Comparing career prospects across fields in Applied Math
I work in inverse problems, more or less a field of applied mathematics.


Conference plenary talks are prestigious.
People are invited to also give other talks. This might carry some prestige, but I am not really sure.
People give contributed talks. This gives little prestige, but is a good idea for other reasons. Typically, for small conferences, all or most contributed talks are accepted, though it might be different in larger conferences.


The thing to learn is that conference talks are of minor importance. Publications in journals count far more. This depends on academic field.