Principle 01
A human reads every serious application.
If a candidate clears a baseline, a person sees them. No black-box rejection. No silence.
An interactive visualization
Millions of people are looking for jobs.
Millions of jobs are open.Why can't they find each other?
0.0M
U.S. unemployed
0.0M
U.S. job openings
0.0
Median weeks unemployed
As of Feb 2026 · Sources: BLS Employment Situation · BLS JOLTS · FRED UEMPMED
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Act II — The Reaching
This is what hiring looks like from orbit.
Lines try to form. A few connect, briefly, and fade. The rest never reach the other side.
Act III — The Layers Appear
Between every candidate and every job, there are layers.
Each one was sold as a solution. Together they form the black box. Toggle them off to see what hiring could look like without them.
Legend
- Candidateperson searching
- Open jobcolor = field
Modeled match rate
<0.1%
Each layer compounds on the previous — removing ATS has a bigger effect than removing ghost-job postings.
Modeled from a multiplicative funnel using effect sizes from HBS, NBER, Greenhouse, Korn Ferry, and Clarify Capital. See each layer for source.
Act IV — Faces Behind the Numbers
Each light is a person.
Twenty-eight years shipping production systems. Two years searching. Recruiters say he’s “overqualified.” He knows what they mean.
Left teaching for software. Built three apps, finished a bootcamp, contributes to open source. The ATS keeps rejecting her: no “relevant” experience.
Six-year gap to raise a son with special needs. Her cover letter explains it. The screen never gets that far.
Senior staff at a top firm in his home country. Here, his degree “doesn’t equate.” He drives for a rideshare app while applying nights.
They are not edge cases. They are the median.
Act V — The Cost
Humanity has been outsourced to the layers.
The numbers below are conservative. Each one is a downstream effect of a system that no single party designed, but everyone now defends.
Every résumé. Every dollar. Every day below — pulled in.
0+
Average applications a corporate role now receives
Korn Ferry / LinkedIn data, 2024 (apps up ~45% YoY).Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (Employment Situation, JOLTS), FRED, AARP Research, MyPerfectResume, Korn Ferry / LinkedIn. Most recent public release at time of writing.
Act VI — The Manifesto
10 principles to put humanity back into hiring.
Not a platform. Not a product. A standard. Adopt them inside your company. Demand them from the ones you apply to.
Principle 02
Ban fake and evergreen listings.
Every posted role is a real, funded, open req. If it’s not, take it down.
Principle 03
No algorithmic age, gender, or name filters — ever.
Identity-correlated features have no place in the screen. Audit the models. Publish the audit.
Principle 04
Domain experts screen, not generalist HR.
The first human to read a senior engineer’s résumé should be a senior engineer.
Principle 05
Transparent rejection with a reason.
Every rejection comes with a sentence. Not a template. The candidate gave their time — give them yours.
Principle 06
Direct candidate ↔ hiring-manager channels.
Once a candidate is in the door, they can talk to the person who will hire them. Not a gauntlet of intermediaries.
Principle 07
Salary transparency.
Every listing shows the real pay band. No “competitive.” No “DOE.” If you can’t say the number, you don’t know the role.
Principle 08
No ghosting. Ever.
A response is owed within a stated window. Silence is a policy failure, not a default.
Principle 09
One application. Not a résumé and a 40-field form.
If you have the résumé, parse it. Stop asking candidates to retype their lives into your portal. Solve this.
Principle 10
“Overqualified” is not a reason.
If someone applied, they want the job. Ask why before you assume. Their reason is none of your guesswork.
Act VII — Add Your Voice
What’s missing? What did the layers do to you? What would fix it?
Every approved contribution becomes a new light on the globe at the top of this page. The wall is at /voices.