“In July, I published the full numbers from my 2026 job search on our blog: 38 applications, eight weeks, one accepted offer. The post did what data does well. It gave people a realistic benchmark and told them their own numbers were probably normal.
This video is not that post read aloud. I sat down with Kelly Kugler, Founder & Head Coach of Allora Collective to get the part the numbers leave out — what those eight weeks actually felt like, which of our own tools I reached for, and what I do now that I have run the system under real pressure instead of alongside a client.” ~ Chez Jennings, Lead Career Coach, Allora Collective
Chez is the lead career coach at Allora Collective with 13+ years in tech recruiting and hiring experience across Reddit, Coinbase and BetterUp. She is PHR® certified. She also spent this spring in the applicant pool. Both of those things are useful, and the second one is the reason this conversation exists.
Below is what Chez and Kelly covered, with timestamps so you can jump to any part of the video.
The recruiter became the candidate (1:35)
Chez spends her working days on the hiring side. In May she was applying again. She described that flip as meta, and it is, but it is also increasingly ordinary.
This was her fifth tech layoff in 10 years. None of them were performance related. The first two came down to funding. One came through an acquisition. This one was a contract that ended earlier than expected, and the company attributed the cut explicitly to AI.
Her team had seen it coming. Usage was being monitored. They were being asked to build automation and to document it. Of roughly ten people in her recruiting pod, one stayed — and the workload did not shrink to match.
If you have been laid off once, twice, three times and feel like an outlier: you are not. Layoffs at this scale are a leadership decision that lands on everyone else. They are not a verdict on your work.
Knowing how hiring works does not make it easier (6:16)
Chez knows the recruiter reading her application has a full req load. She knows filters run before a human sees a resume. She knows “we are moving forward with other candidates” is not personal.
It still stung. Earlier in that contract she had been getting strong feedback from hiring managers and hoping it would convert to a full-time role — which in the US also means benefits, a 401(k) match, paid time off, health insurance. What stung was knowing there was no way to perform her way out of it.
What the recruiter view does give you is a head start. Chez knew that the weeks immediately after a layoff are the most active window you will get, so she front-loaded her energy: applying strategically, researching hiring managers before a first call, and asking former colleagues for referrals right away.
She was also clear that she does not agree with how the market treats availability. There are enormously talented people between roles right now. Preferences vary by team and by person, and one hiring manager’s bias is not the whole market.
Ask early, and offer early (8:06)
One detail from Chez’s layoff is worth copying. Someone in her org organized an opt-in group for everyone affected — a group chat that is still running. People post leads, request referrals, and answer each other’s questions. One person shared the outline of her interview prep checklist, which for recruiters is close to a universal template.
This kind of mutual aid is relatively new. It did not exist at this scale in 2008. Ask without embarrassment, and offer the same thing back when you are the one with a lead.
Track everything, starting on day one (10:38)
Chez has used our tools with clients for three years. This was the first search where she needed them herself.
Her rule: it does not need to be complicated, but you have to track. Without data on your own search, you cannot see what needs adjusting. Everything went in one place — applications, dates applied, titles, links, where each lead came from, follow-ups, and a separate networking view listing the contacts most likely to send her something.
One practical reason to track that is specific to this market: many companies no longer send application confirmations. If you are not keeping your own record, you can end up re-applying to the same posting weeks later and looking automated.
The payoff is emotional as much as operational. When 18 applications had gone silent, Chez did not spiral. She looked at what they had in common, adjusted, and kept going. Tracking keeps you organized. It also keeps you rational, and it turns a bad week into a data point.
Set your criteria before you build your target list (15:18)
Before applying anywhere, Chez ran the same discovery exercise we run with clients. What did she like about the last role? What did she want to do differently? What did she miss from earlier companies?
Out of that came real criteria: a base compensation floor, a work model, and a values check covering the industries she was open to and the ones she was not. Then she built a tiered target list against those criteria. Roughly half the companies on it had no open role at the time, which was fine — the list was a direction, not a queue.
Filtering up front meant she was not applying to roles she would have turned down. It saved energy and kept her honest about fit, and she went in knowing the search would be lower volume than her past ones.
She also kept the maybes in, deliberately. Her last two contracts had come through a referral and a boomerang, so her resume had not been tested in the open market for a while. Applying to companies she was uncertain about let her run experiments on which version converted.
The same logic applies to interviews. You can always withdraw. Taking a call for a company you are lukewarm about gets your reps up, and the lack of pressure often makes you more yourself — sometimes the conversation turns out to be interesting.
Warm outreach opened doors the portal did not (20:10)
Several of Chez’s late-stage conversations started with a person rather than a portal. The clearest example: her former boss connected her to a former direct report who now works on the VC side.
If you have not worked with venture capital talent partners before, they function differently from a company recruiter. Many VC firms employ people who filter talent across their portfolio, particularly for startups without an in-house recruiter. The intro call is logistics-forward — what you want, what you do not want, whether you can work remotely — and then they go back to their portfolio list. Chez’s contact came back with three companies, plus an offer to refer her elsewhere in his network.
That single introduction produced a couple of recruiter screens, one of which went to a second round. She managed every contact and follow-up date in the networking side of her tools.
If you work in or around startups and have never explored VC connections, that is a gap worth closing.
Work the search in sprints, not all day (22:29)
Chez did not want a search that consumed every day, partly to avoid burnout and partly to leave room for interview days, which can run two to four hours once you are mid or late stage.
So she worked in focused sprints, two or three times a week:
- About 20 minutes texting people already in her phone with a short blurb about what she was looking for, plus LinkedIn outreach for everyone else.
- About 30 minutes running Google site searches filtered to the past week or past 24 hours, to see only fresh postings.
- Straightforward applications — the ones with resume autofill — completed on the spot.
- Applications with long short-answer questions logged in the tracker and saved for a block with real focus behind it.
She also avoided scheduling two interviews with the same company on the same day, so each conversation got its own headspace.
That sorting principle is the useful part: do the fast things when you have fifteen minutes, and protect the things that need concentration for when you actually have concentration.
Two late-stage processes, two different lessons (25:21)
Four of Chez’s processes reached late stage. We went deep on two.
The Series C fintech, ~1,200 people — a no, handled well
Recruiter screen, then a hiring manager conversation that went well, then a take-home with a suggested two-hour window. Chez spent closer to six, largely building a presentation deck rather than submitting a document. The assignment was a sourcing exercise for a live open role and it was unpaid, which she named plainly: that is free work, and it should be paid.
She also sent the wrong version of her deck, caught it, and sent the right one. From a hiring manager’s side, catching your own error and fixing it fast reads as a plus.
She was rejected after the final panel — and the way it was handled is the reason this story is in the video. The decision came within about 48 hours. Then the hiring manager asked to get on a call to give her specific, constructive feedback.
That is rare now. Many companies give no feedback at all, usually citing legal exposure, and there are ways to give someone a useful high-level read without creating it. Chez would work with those people again, and she would happily introduce a client to her contacts there. A company that still treats you like a person after deciding not to hire you has done something that lasts.
The Series E SaaS company, ~600 people — a fast yes
This is the one she signed, and on camera she named it: BetterUp. Application to verbal offer took about a week.
Two things drove that speed. The team was covering two staggered parental leaves, so they needed someone in seat with time to transition. And someone in Chez’s network knew the team — her prospective manager knew her skip level from a previous company.
Speed like that usually signals strong internal alignment. The team knew what it wanted and was ready to close. She took it as a contract-to-hire role, which lowers the stakes on both sides: they see the work, she sees the team, and nobody commits long term on day one.
On whether contracting looks bad, her mentor reframed it: several years of contracting means exposure to more environments than a recruiter who stayed in one place. Picking up systems mid-flight, in the middle of a leadership or org change, is a real skill — and it is exactly what interviewers are probing when they ask about adaptability.
The hardest part was the silence (33:41)
Eighteen applications, zero response. Not a rejection. Nothing. Chez still thinks about it.
It is harder to process than a no, because there is no closure. You have done the activity, hit your targets for the week, and received nothing back that tells you whether any of it worked.
The reframe that helped: a non-response is not a verdict on your candidacy. It is a signal your application did not surface through whatever filter was in place. That is a targeting problem, not a you problem.
The late-stage rejection was its own kind of hard. Chez had been excited about one company where the role sat slightly above her level on paper and was set to grow into a head of talent position. She understood the decision and was still disappointed, because you build relationships with people across an interview process and you start picturing the job.
And then there is knowing too much. Her recruiter brain read into slow replies and noticed when a posting was reposted mid-process. Sometimes that context helps. Sometimes it is noise that makes the waiting worse. It is easy to tell a client to go live their life. It is harder when it is your own search.
The 24-hour rule (36:27)
After the fintech rejection, Chez gave herself 24 hours to be disappointed. Then she moved it to the learning column and kept the pipeline active.
The reason is practical, not stoic. Rejection that turns personal shows up as a confidence dip in your next interview, which affects your candidacy with a company that had nothing to do with the first one. The rule keeps a hard day from becoming a hard week.
We landed on the Ted Lasso line for this: be a goldfish. Take your minute — 24 hours, ten minutes, whatever you need — then go to the next play. In volleyball or tennis you can watch an athlete get stuck on one bad point and lose the next three. Job searching does not hand you a next play, so you have to create one.
If a client walked in panicking about the market (38:31)
Chez’s first line would be: your numbers are probably normal, you just have no context for them. Half of her applications went nowhere and she still landed. That is the market, not you.
After that: know your data, keep your pipeline moving, keep your criteria clear, and be able to explain what you are looking for to the people around you.
That last part is underrated. Birthdays, baby showers, any conversation where someone asks what is new with work — that is the lowest-pressure place on earth to practice your pitch. The clearer you get, the easier it is for someone to help you. There is no shame in being between roles, and anyone who makes you feel otherwise is telling you about themselves.
Chez also leaned on her Allora team, former colleagues, her former manager and her mentor, especially when evaluating the offer. Searching alone is harder than it needs to be.
If you are still employed, this is your window (41:11)
The September to November hiring cycle has already started. If you think you might move in the next six months, the work begins now.
Q1 hiring effectively starts in Q4. Companies want to onboard in the slow stretch, when you have time to shadow, read documentation and ask questions before anything is business critical, so you are productive by January. Building your system now — while you still have leverage — beats scrambling in January when everyone else is already organized.
The strongest searches are deliberate, not desperate.
One caveat Chez was firm about: if you are so stretched at work that searching would put your current job at risk, do not do it that way. Not everyone has the bandwidth to look while employed. For anyone who does, even passively, it is one of your best advantages.
And having run the whole thing under real pressure changed how she coaches. She knows where the system holds and where people get stuck, because she got stuck there in May.
The takeaways
- Five layoffs in 10 years, none performance related. If this has happened to you more than once, you are not an outlier.
- Knowing how hiring works gives you a head start, not immunity.
- Track from day one. Without data you cannot tell a targeting problem from a bad week.
- Set criteria before you build a target list — compensation floor, work model, values check.
- Apply to some maybes on purpose. Reps and resume experiments both have value.
- Warm paths beat portals. One VC introduction produced multiple screens.
- Work in sprints two or three times a week, not all day every day.
- A fast process usually signals strong internal alignment.
- Silence is a filter problem, not a verdict.
- Give yourself 24 hours to be disappointed, then move it to the learning column.
- If you are employed and thinking about moving, build the system now. Deliberate, not desperate.
Questions people ask
What does a warm introduction actually look like in a job search?
It is usually two steps, not one. In Chez’s search, a former boss connected her to a former direct report who worked at a venture capital firm. That contact ran a short intro call about her requirements — role type, work model, industries — then took her profile back to the firm’s portfolio companies and came back with three specific options. The introduction did not produce a job directly. It produced a conversation with someone who could route her, which led to recruiter screens she would not have reached through an application portal. A warm introduction gets you a real person and a faster read. It does not skip the process.
How do I stay motivated when job applications go silent?
Separate the activity from the outcome, and track both. Chez had 18 applications that never received any response at all. What kept that from becoming a spiral was having the data in one place: she could see what the silent applications had in common, change a variable, and keep going. Treat a non-response as information about targeting rather than a judgment on your candidacy — most applications now never reach a human read. Then protect your energy by working the search in focused blocks two or three times a week instead of all day, so a quiet week costs you less.
Should I start job searching while I am still employed?
If you have the bandwidth, yes — and the September to November window is a great example of a known hiring cycle. Companies hiring for Q1 want people onboarded during the slower end of the year. Building your target list, your tracker and your network while you still have income and leverage puts you in a stronger negotiating position than starting after a layoff. The exception matters: if searching would put your current role at risk, do not put yourself in that position and seek guidance for how to do a confidential search.
Plain definitions
- Contract-to-hire: a role that starts as a fixed-term contract with the intent to convert to full-time employment. Both sides evaluate before committing, which usually speeds up the hiring process.
- Late-stage process: an interview process you have advanced through to a final panel, presentation or offer conversation, rather than one that ended at a screen.
- Take-home assignment: a work sample completed on your own time and presented back to the hiring team. If the task is real, live work for the company, it should be paid.
- Boolean or site search: a structured search string run on Google or another search engine that surfaces live job postings from applicant tracking systems and job boards, filtered by date posted, so what you see is current rather than a stale list.
- Time-blocking: scheduling specific job search tasks into set windows in your week so the search has boundaries instead of expanding to fill every day.
Watch the Full Conversation
Build your own version of this
Chez ran our system on her own search because it is the same one we build with clients — a tracker, a criteria-led target list, a networking planner, and custom searches we build for you so you are looking at live postings rather than a shortlist that goes stale.
Every 3-Month, 6-Month and 12-Month Allora Coaching Plan includes the full Allora Tools folder and Tools Guide, the Allora Interview Playbook and the Allora Networking Playbook, access to all Allora coaches, and the option to add hours at any time. Coworking sessions, where a coach works alongside you on applications or target companies in real time, use your plan hours — a lot of clients are choosing to spend them that way right now.
If you want a plan built around your search rather than a template, book a free consultation. It is a real conversation, not a sales call. Sometimes we start right away, sometimes we suggest six months from now, and sometimes we just give you the advice and send you on your way.
Read the full numbers in Chez’s original post, “Offer Accepted: What 8 Weeks and 38 Applications Taught Me About the 2026 Tech Job Market.”
