One job, nearly 400 applicants: Hiring manager says hiring process is ‘literally impossible’

A post on Reddit’s r/recruitinghell from a hiring manager who has also been laid off three times in five years has offered something relatively rare in job market discussions: an honest account of what the process looks like from the other side, and why it is breaking down just as badly there as it is for applicants.

In under a week, they shared that they received almost 400 applications for a single associate-level software support role at a small tech company. They had one opening. One person needed. The applicant pool included people with six-month-plus employment gaps, candidates with multiple master’s degrees, and at least one chemical engineering PhD.

“They all deserve better,” the hiring manager wrote.

They said they try to review resumes properly without AI assistance and respond to rejections in a timely way, but acknowledged that as a one-person operation managing a small team, it is “literally impossible.”

They also noted that some reactions to rejection emails have been “wild,” with people responding in ways that reflect genuine desperation.

“The market is so damn god awful on both sides of the aisle. I can’t see how this can go on without something changing.”

What Reddit said

The thread responded with appreciation and solidarity in roughly equal measure.

“Thank you for having empathy. You are truly appreciated for that,” one commenter wrote.

Another connected the hiring manager’s experience to the recent incidents of candidate mistreatment: “What isn’t helping is that many people are having bad experiences with companies. Companies are lacking basic respect and care for candidates’ time. Honestly, outright exploiting candidates in some cases.”

One commenter offered a different, but very important perspective: “What scares me most is that some of these people will eventually stop believing in the system. Something they were once part of, something they helped create, but now that very system has abandoned them, rejected them, squeezed them of every last drop and more. It is one thing to lose a job to AI, but then to be screened out by AI repeatedly only breeds a new kind of resentment.”

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