#application-ghosting

#application-ghosting

Icelandair wants to find a terrible amateur photographer, someone with no professional training or experience—and no real interest in gaining any of those skills.

Estefania Angel noticed that while her company helped other enterprises set up AI, it did not use those systems internally. She began using AI apps in Slack, Outlook, and Google to track assignments, which garnered attention from her superiors.

Headhunters? More like breadhunters: On top of career coaching and résumé building, reverse-recruiting agencies often take the keys and apply to dozens of jobs on an applicant's behalf. In exchange, these startups can charge monthly fees north of $1,000 and/or take a cut of their clients' salaries once they find a job, per WSJ. A conventional recruiter told WSJ that he's somewhat uneasy about people handing reverse recruiters their LinkedIn or Workday logins, as well as the idea of charging job seekers.

Over the past few years, while applying for security and risk-related roles, I noticed a pattern that surprised me: many background screening vendors only asked for a few years of employment history, minimal address information, minimal educational verification, and returned results within one or two days. In contrast, I also noticed that industries with higher regulatory standards, such as finance and transportation, conduct far deeper checks that can span from weeks to months.

"I spoke to one gentleman who, I think he wanted to be very prepared for the call," Nibler said, "but he was, you know, fresh from the shower, with his hair still dripping wet, his shirt was open."

She learned that experts across fields-from physics and finance to healthcare and law-were now being paid to help train AI models to think, reason, and problem-solve like domain specialists. She applied, was accepted, and now logs about 50 hours a week providing data for Mercor, a platform that connects AI labs with domain experts. Ruane is part of a fast-growing cohort of professionals who are shaping how AI models learn.

And beneath the official jobs data is a growing accessibility crisis. More and more job seekers are finding themselves shut out of the labor market - not because there are no jobs to be had, but because torrents of AI slop are crowding them out of consideration. Case in point: a few months back, tech publication The Markup posted an opening for an engineer role.

Hiring in 2026 won't look much like hiring even two years ago. If you don't pay attention, you will get left behind. I was a retained search consultant for 25-plus years. I've written executive and board résumés for the last 10 years. I've never seen so much change in candidate sourcing happen so quickly. CEO priorities and expectations have shifted. AI is reshaping how candidates get surfaced. Résumé sameness has skyrocketed. Candidate shortlist cycles have accelerated.