What Are the Most Competitive Companies to Apply for in 2024?

Competition for high-paying jobs has become fierce, with more applicants trying for fewer six-figure roles. But shop around and there are firms who receive less than one application per day for each vacancy. Career.io has identified the companies with the most and fewest applicants per high-paying role.

Job applicants are now twice as likely to apply for more than ten jobs per month than they were 40 years ago. And while the hiring rate for lower-paying jobs remains above pre-pandemic levels, the rate for six-figure roles is the lowest in ten years — and less than half its mid-2022 peak. With fewer high-paying jobs and more applicants, competition for the big bucks is getting fierce.

If you’d rather spend your energy earning what you’re worth than filling endless forms to get there, it’s worth playing smart with your job hunt. Certain high-paying employers attract significantly fewer applicants per job than others — giving you a better shot at a role that’s rewarding in every sense.

Following their guide to the least competitive regions for highly paid jobs in America, Career.io now presents their ranking of the employers currently offering high-paying roles that receive the most and fewest applicants to help you land the job you’ve been looking for.

Methodology Behind Study

Highly paid jobs were defined as jobs with a salary more than double the median for that Metro Area (MSA). If the job was labeled as remote, Career.io took double the median yearly salary for an American.

To start, the Career.io team built a seed list of major employers across the U.S., including the top banking, retail, restaurant, energy, clothing, and big tech companies by market cap.

Next, they retrieved job listings for all these companies posted on LinkedIn in March 2024, recording the salaries and days the listings had been live.

After filtering out job listings that were below double the median salary for the job location (Metro Area), the team calculated the average number of daily applicants per high-paid job for each company.