The reality is that the vast majority of startup hires are referrals. For hiring managers, having someone you trust tell you that they've worked with a candidate and vouch for them is invaluable, especially when the company is at a stage that you don't have good performance oversight. The cost of a bad hire is immense.
My advice: never do a cold application. Find ways to hustle to get a warm intro.
This is likely what's going on. Public pools are often the very last stop on the search for candidates. The precedence is almost always
1) internal hires (obviously not as possible at a start-up)
2) referrals
3) direct engagement from a recruiter
4) talent pools curated by online services like LinkedIn or Indeed
5) forum pools, like those here in HN
6) applications from the Careers page
Almost all my jobs have come from referrals or directly from recruiters. I've gotten calls back from four-and-beyond, but have never made it through the process, despite being overqualified in those cases. On the flipside, I've been underqualified for jobs I got via referral. The power of having someone inside can't be overstated.
I also think people don't appreciate the sheer volume of online applications that a desirable startup gets. There have been times were I would literally get hundreds of applications per week, with none of them standing out in any way. You want to give unknowns a chance but when it's a waste of time 99% of the time, you learn to reject quickly.
Then why even play make-believe and have public job postings? If everyone's just ignoring them, most companies should just take them down and stop wasting everyone else's time. Just state for real on your web site "We hire through nepostism and friends-of-friends only" and make it clear and easy for everyone.
Desirable? Every employer is being flooded with applications.
You could list perks of employment as a four-hour commute (one-way), a liberal bring-rabid-dog-to-work policy (mandatory; if you don't have a dog with rabies, one will be provided), and a salary that can best be described as "rounding error", and you'd still get 100 applicants.
Now that I think about it, I never once got a job from a cold application. It was always on either an employee recommendation or having met a family member.
Yeah ok sure, this is common sense. But then what's really the point of advertising open positions? The only certain result for companies who do this, is they'll be inundated with pointless random candidacies...?
This is not what I would consider a warm intro. I mean that someone within the company or who is a friend of friend of someone in the company can vouch for the candidate, or has some specific reason for referring (like a project they were impressed by).
My advice: never do a cold application. Find ways to hustle to get a warm intro.