1,098 applications. 9 interviews. 762 rejections. Welcome to the job market
A chart posted on Reddit’s r/recruitinghell shared a Sankey diagram showing 1,098 applications submitted over the past year by someone with four years of experience and a bachelor’s degree. Of those, 762 ended in rejection. Another 336 received no response at all. Nine led to interviews.
Nine out of 1,098. A 0.8% interview rate.
The original poster’s caption: “Absolute hell.”
What Reddit said
Several commenters shared their own numbers, and the chart stopped looking like an outlier almost immediately.
One person with 15 years of experience and a bachelor’s degree described 200 applications, three interviews (two of which ended in final-round rejections), 120 rejections, and the rest receiving no reply. They were waiting on the third interview result the following day.
Another with 10 years of experience and a master’s degree reported 1,000 applications, 20 interviews, and one job offer at the lowest pay of their career.
The emotional aspect of the thread was captured by two comments that appeared back to back. The first: “I just got another ‘thank you’ update on my application. Who the [expletive] is out there rejecting candidates on a Sunday afternoon?” The second, from the same person elaborating: “I’m just trying to reach a point where I can joke about it. It hurts a bit less when you’ve spent time to make sure you send a perfect application for an amazing opportunity and then get rejected on a Sunday afternoon.”
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For job seekers who have been told to apply more, network harder, tailor every resume, and stay positive — this chart is the honest accounting of what that advice actually produces in the current market. It is not evidence of individual failure. It is a picture of a system that is processing human effort and returning almost nothing.
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