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Your college job search needs a filter: the Door Score for deciding which openings get your night

Ricky Chan • Oct 9, 2026 • 7 min read

Your college job search needs a filter: the Door Score for deciding which openings get your night

It's 11 p.m., you have a problem set due Thursday, and you've just sent your fourteenth application of the week into a college job board that has never once written back. You feel busy. You aren't getting anywhere.

This post is for that exact week. It gives you a four-question score to run on every opening before you spend an hour on it.

Why college applications go quiet

Most students blame the resume. Sometimes that's right, but the more common cause sits earlier: you're picking the wrong openings.

You search where searching is easiest, and so does every other student. A listing there can be weeks old, already filled, or kept up by a company just to collect resumes. The board shows you the listing, not whether anyone is reading what comes in.

There's a second problem. Many students search by degree name ("communications jobs") instead of by what they can prove. A hiring manager skims for three or four specific duties and checks whether you've done any of them. A degree title doesn't answer that.

So you spread high effort over low-odds targets. Tailoring harder won't fix it. Choosing better will.

The Door Score: four questions, 12 points

Score every opening before you write a word. Each question gets 0 to 3.

Live: is this door actually open?

  • 0: It's only on a job board, with no date or a date older than 30 days.
  • 1: It's on a board and posted within 30 days, but you can't find it elsewhere.
  • 2: It's also on the company's own careers page.
  • 3: It's on the company page, posted within 14 days, and a named person or team is attached.

Proof: can you show the work?

Copy the top five requirements from the posting. Count the ones you can back with something you've done: a class project, a club role, a job, a link.

  • 0: none. 1: one or two. 2: three. 3: four or five, with at least one you can link to.

Reach: can a human see you before the software does?

  • 0: no one. 1: a generic careers inbox. 2: an alum or a staff member you could message today. 3: someone you've already spoken with who would answer.

Cost: what will this application take?

  • 0: over 90 minutes. 1: 60 to 90. 2: 30 to 60. 3: under 30, because you already have a base letter and resume that need only small edits.

The decision rule

  • 9 or more: apply this week.
  • 6 to 8: apply only if you can lift Reach to 2 with a 15-minute message. Otherwise, park it.
  • Under 6: drop it. No guilt.

Cap yourself at six applications a week. Without the cap, the score becomes a way to justify sending everything.

Reach moves the score faster than anything else, and it's the cheapest to change. A two-sentence message to an alum often does more than an extra hour of tailoring.

The weekly plan: about six and a half hours

Score each one. Write the score next to it in a spreadsheet. Send Reach messages for the 6-to-8 group in the first ten minutes of a session.

  • Friday, 20 minutes: Follow up on anything sent more than five days ago. Log replies, silence, and rejections.

Keep one column for "why I scored it that way." Two weeks in, you'll see which of your four scores keeps being wrong.

A worked example: a senior with six and a half hours

Say you're a communications major in your last year, working part-time.

You score them. Four land at 9 or above, five land between 6 and 8, and seven land under 6. Those seven are mostly on one board only, undated, and you can show just one of the five requirements.

Of the five middle ones, you message alumni at three companies. Two reply within a day, which lifts those listings to a Reach of 2 and pushes them to 9. The third stays at 7, and you park it.

Now you have six to apply to. At about 40 minutes each, that's 240 minutes. Add 90 on Sunday, 30 for messages, and 20 on Friday, and you land at 380, about six and a half hours.

Compare that with the old week: fourteen applications, most scoring under 6, none with a human attached.

I can't promise replies. After two weeks, though, you'll know whether the problem is picking, proof, or something else.

Where a tool can take the heavy part

Scoring by hand works, but checking Live is the slow part. GoDotWebs runs many searches against your profile, matches the results, checks that each opportunity is still live, and coaches you on the matches. You review them and send the applications yourself (https://godotwebs.com).

When this score stops helping

Some situations don't fit.

  • Structured campus recruiting. Investment banking, consulting, and some big-company rotational programs run on fixed fall deadlines through your career office. There, the calendar matters more than Reach and Live. Put those dates in first and use the Door Score for everything else.
  • Licensure or placement paths. Nursing, teaching, and clinical programs usually place you through a defined process. Scoring openings won't beat that process.
  • Fewer than three hours a week. The Sunday scoring session alone eats a third of it. Drop to eight listings and a cap of three applications.
  • Interviews but no offers. If you're already getting calls, your problem is the conversation, not the pile. Spend the time on practice.
  • Tiny local markets. If only four openings exist in your field and city, scoring won't create a fifth.

Do this before you sleep tonight

Open the last five applications you sent. Give each one a Live score from 0 to 3, using only the rule above. It takes about ten minutes, and it will tell you whether your problem is the resume or the pile.

Sources

About the author

Ricky Chan coaches job seekers and students on search strategy and writes for the GoDotWebs team. Questions and corrections go to info@godotwebs.com.

Last updated: 9 October 2026.

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