[ CYPHER CODE #761 ]
Most resumes are rejected before a human ever sees them.
[ CYPHER CODE #762 ]
Hiring software rewards keywords, not competence.
[ CYPHER CODE #763 ]
The process feels humiliating because it removes agency.
BRIEFING
Grant here. Remember the good ol' days when you could walk into a place, plop down your resume, have an interview, and hopefully secure a job all within a week? Well, sadly, those days are gone, and now searching for a job feels like running on a non-stop hamster wheel. It's not that the job hunt became harder because people got lazier or less qualified. It got tougher because the hiring system stopped being human. Let’s break it down.
There's a video of a young man who lays bare the absolute nightmare that is job hunting in 2026. He's not just frustrated for the sake of being frustrated; instead, he's basically describing the current reality. The fact is that most resumes never even reach a real, breathing, living person. They’re filtered, scored, and rejected by software trained to look for keywords, formatting patterns, and arbitrary signals that have nothing to do with whether someone can actually do the job.
SOURCE
Job searching in 2026 is a humiliation ritual. I can attest to this. pic.twitter.com/kLdhvPaEb5
— King Arthur Fan (@brandilwells) January 9, 2026
Now, the problems around job hunting have existed for a long while, perhaps as long as the internet has been a thing. But now with the rise of AI, it's making things nearly 10x as difficult.
New research from LinkedIn shows recruiters are rapidly increasing their use of AI in hiring, with 93% planning to ramp up AI tools in 2026 and many already using them to filter for candidates.
SOURCE
AI gives recruiters a competitive edge and job seekers a confidence boost
- 93% of recruiters say they plan to increase their use of AI in 2026, and 59% say it's already helping them discover candidates with skills they wouldn't have found before.
- Two-thirds of recruiters (66%) plan to increase their use of AI for pre-screening interviews in 2026, which 70% believe will help them have more valuable conversations with candidates.
- 81% of people have or say they plan to use AI in their job search and nearly half (48%) say AI tools boost their interview confidence.
DEBRIEFING
Look, job hunting has never been a walk in the park, but at least it used to be doable. You would apply, interview, and then get a yes or a no. Now, with AI layered on top of already bloated hiring systems, the process has crossed into something even colder and more alienating.
And the data really explains why the frustration feels universal. Recruiters are rapidly scaling their use of AI, not just to assist hiring, but to pre-screen, filter, and decide who even qualifies to be considered. That means the first and most important judgment about a candidate is increasingly made by software trained to recognize patterns, not people.
That’s why the entire process feels so humiliating. Not because people are weak or entitled, but because the system asks them to perform endlessly for machines. When human judgment disappears from the front end of hiring, rejection stops feeling like evaluation and starts feeling like erasure.
NOW YOU KNOW
Job hunting feels humiliating because humans were removed from the process.
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Bogus job listings which must be posted externally to satisfy legal requirements under employment law
mebbe libtards should have taken joey dolts advice and shoot a shotgun into the air…..? opps i meant go learn hvac….oops i meant learn to code…..oooops i meant grift off the system like greazy somali democrats
Even if you do get that lucky email that the recruiter wants to talk to you, better than even odds than you’ll get ghosted, or some form of age discrimination like “we’re looking for someone with less seniority”.
Who the hell wants to work for these techno-freaks anyway. To Hell with ‘em.
When I actually get a face to face interview, they see my grey hair and they can’t end the interview fast enough.
Ditto here. And when they as for that “ball park salary” … I look at them real stupid like and hit them with 2.5 to 3 X what they will pay. On the way out, I always wish them ‘good luck’.
Happened to me plenty of times. I had to move to the Middle East to get a decent job. Here, age and experience are respected, not shunned.
Everybody Needs An AGENT and an Attorney to do the Interviews, negotiate offers, terms and benefits followed by a CPA to avoid as much legal tax theft as is already imposed on a W4 “employee”. It’s WORSE for a 1009 “contractor”. All this is what makes labor hiring go under ground.
This is a story that fits one of my sons.
Former military and a degreed aerospace engineer.
So he walks into the electrical union, takes the test, gets accepted into the trade, starts a crappy job making OK money. Then 8 months later a little better job and better money. In 4 years he’ll be making the same money as he would have in engineering … but no one hires male, American engineers … so he builds things and has little stress.