The fact that there's often thousands of applicants for one job is exactly what companies and recruiters want. This system shifts all the power to them, and they're perfectly happy with it. No amount of technical fixes will change this, or if it's even necessary.

- HR's task is NOT with maximizing results/IC output

- HR's task is minimizing corporate risk

HR is, in most corporate environments, doing exactly what it is intended to do (minimize risk)!

Hiring anybody, from an org's perspective, is insanely risky for a million different reasons. Therefore, there are a million different (valid and invalid) reasons to reject a candidate - which is what overwhelmingly happens, unless HR is sidestepped via referrals and networking.

This gave me a chuckle, because a colleague who talked with HRs just told me exactly this last week.

Hiring is a process with many different motives. Like:

- Signaling company growth

- Appeasing overworked employees that something is being done

- Signaling that you or your team is important by gatekeepimg the role

- Signaling that you are important by participating or contributing to the hiring process

- Endlessly window shopping candidates simply because finding the perfect one is fun

There's a simple fact that if no one is pressuring hiring to pick someone sooner, there is simply no motivation to. And hiring is everyone involved. Managers, engineers, c suite, anyone with a veto in the process of a candidate. A single kink in the pipe can drag on the process forever. Even if engineering is slammed, if the recruiter screen or even the final CEO interview doesn't interalize that, the process is borked.

Now the real question is where are the hiring platforms that optimize for these weird motivation. I bet a platform where you swipe candidates for fun and encourage the whole team bikeshed screener quizzes would do gangbusters. Straight up make it a company tinder where unless recruiting, engineer, and CEO all swipe right on a candidate its a match! (Barf)