is that it is preventing you from finding one now

One of the areas in which the use of AI has had the greatest impact has been in the ATS automatic filtering systems of candidates (Applicant Tracking System) of the personnel selection processes, and in general throughout the process including interviews.

When AI began to be integrated into these processes, it was done thinking that this technology would streamline screening and selection of the best candidates. However, the use of this technology has led to the collapse of the entire process: neither those selected are the most suitable, nor should those discarded be. As technology journalist Tim Rogers laments in an article published in Slate: the hiring system “is broken.”

Sending resume is a waste of time. Rogers said that looking for a job is no longer just a matter of updating your resume and sending it to companies looking to fill their vacancies: automatic systems and artificial intelligence have created an invisible wall that makes it even more difficult to get a real opportunity.

The problem is that ATS systems, which in theory should make the selection of candidates easier, now filter and discard hundreds of resumes with rules so strict that many candidates never get to be reviewed by a real person and, therefore, a factor that many CEOs of large companies are missing they are claiming as priorities: attitude and commitment.

A system blocked by saturation. According to data According to the World Economic Forum, 80% of companies use some AI system in their recruitment processes. The direct consequence of this automation, which occurs both from the human resources departments and from the candidates themselves, is the saturation of applications and the opposite effect that was expected to be obtained: the selection processes are becoming increasingly longer and recruiters can’t cope to review so many profiles.

According to report figures ‘Huntr Q2 2025’, the average time elapsed from the beginning of a job search to receiving the first offer has increased by 22% in just three months, going from 56 days to 68.5 days. The data indicates that the main employment platforms, such as LinkedIn or Indeed, concentrate around 80% of the applications and, even so, their response rate is around 3.3%, which shows that the vast majority of applications do not even manage to attract the attention of a human recruiter.

AI plays both sides. Faced with the use of AI in their application filtering systems by recruitment platforms, job seekers have not stood idly by and have also They have used AI to optimize your requests.

So they told it from Manfred, who published on their blog that, until recently, they received between 20 and 50 applications for each vacancy they opened. Currently, the same job posting can return 500 applications in the first 24 hours, with most of them generated by AI. As they point out, this avalanche of requests is not due to the fact that there has suddenly been a fivefold increase the talent availableit has only been automated.

You hire a profile, not a person. Rogers lamented that automated candidate filtering left out of the process profiles that, in human hands, could be a perfect fit and provide value. “Quality is lost among thousands of documents generated by machines,” the journalist wrote. “We are sold the idea that AI can fix the mess it has created,” warning that this strategy only intensifies the problem and further triggers the digital noise that makes it difficult to really be seen by an employer.

Amid frustration over the lack of human treatment, the journalist maintains that “in-person contact continues to be the most effective way to get an interview. The few opportunities I have gotten did not come from algorithms, but from people,” a literal statement based on his own experience.

The data proves him right. According to the data collected According to the INE in the 2nd quarter of 2023, 57.5% of people search for employment through their network of contacts. According to Eurostat data As of 2020, Spain does so in 72.6% of cases and Italy in 77.5%. Our neighbors in France use their network of contacts in 63.5% of cases and Portugal in 65.7%.

An infinite circle that leads nowhere. Rogers points out that the reliance on AI-automated processes has led to a vicious cycle where “machines write resumes and other machines evaluate them,” reducing the job search to a kind of profile puzzle in which the best fit does not necessarily have to be the most suitable for the position or the team with which you will work.

The last experiences with hiring of this type have shown that one of the few reliable avenues for recruitment remains the face to face interview between the candidate and the recruiters. In fact, companies like Google and Amazon are already demanding that their new candidates have a face to face interview to prevent AI distort real capabilities of the candidates.

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Image | Unsplash (charlesdeluvio, Emiliano Vittoriosi)