2M signups in 2 hours 🔥
5M signups in 4 hours 🔥🔥
Here’s why Threads by Meta is hot 👇🏻

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Meta just announced their new “Threads” app.
The new Twitter competitor / clone / disruptor got me thinking 👇🏼

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Long-form writing on a Meta app ✏️

Do you expect your Instagram friends to write good stuff? 🌶️

Products by Meta (developed or acquired) have always garnered attention due to simplified and streamlined posting. Images with a small description on Facebook, pro-quality imagery on Instagram posts, feeds, and videos on Reels are super quick to share from gallery. Conventionally, Twitter has been the de-facto platform for “writing” anything slightly longer than a description, and even more longer writing begs the use of Substack, Medium or something similar. To see Meta trying to get into long-form content is a very interesting and refreshing direction.

Competing with Twitter, Bluesky & others 🥊

Your followers stalk you everywhere … 🌶️

Threads is a direct competitor to other platforms like Elon Musk’s Twitter, Eugen Rochko’s developed Mastodon, Jack Dorsey’s Bluesky, Hive Social, Inc., Tribel, Donald Trump’s Truth Social and other apps trying to form newer kinds of social interaction platforms ( often called “digital public squares” ). Mark Zuckerberg thinks “there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it. Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully we will”. In the future, Threads will be compatible with ActivityPub, a W3C-established protocol to post on other networks like Mastodon and WordPress, allowing interactions with other fediverse servers.

Sign in with Instagram ⚡️

Will you use Facebook login again? 🌶️

Thanks to Threads’ deep integration with Instagram, including sign-up, profile fetch, and instant-follow existing people you already follow, signing up to Threads is insanely smooth. While Twitter’s new sign up is increasingly difficult in an effort to combat bots and miscreant accounts, Threads takes advantage of Instagram’s existing social graph and follower/following lists to gain users super fast. With Meta's ~3B DAU and Instagram's 2.35B userbase, 1M/hour seems pretty normal.

Better business management 🤑

Grow your business with Meta tools! 🌶️

This is a bit of speculation, but it won’t be long before ads and sponsored content begin popping up in the Threads feed. Why is this interesting? With the potential of brands making support accounts like on Twitter, and using connected messaging experiences via Meta Business Suite for DMs and automated messaging along with existing ad-spend accounts, Meta can finally offer an all-rounded business establishment platform, while reducing dependency on only traditional Facebook ads & Messenger support channels.

Why a .net domain 😂

Threads.com is a Slack alternative tool, who wouldn’t budge with their domain 🌶️

Threads.net is the app.

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Let’s see when the ads kick in 🎯
Definitely gonna start tweeting / threading more 🔺

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That’s all folks! ✌🏼

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Apple’s “One more thing” is revealed 🎬
It’s launching early 2024 🕰️
It costs $3499 🤯

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People have always looked up to Apple, and they know it.
The announcement of the Apple Vision Pro got me thinking 👇🏼

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Shows commitment to Mixed Reality computing 🎉

Imagine 7 years and 5000 patents!

Apple finally introduces its AR headset after several years of development. Unlike the rumored Apple television and car, this product is real, featuring a sleek aluminum frame, a visor, "audio pods," and the innovative EyeSight feature that reveals users' eyes to others in the room. With Meta working hard on their Quest products, the race to win the AR/VR and Mixed Reality space is hot right now. This product line has to become more affordable for people to adopt quicker, can imagine mid-segment players like Xiaomi & Huawei bringing in similar devices to other markets soon.

M2 chip. On your face. 🙂

Imagine editing videos without a traditional computer!

The headset operates on the M2 chip and the new R1 chip for video streaming, with micro-OLED displays and a three-element lens to improve imaging. Spatial audio is in full swing, and prescription glass inserts, developed with Zeiss, replace the need for wearer's glasses. As a person who wears glasses, this was my primary complaint with headsets. Glad to see it being addressed.

Entertainment. Entertainment. Entertainment. 🍿

Imagine seeing a 3D immersive movie while on a flight!

A 3D camera allows users to take "spatial" photos and videos, and the device offers a movie theater option for a large screen experience. Disney is the first content partner, announcing Disney+ will be available on the device at launch.

New OS. New App Store. 📲

Optimized gameplay. New market for game studios.

Apple introduced a new operating system, VisionOS, designed for spatial computing. It works with Microsoft Office apps, Webex, Zoom, and includes an educational feature set. A new App Store specific to the headset will launch, supported by Unity for game development.

Eye-based OpticID 👀

Because TouchID and FaceID won't work at close distances.

A new version of FaceID, dubbed OpticID, enhances security for services like Apple Pay. Camera data processing is kept onboard and Apple doesn't log where users look. Apple announced the product to onboard more developers, though all experience so far is seemingly through renders.

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All for a $3499 price tag for launching next year 🤯
Definitely gonna wait for these insane prices to drop 🔻

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That’s all folks! ✌🏼

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Gmail has aggressive spam filtering 🚧
New email servers aren’t discovered 🔍
Result: Emails end up in spam 💀

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Gmail's spam filters mislabel self-hosted server emails, causing delays.
This disrupts time-sensitive, critical communications 🕰️

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Existing spam protection 🚧
Google is known to be using a combination of technologies to detect spam emails, including machine learning algorithms trained on several patterns, blacklists and whitelists, sender reputation (based on previous spam complaints, bounce rates, and sending-domain age), authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC (to verify messages being sent from authorized senders tamper-free, helping phishing and spoofing attacks although spammers can get around this), user remarks, and rate-limiting (enforced on newer email servers with a lower reputation to prevent large-scale spamming).

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Independent email servers suffer 😢
Anyone could decide to use their own email servers or set up services to do it for customization and control, specific privacy measures, business data protection in communication, regulatory compliance, reducing reliance on third-party providers, or just plain experimentation. In any case, aside from the maintenance challenges, potential issues with email deliverability might just be fighting a losing battle.

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Can Google do something? ✳️
Although email is an open protocol across providers, including giants like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Proton’s ProtonMail, etc., there could be some potential actions that could allow better email sending rates + enhanced sender reputation for newly-hosted servers or domains like domain verification (with business / ID documentation), feedback loops with receivers & senders, whitelist programs.

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I personally use Purelymail for my custom emails.
$10 a year with no hard limits on users, domains, storage.
No deliverability issues yet.
Perfect for my use case ✨

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That’s all folks! ✌🏼

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739 views. 324 applicants. 3 days. 1 job post experiment.
Here’s why recruiters on LinkedIn cannot find your profile ↓

The Inspiration 🌀

It’s a tough job market out there.
Generic advice like reaching out to people for connections or referrals isn’t working like it used to. You should be “discoverable”.

I wanted to see how my profile ranked for a “Software Engineer” role among the 100s of other applicants. And get it to the top.

PS: I have minor experience in technical recruiting at a previous company.

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The Setup 🧰

I didn’t use LinkedIn Recruiter (the de-factor portal for recruiters) since there’s a whole “Contact Sales” process I did not want to get involved with. They also charge a hefty fee for access.

Instead, I made a free job posting:

• Position: “Software Engineer”

• Company: “Stealth Startup”

• Location: “San Francisco Bay Area”

• Workplace: “On-site”

• Job type: “Full-time”

I also used the most generic default job description template & default skills LinkedIn suggested for “Software Engineer”, along with an honest message describing what I had in mind.

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What I observed 👁️

For candidate applications using LinkedIn Easy Apply, here are some things I observed:

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Profile sections visible to me:

• Name

• Profile Picture (smaller version)

• Headline

• Experience

  • First 2 experiences are immediately visible. Rest lie below the fold “Show x more experiences”.

• Education

  • First 1 education is immediately visible. Rest lie below the fold “Show x more educations”

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Other things visible:

• Email (submitted via Easy Apply)

• Phone (submitted via Easy Apply)

• Resume (submitted via Easy Apply)

  • You get notified when the job poster downloads your resume

• Screening questions’ answers (submitted via Easy Apply)

  • Each answer is check-marked, whether it satisfies the job post requirement or not

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Job Poster actions I could do:

• Rate a profile as:

  • Good fit

  • Maybe

  • Not a fit

• Message candidate

• See full profile

• Download resume

• Forward application to someone via LinkedIn messaging

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Positive signals 💚

• If your profile’s Skills section and the job’s Skills desired have overlaps, you rank higher.

• If your “Open to work” / “Open Candidates” / “Job preferences” section has a job location same as the job post location (just the state is fine too), you rank higher.

• If the job post text has similarity to the text on your profile (descriptions, bio), you rank higher.

• If the recruiter messages you on LinkedIn, an automation can mark you as a “good fit” (can be disabled by job poster).

• If the recruiter has previously reached out to profiles similar to you, you rank higher.

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Negative signals ❌

• If you don’t have an active “experience” / job

  • All the candidates who ranked lowest did not have an active job experience at the time of posting.

  • Sadly, this doesn’t consider current ongoing education.

  • If you add in an experience after applying to a job, thankfully, LinkedIn immediately considers it for a rank change (higher or lower).

• If you don’t meet the screening criteria

  • an automation can mark you as “not a fit” (needs enabling by job poster)

• If your location is out-of-country

  • default automation can mark you as “not a fit” (can be disabled by job poster)

Interestingly, whenever a recruiter makes a new connection, the rankings change too taking that new connection into account! ​

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How can you improve ✅

Some obvious recommendations based on the previous insights:

• Always have an active experience “20xx - Present” 🏎️

  • If you’re studying at a university, add it as an experience entitled “Student / Masters Student” or “Teaching Assistant / Research Assistant..” or any on-campus job title if you have one.

  • If you’re spending time on personal projects, add it in with “Personal projects” or something similar.

  • If you’re self-employed or have a company, add it with “Founder” etc.

• Skills. Skills. Skills 💃🏻

  • Skills are aggressively used to match your profile to job listings for both job recommendations & candidate rankings.

  • Add in all skills you’ve worked on in the past, and don’t worry too much about remembering everything about it.

  • If a skill has multiple similar entries, eg: “Javascript, JS, javascript”, pick the first one in the suggested list. That’s usually the most popular and most likely selected option on both job poster & candidate ends.

  • You get 50 skills. Pick wisely!

• Optimize your “Open to work” status ⛳️

  • Try keeping it visible to all LinkedIn members. Some non-recruiters who don’t necessarily have a job posting up might want to contact you. They simply use the green ring to find potential hires.

  • Ensure you enlist all desirable work locations ( popular cities like San Francisco, New York, etc. get more eyeballs )

  • Add similar job titles for the role you want ( software engineer / software developer / full stack engineer … ), don’t just keep one.

• Improve your headline 🎩

  • It’s the only “custom” thing visible to recruiters unless they view your full profile.

  • Use it to impress your recruiters. Mention moonshot achievements.

  • You need not fill it with unnecessary keywords; it doesn’t seem to help rankings, but could assist in profile search.

• Impress with your profile picture 🍷

  • Not necessary, but good for visual stand out

  • Ensure it’s decently visible from a distance (alternatively, the picture on your LinkedIn home page’s left column is a good approximate size that recruiters might see)

• Signal interest to company recruiters 👏🏼

  • Create job alerts on a company’s LinkedIn page to signal interest to recruiters.

  • It is unclear if this helps in ranks, but doing so can only have upside.

  • Also, send out those connection requests! Do not hesitate. If you’re out of invites, try joining LinkedIn Groups (connecting via them apparently does not have a limit).

• The ATS doesn’t reject you 🤷🏻‍♂️

  • For the record, the ATS does not automatically reject you. It’s always a person judging your profile / resume / skills who ends up rejecting or pushing your profile ahead (confirmed by several recruiters)

• Side projects always help 🦋

  • A good indicator of your skills in action + willingness to solve a real problem

  • Check out this TikTok for assurance

• Keep an open mind (general advice) 🧠

  • Consider being open to all job types - Full-time, contract, part-time, internship, temporary. Negotiate with the hiring manager once you set up a call.

  • Consider being open to all workplaces - On-site, hybrid, remote. Negotiate.

  • Reach out to recruiters & job posters on LinkedIn. Interact with their posts using likes & comments; you need to get noticed. Get their emails. Set up 1:1 calls on priority.

  • Use LinkedIn power queries like “<role name> AND hiring” to find posts and people who are willing to hire & probably talk too. Set up calls.

  • Give it time. Give yourself a 1-year head start.

  • Keep engaging and interacting. Something will definitely fall into place!

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Real people who help ❤️

Having a hard time navigating roles?
Interact with these helpful souls (more coming soon):

1. Taylor Desseyn - https://solo.to/tdesseyn - Amazingly helpful job hunt resources 🤙🏻

2. Tom McCormack - Check out one of his LinkedIn posts - instant value 💪🏼

3. Recruiters Anonymous - Recruiter community + discussions - get insider info 👀

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As always, I’m available on LinkedIn to help you out any way I can ✌🏼

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Some references

1. Learning Hiring Preferences: The AI Behind LinkedIn Jobs

2. Improving job matching with machine-learned activity features

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PS: A lot of this advice is anecdotal, and based around a specific role. I’ve referenced certain LinkedIn blogs with mentions of certain model parameters.

PPS: LinkedIn “Easy Apply” will always have the most number of people applying, so there’s a very low chance of getting picked in spite of ranking high. Reaching out to a recruiter / direct employee is a much better bet at securing a role.

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