A case against numbers game
The numbers game is outdated—we shouldn't be advising people to play the numbers game
I’d like to propose an argument. The world doesn’t run on a numbers game. It might have been in the past. It doesn’t anymore. The arena has morphed so indefinitely that it couldn’t be operated and navigated like it’s a numbers game.
Let me first elaborate on what I mean by “a numbers game”. Picture this: you’re on a search—be it for a partner, a job opportunity, or what have you—and people keep telling you what you need to do is to play the numbers game. Go out on more dates. Send more applications. This is the gruelling part. At the end of the day, you only need one yes. And then there’s a recounting of a success story: “I sent 70 applications to get that one call back. Just keep trying.”
It’s encouraging for a time. And I appreciate it as a form of encouragement—I’ve been a grateful recipient of this many times. But I’d argue that as a framework, it’s becoming increasingly useless. In today’s world, if you play the numbers game, the odds of success are incredibly low that it’s a game not worth playing anymore—unless you intend to play with the full awareness that the game is already rigged.
In that case, you’re entering the job market, the dating market, or any market for that matter, like you’re entering the casino: you’re playing it like a slot machine. There’s no guarantee you’ll hit the jackpot. So, you walk in with the hope—not the expectation—of winning. These are two different modes, separated by the degrees of wanting.
But the need to make a living, to find a partner one can build a life with, dare I say, shouldn’t be a “jackpot”. They should be attainable wins. And for these needs not to be that in the state of the world we are in is deeply problematic.
This is nonsense, I thought to myself. A classmate was recounting how his friend sent over 500 applications to land a job. That figure is only possible because the friend used AI’s assistance. I, for one, can’t imagine writing 500 cover letters manually, always slightly tweaking the next one as I go, only to realise that the odds of success have now changed from 1:500 to 1:1000.
That’s the thing with the state of today’s numbers game: it’s infinite. The number will only go up over time. And as the benchmark number rises, each submission being sent out will be easier to dismiss. And if that’s the case, what’s the point of painstakingly writing your own applications? Just automate.
Do you see how the numbers game is a vicious cycle at this point? Do you still think it’s a wise piece of advice?
The issue is, the numbers game is offered as a resolution to those who are most at the mercy of the numbers game. In the case of the job market, it’s those entering it for the first time. The people in this cohort are less likely to have someone opening the door for them, to vouch for them, or to help them with warm introductions. So, it’s a strategy this group of job seekers need to learn to hyper-optimise.
The recruiters are noticing.
Oddly, there’s a sense of reassurance that comes from knowing the change is as bewildering to me as it is for those doing the hiring. I was sitting in for a talk on AI at the British Academy some months back, and one of the panellists was sharing about the time her institution was opening a small post for a research assistant. She received 120 applications, an unusually large number for such a role.
“There’s something odd about this,” she told her colleague. “They keep explaining what their journey was. I don’t remember asking anything about people’s journeys. That’s strange.” It turned out that was what ChatGPT was telling people to write at the time.
But even this stood out as a deviating scenario—an employer actually reading applications?
You’ve probably heard it by now: the state of the job market today is of employers creating job postings with AI, to collect applications written by AI, which will then be parsed through by AI. Here lies a new system of governance: of AI, by AI, for AI.
This brings me back to the point I wanted to make. Maybe we should stop playing this like it’s a numbers game. We’d probably lose out if we approach it like it’s a numbers game. The more we treat it as such, the more the field is spoiled.
Do we then just stop the search? Of course, not. I’m not advocating for despair. But I’d like to spend some time delving into this notion of the numbers game, if you allow me. It’s the whole point of this project, digital field notes—to inquire into taken-for-granted assumptions.
What does the numbers game do? Why is it so persuasive? What kind of world does it represent?
One can’t make a case against the numbers game without fully acknowledging its place in the world.
The numbers game, in the way it’s being used, is an instrument of hope. We use it because we are hopeful, or we want to be hopeful. It’s a bridge between the present and the future—one that makes the former bearable, and the latter worth anticipating. What I mean is, if you believe what separates you from the next big thing is five applications away, you’d likely put your head down and just focus on the work.
If anything, “the numbers game” comes from an inclination to see the world as orderly and just—that if we do enough, something will come our way; that if we do enough, our chances get better. That’s why we call it a game. To imagine something as a game means we assume there are rules providing guidance and parameters to our actions.
In that sense, it’s a comforting narrative to indulge in: believing that all you need to do is to do more. Repetition, to an extent, is easy. It’s about building momentum and doing whatever you can to keep that momentum going. The path is more clear-cut in a world that runs on a numbers game. That is to say, it’s a narrative I’d happily take up at perhaps a different time. But repetition has its limit. We shouldn’t be on a quest to extend that limit.
Perhaps that framework is so persuasive because it says something we’d like to believe about our own sense of agency: we want to believe that our actions are consequential; that they matter; that we’re continuously building on top of the last thing we send out, not starting from square one on every new pursuit. But it’s becoming difficult to defend that framework in the few instances where the numbers game are most in use.
A call to abandon the numbers game is not a call to stop trying. It’s a call to try differently. To try different things. To do the work of inquiring into how our agencies would stand uniquely in a world where all the boring routes—routes that used to provide equal opportunities to social and economic mobility—have been overtaken by machine-generated output.
There is room to imagine differently. But first we must put this numbers game to rest.
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Brilliant. Your point about the numbers game being riged is so true. What's the optimal algorithm to navigate a fixed system then?