Congratulations on finishing this 80 days journey.
It is always nice to read some feedback from people after they finished a long project like that.
I have been reading some of Nate Soares’ post recently, and I’m still fighting with myself to start trying to do something similar. I hope I can start something like that soon. Your post gave me an extra motivation to do it.
Can you detail a little more how much time you spent on each activity you set on the other post? If you didn’t followed the set amount, when did you decide to change them?
About the study/reading sessions, how much efficiency do you estimate you could achieve? By efficiency I mean the time you were effectively doing that, not considering some breaks or internal struggles, compared with the allotted time .
If there are several jobs open, and the chances of being hired after jumping through the hoops is 50%, some of the candidates probably found something better, and stopped wasting their time on a lower position.
There are some other factors that might justify their behavior as impolite, but not incompetent. For example: If there is no expectation of an answer if you failed to progress to the next step, the candidates might use their silence/unresponsiveness to signal that you “failed” as a hirer.
It also feels like a waste of the hirer’s time to have to read a notice that you dropped out of the selection, if you expect that they have other candidates and you haven’t set an interview.
It also looks like there are no costs to apply to several positions (in monetary terms and also as a punishment for future hirings), and the best strategy is to apply to anything and then select the best one later.