online and saw her post.

It really does seem to boil down to being in the right place at the right time. I don't think there is a formula other than less than 1% of applications results in an interview. That is a ratio that has been consistent throughout my lifetime.