Rachel Barber

speaker

271 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 21 Aug

Rachel Barber’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.

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The Excerpt · The job market says hiring is robust. Job seekers disagree. · 21 Aug 2026 podcast

That's not necessarily an easy fix.

But for applicants, the career experts that I spoke to for this story suggest that they do narrow their search.

So instead of submitting 500 applications where you're taking five minutes on each, perhaps spend 40.

Minutes, really thoroughly answering interview questions, tailoring your resume or cover letter to a position that you really want.

that approach can make a lot of sense at sort of a high level, but it doesn't guarantee that the candidate is going to find a job.

Um so many job seekers want to sort of just test out the other approach and they're submitting as many applications as possible, sort of throwing them at the wall to see what sticks.

And I don't think you can necessarily blame them for that.

One of the job seekers that I spoke with describes it as an automation arms race.

So we have applicants increasingly using AI to tailor their resumes or their cover letters for an application.

And then employers increasingly using AI or application uh tracking systems or applicant tracking systems to filter and rank those applications.

So we've got automation on both sides right now.

And so as a result, we have

Applicant tracking systems that are scanning potentially AI-generated resumes for specific keywords or phrases.

And if you're submitting a resume that maybe you wrote yourself, that you didn't have an AI review for keywords or phrases from the job description, then you may never

sort of reach the level where a human is actually reviewing what you submitted.

I spoke with one career expert who saw that a company she was sort of working with or at least talking to, that they had rejected several qualified applicants just based on where a comma was placed in their search criteria.

And so you have to consider that

These applicant tracking systems may be sort of either flagging your resume because you said the magic phrase, or maybe they're putting it sort of in the bin because you didn't.

Job seekers are well aware of this.

Only 10% of job seekers believe that most of their resumes are actually being reviewed by a human, and that's according to another survey that I cite in the story.

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