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What follows is Chapter 49 in A Career Breakdown Kit (Summer 2026) . It's like many other chapters in that I've tried to make it stand alone, yet it's deeply connected to the rest of the book. For example, if you accept your job search is equivalent to launching a product to market - where you are the product and your next employer the buyer - then a sensible strategy is also equivalent. You execute an appropriate multichannel sales and marketing plan, where you focus on the steps in your control, with considered action and follow up. An interview process is an ongoing negotiation, with each interview equivalent to a consultative sales meeting. And like any good sales professional, you know that the steps preceding, the steps in-between, and the steps after all have a part to play. In my last three offers these have all been contributing factors: The relationship nurtured by the hiring manager led to their new employee hitting the ground running The private information withheld by the candidate that led to an offer rescinded because she could never have fulfilled the role in the first place The enthusiasm shown by a candidate in post interview communications tipped a decision in their favour Recruitment is risk, filled with bias - that doesn't mean you can't make that work for you. 49 - After the interview In a tough job search, getting to an interview can feel a real achievement. If you’ve been accountable in your applications, only going for roles where you are a strong fit, these are tangible opportunities to secure employment. The interview itself isn’t the be-all and end-all. It’s better to see them as the start of a conversation, one that’s only complete when you either have an acceptable employment contract in your hand, or if it’s an unequivocal no. Continuing this conversation in the right way, and in ways other candidates may not think to, can bring hoped for and unexpected gains. A few weeks back I filled a vacancy which had a strong shortlist. The final three were all employable, and the company would have taken all three had they been able to. The second choice candidate was disappointed and took it well, responding professionally. I worked hard to give all three a good experience with regular updates and constructive feedback. I too was genuinely disappointed for the ‘unsuccessful’ candidates. Two weeks after accepting the offer and returning the signed contract, the first-choice candidate withdrew. She’d received a significantly improved offer having been headhunted. Within two hours of passing the news on to the hiring team, the 2nd choice candidate was offered the role and accepted. How she had responded to her initial disappointment was a key element in this offer being put forward. The same was true of her experience with us in her decision to accept the offer. In many ways an interview is like a sales meeting. One party pitches their offering which might be customised against the questions asked. The other party makes a decision on whether and how to proceed. In an interview both the candidate and employer act as both seller and buyer. As a job seeker you get the final say on whether you say yes, no or something in between. Your decision is influenced by factors you may not divulge to the employer, such as an unexpected intervention (illness, accident, family), personal circumstances or other offers that may come up. It’s the same for the employer. They may have a hierarchy of decision-making, changes in the business and changes outside of the business - many things that can influence an interview decision or time frame, different from what was initially agreed. In sales we know that a deal isn’t agreed upon until the invoice is paid. Even if there is an initial ‘yes’ in a meeting we follow up suitably. Follow-up email to confirm details of the conversation and next steps. Thank you for your time Follow up at the appropriate time to check progress If it’s ‘no right now’, follow up over time to build a relationship until they are ready to buy If it’s ‘no answer’, find appropriate reasons to follow up, ending in a breakup email What this actually looks relates to what their sales (hiring) process is, playing to their rules and breaking those same rules in an appropriate way. In the UK, 61% of private sector employers are SMEs, whereas the vast majority of money is in the corporate space. The differentiator in recruitment is that the more corporate you get, the more transactional and matrix-led recruitment often becomes. Some of the rules of the game will be different. This illustrates how and why things are different depending on the context. Public sector, charities, geography, bias, habit, strategy - these all affect the rules of what appear similar processes from the outside. It’s important not to be cynical or come across as coercive. Respect the process and any rules you learn about. Thank you notes Most of the employers I partner with are interested in candidate feedback and interest post-interview - to help them reach their decision for the right reason. Were you applying directly, their interest in your view would be the same. A naturally written thank you note sent appropriately should not work against you. It might work for you and it’s a situation where someone’s bias can be a benefit. ‘Dear Greg, I wanted to thank you for your time today and the opportunity to interview at ABC Corp. It was a pleasure to meet you and Gary and helpful to understand more about your role and environment. I remain keen and would be delighted to return for the next stage. You mentioned you’ll make a decision by the end of next week and I look forward to hearing from you. Do let me know if I can help with anything - my number is …. Kind regards,’ It’s an opportunity to build on or mitigate inconclusive points in an interview if there’s an example you neglected to share or if you didn’t convey information in the right way. Maybe they let slip they’d be concerned if the role would keep your interest in the long term - why not own this? ‘During the interview you asked if I could see myself in this role long-term. It’s a role I’d enjoy - taking on a hands-on role I can get stuck into is an exciting challenge, while my experience in xxx would be beneficial for yyy.’ Keep it more succinct than my email though. Write it in your own words in a similar tone to how you came across in the interview. Will it make a difference? Only marginally, in some situations. Is it worth doing as a natural way to continue the conversation? I think so. Don’t be disheartened if you don’t get a reply - they may have a policy to follow. And to that coercive point above don’t say ‘I’m the best candidate. You’d be a fool to miss out,’ or something more subtle that might suggest the same. Additional interviews In an ideal world you’d get a full view of the interview process before the interview. Unfortunately some employers enjoy playing a game of interview chicken, revealing more and more interview stages as you go through them. Most are somewhere in between. Try to establish the full process as early as possible in case there is anything that is non-negotiable for you. For example, I know some people categorically do not want to do technical tests or ‘business plan’ style presentations, having had their fingers burnt in the past. It’s your choice what might be a non-negotiable - for any reasonable employer these are typically used as a means for fair assessment. Treat any interview in the same way as the first interview: prepare as fully as possible and assume nothing. Unless you know their hierarchy of decision-making, that new person you meet at fourth stage for an informal chat might well be the person with the final say. Even a social get-together after an offer is put forward might be seen as an assessment. Appropriate follow-ups It’s a careful balance. You want to show you are interested, not desperate. You need an answer, not to be inappropriately intrusive - even if that’s not your intent perception holds weight. Following up in the right way is a good tactic. If you can gain an understanding of their time frames or process work to that. Anything and everything can happen behind the scenes, including unexpected absences. Things can slip in a way employers may not see as notable. A few work days after you were expecting to hear, drop them a polite line. ‘Hi Greg, I wondered if you had any news on how you want to proceed with this role. Is there any update you can share? Kind regards,’ You can play a bit of keeping up with the Joneses if it’s true - ‘I remain interested - I do have two interviews this week with other employers. Would you like me to keep you updated?’ Sometimes no news is no news and you might need to be patient. Eventually you may come to a point where you need a decision from them - such as if your 2nd choice company gives you a job offer. A breakup email can be a good thing. Even if this doesn’t prompt an update or decision from them, you give yourself agency to walk away with no ‘what ifs?’ And if they do come back later, you can make a separate decision on whether to revisit them. One such email might be: ‘Hi Greg, I enjoyed our interview on May 21st. You mentioned you’d reach a decision the following week. Can I assume you have moved forward with another candidate? I’ll draw a line through my application for now and will be happy to pick up our conversations at a later date, if appropriate. Kind regards,’ Written appropriately, there are three outcomes: You get a reply confirming they have appointed You get no reply and can move on You get a reply with more information That last point may be ‘no news’ or something actionable. Sometimes it might even prompt good news. Whatever the outcome, you can move forward. Keeping in touch long-term Sometimes a no might be a ‘no for now’, especially when you are later on in the process, such as being pipped to the post at final interview. If yours is a business as usual role where there are a number of employees fulfilling similar duties in the same company, you may well be suitable for other roles that come up in future. How can you keep in touch appropriately so that you help their decision making when another vacancy comes up? Find reasons to occasionally keep in touch (maybe once every couple of months). If they are active on LinkedIn you could follow their content and add constructive comments. It may come to nothing but it may give you early sight of a new vacancy. If you see another vacancy advertised check it out. Drop them a line directly rather than just apply given you are continuing a conversation rather than coming in cold. And if they reply to say ‘don’t bother’, at least you know. 

I'm doing a lot of networking at the moment, both in setting up conversations and in agreeing to have conversations. My goal typically is to plant the seed for a relationship where we might be able to help each other at some point in the future. That help might be sharing knowledge, helping directly in business, making a recommendation, or even just sharing a load. Of course it's a little easier when we already know each other. Then there is already an element of trust, and we have a reputation with each other. I also know that new conversations are just as important, and it takes more work to build those points above too. Though I have found that sometimes when people ask for calls with me, they have a clear if hidden agenda - they want to see how I can help them. And they seem disappointed when I don't have anything for them. Seems like they aren't interested in a relationship after all, just what a relationship might give them. Two types of networking, where one isn't networking at all, in my book - it's prospecting. Speaking of which, the below is in A Career Breakdown Kit (Summer 2026) - a strategic approach to networking that can pay off long-term and, if you are so lucky, in the short term as well. If you need something more specific to you, try this tool, which is free and private: Your networking plan . And don't forget all the other free tools on www.bwrecruitment.co.uk/resources . 43 - How to network for a job Who are the two types of people you remember at networking events? For me two types stand out. One will be the instant pitch networker. This might work if you happen to be in need right now of what they have to offer or if mutual selling is your goal. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this but it’s a selling activity pretending to be networking. If you want to sell, go and overtly sell rather than disguise it with subterfuge. Lest we mark your face and avoid you where possible in future. The second is the one who gets to know you, shows interest and tries to add to your experience. You share ideas, and there’s no push to buy something. They believe that through building the relationship when you have a problem they can solve, you’ll think to go to them. It’s a relationship built on reciprocity. One where if you always build something together there is reason to keep in touch. And where the outcome is what you need if the right elements come together: right person, right time, right message, right place, right offering, right price. Job search networking is no different. The purpose of networking in a job search is to build a network where you are seen as a go-to solution should a suitable problem come up. In this case the problem you solve is a vacancy. Either because your active network is recruiting, or because they advocate for you when someone they know is recruiting. It is always a two-way conversation you both benefit from. Knowledge sharing, sounding board, see how you’re doing - because of what the relationship brings to you both. It is not contacting someone only to ask for a job or a recommendation. A one-way conversation that relies on lucky timing. That second approach can be effective as a type of direct sales rather than networking. If you get it wrong it may even work against you. How would you feel if someone asked to network with you, when it became clear they want you to do something for them? You might get lucky and network with someone who is recruiting now - more likely is that you nurture that relationship over time. If your goal is only to ask for help each networking opportunity will have a low chance of success. While if your goal is to nurture a relationship that may produce a lead, you’ll only have constructive outcomes. This makes it sensible to start by building a network with people that already know you: Former direct colleagues and company colleagues Industry leaders and peers Recruiters you have employed or applied through Don’t forget the friends you aren’t in regular touch with - there is no shame in being out of work and it would be a shame if they didn’t think of you when aware of a suitable opening. These people are a priority because they know you, your capability and your approach and trust has already been built. Whereas networking with people you don't know requires helping them come to know and trust you. Networking with people you know is the most overlooked tactic by the exec job seekers I talk to (followed by personal branding). These are the same people who see the hidden jobs market as where their next role is, yet overlook what’s in front of them. If you are looking for a new role on the quiet - networking is a go-to approach that invites proactive contact to you. Networking with people who know people you know, then people in a similar domain, then people outside of this domain - these are in decreasing order of priority. Let's not forget the other type of networking. Talking to fellow job seekers is a great way to share your pain, take a load off your shoulders, bounce ideas off each other, and hold each other accountable. LinkedIn is the perfect platform to find the right people if you haven't kept in touch directly. Whatever you think of LinkedIn, you shouldn’t overlook its nature as a conduit to conversation. It isn’t the conversation itself. Speaking in real life is where networking shines because while you might build a facsimile of a relationship in text, it's no replacement for a fluid conversation. Whether by phone and video calls, real life meetups, business events, seminars, conferences, expos, or in my case - on dog walks and waiting outside of the school gates. Both these last two have led to friends and business for me though the latter hasn’t been available since 2021. Networking isn’t 'What can I get out of it?' Instead, ‘What’s in it for them?’ The difference is the same as those ransom list job adverts compared to the rare one that speaks to you personally. How can you build on this relationship by keeping in touch? Networking is systematic, periodic and iterative: Map out your real life career network. Revisit anyone you’ve ever worked with and where Find them on LinkedIn Get in touch ‘I was thinking about our time at xxx. Perhaps we could reconnect - would be great to catch up’ If they don’t reply, because life can be busy, diarise a follow up What could be of interest to them? A LinkedIn post might be a reason to catch up When you look up your contact’s profile look at the companies they’ve worked at. They worked there for a reason, which may be because of a common capability to you Research these companies. Are there people in relevant roles worth introducing yourself to? Maybe the company looks a fit with your aspirations - worth getting in touch with someone who may be a hiring manager or relevant recruiter? Maybe they aren’t recruiting now. Someone to keep in touch with because of mutual interests. Click on Job on their company page, then "I'm interested" - this helps for many reasons, including flagging your interest as a potential employee Keep iterating your network and find new companies as you look at new contacts. This is one way we map the market in recruitment to headhunt candidates - you can mirror this with your networking The more proactive networking you build into your job search, the luckier you might get. While you might need to nurture a sizeable network and there are no guarantees, think about the other virtues of networking - how does that compare to endless unreplied applications? I often hear from job seekers who found their next role through networking. This Includes those who got the job because of their network even though hundreds of applicants were vying for it. While this may be unfair on the applicants sometimes you can make unfair work for you.  It can be effective at any level.

What follows is Chapter 18 from A Career Breakdown Kit (Summer 2026 edition) . It's a chapter I was thinking on, when I heard from a connection last week. "I respect you Greg, but you really don't know what you're talking about with ATSs rejecting people." From a job seeker who's followed me for a few years, even when employed. It does sadden me a little, but I've chosen to share insight I know can be unpopular, because it goes against the grain of popular assumption. Can anyone be an ATS expert? Given there are hundreds on the market, and a nearly infinite number of possible configurations, balanced with what may be unknowable employer intent, it seems unlikely. Of course you can be an expert on some ATSs, and an expert on recruitment. While others might borrow expertise from what they've heard and read. For my part, I've created two basic ATSs from Access, Outlook/Word macros and an off the search file searching software, around 25 years ago. I've used multiple ATSs as a fractional Talent Acquisition Manager, and logging applications as a third party agency recruiter. I've written guides on aspects of ATSs such as how to do Boolean sourcing. And I'm relatively technical, tending to pick up knowledge to serve my needs. The AI tools on www.bwrecruitment.co.uk/resources are a good example of this. But I wouldn't say I'm an ATS expert. That's why when I debunk false narratives, I rely on my research of how peer recruiters use their own. Something I've been investigating since 2020, when my immediate reaction was "What's that now?" when job seekers told me they were being rejected by automation. The question should be, whose advice should you take? And how does that apply in your unique job search? Something this chapter seeks to answer. 18 - An advice advisory There’s a huge amount of advice out there, isn’t there? Even this book. Spend half an hour trawling social media and you’ll no doubt find many different hacks that will transform your job search. Much of it is contradictory and some that are plain awful. Consider what follows meta advice on what to look for when reading or taking advice. Advice context Today I read a post from a LinkedIn Top Voice on something who said something along the lines of ‘Tell them today is your last day,’ when you resign. The idea being that you don’t owe your employer anything - you need to manage your own risk in case they let you go without paying severance. Terrible advice if you are in the UK. Our notice periods are different to the US, where the thought influencer is based. I can’t tell you if it’s good advice in the US, although it seems to lack integrity to me. If you are a UK reader and come across such a post, how are you supposed to know it’s for a US audience? How are you supposed to know it is most certainly not for you? Hers is a post that highlights an issue with how social media works. By breaking down geographical and cultural barriers, it can become hard to know who advice is for. Legislation will differ from place to place, with variation across demographics. Then you have transadaptation, where lingo that makes sense locally and may have a different meaning elsewhere, even though the language is the same. Context fit When taking advice, the first thing to check is whether that advice is suitable for your context. What expertise does the advisor have that relates to your job, your market, the channels you have access to, your seniority, where you are based, or these many other variables that make up your context? What about the hiring process an employer takes? SMEs, corporates, public sector, government, civil service and more may have different rules of play. A 22 year old data scientist in Birmingham, UK, will need a fundamentally different job search approach from a 52 year old CFO in Birmingham, Alabama. The 4 Advice functions Opinion-led advice is typically given when someone strongly believes that what worked for them once is viable advice generally. There’s one question you might ask. Is it replicable for me? Often it’s tethered to words like Always or Never. Make sure passion is backed up by logic and evidence. Examples might be: ‘Always have a 2 page CV’ ‘Never use #OpenToWork’ ‘Don’t use job boards, they don’t work’ How does the hiring manager for your next role view these statements? My favourite line about opinion-led advice is this: ‘Ask 9 people for advice on your CV and you’ll end up with 10 CVs.’ Tactical advice works in a specific context. For example, if a cover letter is given priority in an application process for UK Civil Service, read up on how to write cover letters for the UK Civil Service. The chap I spoke to yesterday rightly pointed out that the article on this topic he read had no bearing on his applying to private sector companies, many of whom will never even read a cover letter. Tactical advice can be great because it’s advice you can act on straight away. What experience does the advisor have in your domain? Strategic advice works in any context. For example, advice that makes you ask the right questions… about advice. Or which helps you put together an informed job search strategy based on your market conditions. While strategic advice is potent, it takes agency and commitment to apply. It’s rarely a short fix. Selling advice is when someone gives advice to support their agenda. Such as a CV writer who tells you they can make your CV optimised for the ATS. Or how to access the part of the job market hidden from you through paywalled means. Or that classic, ‘My client wanted £100k, I got him $250k. She’s over the moon!’ If you are prepared to invest, ask yourself, ‘What evidence is there this seller can help me.’ Ask for testimonials and ask to speak to current clients. ‘Is this person going to do the work or outsource it?’ Understand what you are signing up to if money or commitment is involved. Remember that any advice you encounter - whether opinion-led, tactical, strategic, or selling - should be filtered through the lens of yourunique context and needs. Does this apply to me? What’s the motivation behind it? Evaluating advice in this way can keep you focused and help you make better decisions on which to follow. 

I thought it would be helpful to provide an overview on AI and tech in recruitment, with the areas that directly affect you as an applicant. I'm a bit short on time this week, due to an urgent work requirement, so I've used Claude to build on previous posts, research current stories and link it together. In a sense this is a useful way to do it, because many such articles are written by AI, and many are flawed by hallucinations, flattening nuance, and overstating claims. So you should challenge this in the same way you apply critical thinking to any 'thought leadership'. That said, it covers the points I intended, and you can read previous articles in this series for my own researched takes - Some Truths about the ATS and AI ; De Facto Automation and You are a good starting point, including explanations for what you may be experiencing, and how assumptions may hold you back. I've also cross checked against ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, which flagged minor overstatements around the Pymetrics study and technical omissions around Eightfold. But then those same inaccuracies are why professional talent acquisition functions are building safeguards in how AI is used. Don't forget the Summer update to A Career Breakdown Kit is out now. Buying a copy supports my work, complements the frees tools and resources available on my website, and will improve your odds. AI in Recruitment: What It Actually Does, What It Doesn't, and What Jobseekers Need to Know 1. How AI Is Currently Used in Recruitment The phrase "AI in recruitment" has become so broad as to be almost meaningless. It covers everything from a spellchecker in an email template to a neural network scoring your personality through browser games. To make sense of it, it helps to separate AI from the technology it sits alongside, and both from the marketing language wrapped around them. Workflow automation. The most widespread and least controversial use of AI in recruitment is the automation of administrative tasks. Scheduling interviews, sending confirmation emails, parsing CVs into structured data fields, generating interview summaries from transcripts — these are genuine productivity tools. They reduce the time a recruiter spends on process and increase the time available for judgement. Automated transcription of interviews, powered by speech-to-text models, falls into this category. It is mundane, useful, and rarely the thing anyone means when they say "AI is screening you out." AI-assisted sourcing. Some recruitment platforms use machine learning to suggest candidates from databases or professional networks. LinkedIn Recruiter, for example, uses algorithms to surface profiles that match a search brief based on historical engagement patterns and role data. The sourcing layer is probabilistic — it suggests who a recruiter might want to look at, but a human still decides whether to make contact. This is AI as a recommendation engine, closer to how a streaming service suggests a film than how a judge passes sentence. Generative AI in candidate communications. A growing number of recruiters and in-house teams use large language models (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini) to draft job advertisements, outreach messages, and rejection emails. This is widespread, lightly regulated, and — depending on the competence of the person prompting the model — ranges from genuinely helpful to transparently generic. Candidates are increasingly doing the same thing in reverse: using AI to tailor CVs and write cover letters. The result is a kind of AI-on-AI performance, where neither side is entirely sure what was written by a person. 2. The Technology AI Sits Alongside It is important to distinguish AI from the broader recruitment technology stack, because the two are routinely conflated — often deliberately. The Applicant Tracking System (ATS). An ATS is a database. It stores applications, organises them by vacancy, tracks candidate status, and allows recruiters to search, filter, and communicate. The core function of an ATS — receiving and storing applications — is not AI. It is data management. Workable, Greenhouse, Bullhorn, Lever, and dozens of others all perform this function. The ATS does not, by default, make decisions. It stores decisions made by people and, in some configurations, applies filters set by people. Automated communications. Most ATS platforms allow automated email sequences: acknowledgement of application, invitation to interview, rejection notification. These are triggered by a recruiter changing a candidate's status, not by an algorithm deciding the candidate's fate. The automation is in the sending, not the judging. Ranking, filtering, and knockout questions. Here the picture becomes more nuanced. Many ATS platforms allow recruiters to set mandatory criteria — often called knockout questions. "Do you have the right to work in the UK?" "Do you hold a valid HGV licence?" If a candidate answers "no" to a mandatory question, the system may automatically reject or deprioritise them. This is filtering by rule, not filtering by algorithm. The rule was written by a human. Whether that rule is sensible, lawful, or proportionate is a question about the person who configured it, not the software that executed it. Some ATS platforms also offer keyword matching or scoring, where applications are ranked by how closely the CV text matches the job description. This is closer to AI in the technical sense, but it is crude pattern matching, not deep learning. It rewards candidates who mirror the language of the advert, which creates a perverse incentive to keyword-stuff — a behaviour that helps no one and which much of the career advice industry actively encourages. 3. Niche Applications: Pymetrics, Eightfold, and the Assessment Layer Beyond the ATS and its associated tooling sits a smaller but more consequential category: third-party AI assessment vendors. These are the tools that genuinely attempt to make or influence hiring decisions using algorithmic models, and they are the ones generating the most significant legal and ethical scrutiny. Pymetrics (now part of Harver). Pymetrics asks candidates to play a series of 12–16 online games designed to measure cognitive and behavioural traits such as risk tolerance, processing speed, and altruism. A machine learning model, trained on the gameplay data of a company's existing employees, then scores each candidate as "recommend" or "do not recommend." The model does not assess CVs. It does not read cover letters. It plays games with you and decides whether you resemble the people already doing the job. The training methodology deserves scrutiny. The "good" benchmark is whoever currently holds the role — not top performers, not people independently assessed as effective, just incumbents. The "bad" benchmark is not people who failed in the role or were dismissed; it is random profiles. The model therefore learns one thing: do you look like the existing workforce, or do you look like a stranger? This is similarity matching dressed as science, and it carries an obvious risk of reproducing whatever demographic composition already exists within the client organisation. Your gameplay score is also cached for 330 days, meaning a single session can follow you across multiple applications to different employers. Eightfold AI. Eightfold operates a "Talent Intelligence Platform" that claims to maintain data on over one billion workers globally. It scores job applicants on a scale of zero to five based on their perceived likelihood of success, drawing on scraped and aggregated personal data. Unlike pymetrics, Eightfold's legal exposure centres not primarily on bias but on transparency — or rather, the absence of it. A January 2026 class action (Kistler et al. v. Eightfold AI, Inc.) alleges that Eightfold operated as an unregistered consumer reporting agency, compiling and using personal data to score candidates without the disclosures, consent mechanisms, or dispute rights required by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The lawsuit was brought by former EEOC Chair Jenny R. Yang and the nonprofit Towards Justice. HireVue. HireVue provides automated video interview technology used by over 60% of the Fortune 100. Its platform has used automated speech recognition to generate transcripts and, historically, facial expression analysis to score candidates. In March 2025, the ACLU filed charges with the EEOC and the Colorado Civil Rights Division on behalf of a deaf, Indigenous woman who alleged that HireVue's platform discriminated against her when she applied for a promotion at Intuit. She requested real-time captioning accommodation, was allegedly denied, and subsequently received feedback to work on "effective communication." HireVue dropped its facial analysis feature in 2021 following sustained criticism, but the speech recognition and transcript-based assessment remain. A separate 2024 lawsuit alleged that CVS required applicants to take HireVue video assessments that amounted to an unlawful lie detector test under Massachusetts law; CVS settled privately. Aon Consulting. In May 2024, the ACLU filed a complaint with the FTC challenging three of Aon's AI hiring tools — ADEPT-15, vidAssess-AI, and gridChallenge — as discriminatory against people with disabilities and certain racial groups. The ACLU also challenged Aon's marketing claim that its tools were "bias-free." 4. Marketing Versus Usage: The AI Bandwagon There is a considerable gap between what AI vendors claim their products do, what those products actually do, and what employers understand they have bought. This gap is not accidental. It is commercially useful. The recruitment technology market is crowded, and "AI-powered" has become the default differentiator. A platform that sends automated emails now markets itself as using AI. A Boolean search with a drag-and-drop interface becomes "intelligent talent matching." A chatbot that asks three screening questions becomes "conversational AI." The inflation is so routine that the label has lost most of its informational content. When everything is AI, nothing is. For jobseekers, this creates a specific problem: it is nearly impossible to know, from the outside, what technology is actually being applied to your application. You might be told a company "uses AI in hiring" and reasonably conclude that a sophisticated algorithm is scoring your CV. In practice, the "AI" might be an automated acknowledgement email. Or it might be a pymetrics game that decides your fate before a human sees your name. The marketing makes no distinction, and the companies buying these tools often do not fully understand the distinction either. The World Economic Forum's widely cited claim that "over 90% of employers use AI in hiring" illustrates the problem. The underlying data, drawn from an Accenture survey, found that 90% of employers use recruitment software — an ATS or recruitment marketing system — to filter or rank candidates. That is not the same as saying 90% use artificial intelligence in any meaningful sense. An ATS is a database with search functionality. Calling it AI is like calling a filing cabinet a robot because it has a label on the front. This matters because the gap between marketing and reality feeds directly into jobseeker anxiety. If you believe sophisticated AI is screening you out, you will spend time and money on "ATS-beating" strategies, keyword-stuffing services, and resume optimisation tools — many of which are sold by the same ecosystem that created the anxiety in the first place. The commercial incentive to overstate what AI does in recruitment is enormous, and it runs in both directions: vendors overstate capability to sell to employers, and career coaches overstate threat to sell to jobseekers. 5. The Origins of ATS Mythology Few statistics in recruitment have done more damage than the claim that "75% of CVs are rejected by ATS before a human ever sees them." It is repeated on LinkedIn, in career coaching courses, on TikTok, in national media, and in the marketing copy of resume optimisation services. It has shaped how millions of jobseekers approach applications. And it is, as far as anyone can determine, entirely made up. The Preptel origin. The 75% figure has been traced, through multiple independent investigations, to a company called Preptel — a resume optimisation service that used the statistic in its sales pitch around 2012. Preptel went out of business in August 2013. No research methodology, no sample size, no survey, and no peer-reviewed source were ever published to support the claim. Career consultant Christine Assaf documented this origin in her investigation and concluded that the statistic was created without any study, survey, or context. The figure drifts between 70%, 75%, and 88% across different sources precisely because there was never an original value to anchor it. A real statistic has one number and one method. This one has three numbers and no method. The citation chain runs from Preptel's marketing through an uncited Forbes mention, then through CNBC, Yahoo News, CIO, and an expanding network of career advice blogs — each citing the one before, none citing a study. It is a textbook example of circular citation: a marketing claim repeated often enough that it acquired the appearance of fact. The Hidden Workers report. The claim is frequently bolstered by reference to the Harvard Business School and Accenture report Hidden Workers: Untapped Talent (2021). This is a serious piece of research, surveying over 8,000 workers and 2,250 executives across the US, UK, and Germany. It does find that 88% of employers agreed that qualified, higher-skilled candidates were being screened out. But it attributes this to overly rigid hiring criteria set by people — not to autonomous algorithmic rejection. The report found that employers configured their systems with excessively narrow requirements (specific job titles, precise years of experience, zero tolerance for employment gaps) and that these human-defined rules excluded capable candidates. The software executed the filter. A person wrote it. The critical distinction, which the career advice industry almost universally ignores, is between the ATS as a tool that stores and organises applications and the ATS as an autonomous gatekeeper that rejects candidates without human involvement. The Hidden Workers report describes the former being badly configured, not the latter making independent decisions. Knockout questions — "Do you have the right to work in the UK?", "Do you hold a CSCS card?" — are the most common form of automated filtering, and they are binary eligibility checks set by recruiters, not algorithmic judgements made by machines. An Enhancv survey of 25 US recruiters found that 92% confirmed their ATS does not auto-reject on formatting or content. Only 8% configured any form of content-based auto-rejection at all. Jobscan, the largest ATS optimisation vendor, states plainly that an ATS does not reject resumes — it stores them and allows recruiters to search using keywords. How the myth sustains itself. The 75% figure persists because it serves multiple commercial interests simultaneously. Resume optimisation services need jobseekers to believe their CVs are being machine-rejected so they will pay for "ATS-friendly" formatting. Career coaches need a dramatic hook. LinkedIn influencers need engagement. And AI vendors, paradoxically, benefit from an inflated perception of their own products' power, because it makes their offering sound more consequential than it may be. The myth is self-reinforcing because everyone in the supply chain profits from it. 6. The Stanford Study: What It Found, What It Didn't, and How It Was Misrepresented In May 2026, a Stanford-led research team published Algorithmic Monocultures in Hiring at the ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT). The paper examined 4.2 million job applications submitted through pymetrics between 2018 and 2022, across 156 employers and 1,746 positions. It generated immediate and extensive media coverage, much of which treated it as a verdict on AI hiring as a whole. It is not. What the study found. Pymetrics had previously audited its own fairness by pooling all applicants together across all employers and positions. Pooled like that, it passed the standard adverse-impact screen: Black applicants were recommended at 52.5%, white applicants at 58.3%. The Stanford researchers correctly observed that this is the wrong way to audit a selection tool. US employment discrimination law evaluates adverse impact position by position, not as a company-wide average. When they split the data into individual roles, bias that the average had concealed became visible: approximately 10.6% of positions showed adverse impact against Black applicants, and roughly a quarter of Black applications landed in those affected roles. The researchers estimated that if the tool had recommended Black and Asian candidates at the same rate as the most-favoured group, approximately 40,000 additional applications would have advanced. This is a genuine and important finding: company-level audits can mask position-level discrimination. It applies to any selection tool, not just pymetrics, and any organisation auditing hiring fairness only at the aggregate level should take note. What the study did not find. The paper's central concept is "algorithmic monoculture" — the idea that when multiple employers use the same AI vendor, a single biased model can lock a candidate out of the entire market. The headline version of this claim — that candidates are being "rejected everywhere" by the same algorithm — barely survives contact with the study's own data. 84% of applicants in the dataset applied to exactly one position. Over 95% applied to one or two. Only 0.02% (522 people out of 3.4 million) applied to ten. When the researchers directly simulated the worst case — running 1,000 applicants against all 495 pymetrics models — not a single person was rejected by every model. The worst-off individual was still recommended for 52 roles. The monoculture mechanism exists in theory, but the data shows it affecting almost nobody in practice. The specificity problem. The study examined one vendor: pymetrics. It did not examine any ATS. It did not examine CV screening. It did not examine keyword matching, ranking algorithms, or any of the other technologies that the phrase "AI in hiring" is routinely taken to mean. Pymetrics is a niche behavioural game platform, acquired by Harver in 2022, that trains its models on current employees as the benchmark for "good" and random profiles as the benchmark for "bad." There is no evidence in the study — and the authors acknowledge this in their limitations section — that the tool predicts job performance at all. It is a similarity matcher. It measures whether you resemble the existing workforce, not whether you can do the job. The paper's opening cites HireVue's market dominance — used by over 60% of the Fortune 100 — to establish the scale of algorithmic hiring. But HireVue is a different product, a different company, and a different technology category, and it does no work whatsoever in the study's analysis. The citation creates an impression of ubiquity that the data does not support. The media amplification. The researchers were careful. Their limitations section acknowledges that their findings may not generalise beyond one game-based tool, that they never measured whether pymetrics predicts performance, that they cannot determine whether rejected candidates would have been good hires, and that nothing in the paper proves illegality. The problem is not the research. It is what happened after publication: abstract became press release, press release became headline, headline became influencer thread, and each stage dropped a qualifier the authors had deliberately included. "May be a distinctive feature of centralised algorithmic assessment" became "AI is rejecting you everywhere." A study of one niche vendor became a referendum on recruitment technology as a whole. For jobseekers, the practical takeaway is narrower than the coverage suggests. If you encounter a pymetrics-style game assessment, know that the tool has documented fairness issues and no published evidence of predictive validity. If you are applying through a standard ATS, this study tells you nothing about what is happening to your application, because it did not examine that process. 7. AI Hiring in the Courts: The Cases That Matter The legal landscape around AI in recruitment is developing rapidly, with several significant cases establishing precedents that will shape how employers and vendors use algorithmic tools. Mobley v. Workday, Inc. (Case No. 3:23-cv-00770, N.D. Cal.) — This is widely regarded as the bellwether case for AI hiring discrimination. Derek Mobley filed a class action in February 2023 alleging that Workday's AI-powered applicant screening system discriminated on the basis of race, age, and disability. Mobley had applied to over 100 jobs through Workday over seven years and was rejected within minutes each time. The case has survived multiple attempts by Workday to secure dismissal and has escalated significantly through 2026. Key rulings include the court's acceptance that Workday can be considered an "agent" of employers — meaning it is not merely a neutral tool provider but is acting on employers' behalf in making hiring decisions, which triggers direct liability under anti-discrimination law. In January 2026, Workday argued that the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) does not cover job applicants, only current employees. In March 2026, Judge Rita Lin rejected this argument, pointing to legal precedent and EEOC guidance interpreting the law as covering candidates. Preliminary collective action certification was granted in May 2025, and applicants had until March 2026 to opt in. In May 2026, a discovery ruling denied the plaintiffs' attempt to compel production of Workday's bias-testing data (protected by attorney-client privilege) and Workday's customers' applicant data, but ordered production of Workday's EEO-1 and OFCCP documents as relevant to the company's knowledge of potential demographic disparities. Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint in March 2026 reasserting dismissed California state and disability claims. The case now presents exposure not only for Workday but for the more than 10,000 employers using its AI-powered hiring tools. Kistler et al. v. Eightfold AI, Inc. (Contra Costa County Superior Court, filed January 2026) — This case takes a different angle from Mobley. Rather than alleging bias in outcomes, it alleges secrecy in process. The plaintiffs argue that Eightfold AI operated as an unregistered consumer reporting agency under the Fair Credit Reporting Act by scraping personal data on over one billion workers, scoring applicants from zero to five on their "likelihood of success," and discarding low-ranked candidates before any human review — all without the statutory disclosures, consent, or dispute mechanisms the FCRA requires. The suit was brought by former EEOC Chair Jenny R. Yang and the nonprofit Towards Justice. The distinction matters: Mobley attacks discriminatory outcomes; Eightfold attacks opaque process. One says the algorithm was biased. The other says the algorithm existed in secret. Both point in the same direction — that AI hiring vendors cannot avoid accountability by characterising themselves as passive tool providers. iTutorGroup (EEOC Settlement, August 2023) — The first EEOC settlement involving AI hiring discrimination. iTutorGroup, a virtual tutoring company, had programmed its recruitment software to automatically reject female applicants over 55 and male applicants over 60. This was not subtle algorithmic bias; it was explicit age-based exclusion coded directly into the system. The company settled for $365,000. EEOC Chair Charlotte Burrows stated that employers cannot rely on AI to make employment decisions that discriminate on the basis of protected characteristics, regardless of whether the discrimination is carried out by a person or a machine. ACLU v. Aon Consulting (FTC complaint, May 2024) — The ACLU challenged three of Aon's AI hiring assessment tools as discriminatory against people with disabilities and certain racial groups, and disputed Aon's marketing claim that its tools were "bias-free." ACLU / EEOC charges against HireVue and Intuit (March 2025) — Filed on behalf of a deaf, Indigenous woman who alleged HireVue's automated video interview platform discriminated against her when she applied for an internal promotion at Intuit. The platform's automated speech recognition allegedly performs worse for speakers with different speech patterns. Both HireVue and Intuit denied the allegations. Harper v. Sirius XM Radio (ongoing) — Arshon Harper, an African American applicant, alleges that 149 of his job applications to Sirius XM Radio were rejected by the company's AI hiring tool, despite his qualifications meeting or exceeding the listed requirements. The case is ongoing. 8. What This Means for Jobseekers The honest summary is less dramatic than the headlines but more useful. Most recruitment technology is administrative. Your CV is stored in a database, searched by a recruiter using keywords, and filtered by eligibility criteria that a person configured. The ATS is not reading your CV and passing judgement; it is filing your CV and making it searchable. The quality of the search depends on the quality of the person searching. Where genuine AI assessment exists — pymetrics games, Eightfold scoring, HireVue video analysis — it is concentrated in large-volume hiring at major employers, not across the market as a whole. If you are applying to an SME with 200 employees, the chances of encountering algorithmic screening of any sophistication are low. You are far more likely to encounter a recruiter who has not read your CV properly than a machine that has read it too precisely. The 75% rejection statistic is a commercial fiction. The Stanford study is about one niche tool, not about recruitment technology in general. The court cases are real and important, but they concern specific vendors and specific practices, not a universal condition. What you can usefully do: write a clear, well-structured CV that describes what you have done and what you are good at, in language that relates to the roles you are applying for. Do not keyword-stuff. Do not pay for "ATS-beating" services built on a debunked statistic. Do not assume that silence after an application means a robot rejected you — it is far more likely that a person has not yet looked, or has looked and chosen someone else, or has been pulled onto a different priority and will never reply. These are human failures, not algorithmic ones, and they predate AI by decades. If you are asked to complete a game-based assessment, a video interview scored by software, or any process where a third-party tool appears to be making decisions about your candidacy without human review, you are entitled to ask what technology is being used and how it informs the decision. In the UK, the Equality Act 2010 and GDPR's provisions on automated decision-making provide some framework for challenge, though enforcement remains limited. In the US, the legal landscape is evolving rapidly through the cases described above. The best defence against bad technology in recruitment is not better technology on the candidate side. It is transparency, regulation, and the kind of scrutiny that the Stanford researchers, the courts, and — occasionally — the industry itself are beginning to apply. Sources consulted: Bommasani et al., "Algorithmic Monocultures in Hiring," FAccT 2026; Fuller & Raman, "Hidden Workers: Untapped Talent," Harvard Business School / Accenture, 2021; Placementist, "Fear-farming the Stanford AI hiring study," June 2026; Christine Assaf, "Your Job Application Was Rejected by a Human, Not a Computer"; Mobley v. Workday, Inc., No. 3:23-cv-00770 (N.D. Cal.); Kistler et al. v. Eightfold AI, Inc. (Contra Costa County, January 2026); EEOC v. iTutorGroup, August 2023; ACLU complaints against Aon Consulting (May 2024) and HireVue/Intuit (March 2025); Enhancv recruiter survey; Jobscan ATS documentation. 

What follows is Chapter 20 of A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) . While I've updated a number of chapters for the Summer edition, this is one of many strategic chapters that will be unchanged. Though it may seem conceptual, it's actually one of the most practical steps everyone should do at the start of their job search. Because it informs the steps you should take in a jobs market that is individual to you. 20 - An inverted job search So, your broad approach to looking for a job is based on a product marketing strategy. How does this link to your job search and how companies hire? The next step is to recognise a job search is an inverted recruitment process. Whatever you can learn about the actual workings of recruitment, the better armed you are to navigate them. The first way in which this is true is around the routes to market employers take to fill a job. Employers want to fill vacancies in the most economical and efficient means possible. Sometimes they’ll rely on external advice, sometimes they’ll figure out their own way, and sometimes they’ll employ people to do it for them (such as a Talent Acquisition Manager or internal recruiter). When they rely on external advice, it may not surprise you it’s as varied and contradictory as job seeker advice. Take this nugget of wisdom: 80% of suitable candidates are not actively looking for work. By advertising, you’ll only have access to the 20% that applies to adverts. Hang on a minute! Doesn’t that sound an awful lot like the hidden jobs market? Of course, candidates aren’t hidden - much like hidden jobs, the priority is to understand the channels through which candidates are found. These channels directly mirror the channels through which you look for that job: Job boards; LinkedIn; Recruitment agencies; Confidential headhunting; Internal promotions; Secondments; Temp-to-perm hires; Consulting-to-perm hires; Referrals; Networking; Speculative approaches; Careers pages; Talent pools; Candidate databases Every job is different, dictated by principles like supply and demand, confidentiality, reputational risk, wherewithal, budget and capacity. The hiring process of a Software Developer is different from that of a Sales Director. If an employer only hires through an advert - this means if you don’t apply for adverts, there’s no way in which you can be considered for that vacancy. A second way it’s accurate is the notion that what’s true for one may not be true for others. This relates to candidate resentment . You may read online that some recruitment behaviours are signs of a bad employer. Yet, you should always follow the instructions given when applying for an advert or through an agency. They may instruct you to: 1/ Write a CV, cover letter and duplicate it on their ATS 2/ Tell them your salary when they don’t list theirs 3/ Do 17 interviews before reaching a decision 4/ Deliver a 6-month strategy plan by presentation 5/ Or any other request deemed unreasonable by Career Coaches, Job seekers, or people otherwise uninvolved in that process What some consider red flags, others will deem acceptable practice. It becomes your choice to play the game or not. Either follow their instructions or step away. You don’t have to apply if you don’t want to. In a similar vein, if you hear a hiring process has a preference, or if there are gaps in their employment armoury - these might be biases you can lean into. The hiring manager loves Arsenal Football Club and is biased towards people who love the same? Now might be the time to switch allegiance, if you can fake it or make it. They love a one page CV? Apply with a one page CV. You know the hiring manager of an advert with 400 applications? Give them a call - they might give you an unfair advantage. Poor practice from the employer, yet these are problems you can turn into opportunity. A third way in which this is true is by comparing inbound and outbound activity Outbound activity is where you go to your prospect (phone calls, messaging). Inbound activity is where the prospect comes to you (job adverts, content). Yet an outbound activity for a recruiter is an inbound activity for you (you receive phone calls and messages). While an inbound activity has you getting in touch because of their advert or content. When we talk about optimising your work, whether your CV, profile or interviews, it has to give the process what it needs. How can you be more discoverable, so you receive more relevant calls and messages? How can you improve your return on applications and your outbound messages? What about inverse non-recruitment? A brilliant, if strange question, with the same answer. When networking, going direct, seeking to become a referral, doorknocking, or other, what is the inverse of that activity? How does that person find or recommend people, if they become aware of a vacancy? How might they see you as a person to solve their problems, even if it isn’t a vacancy? You do these activities because of how they might help you and because of the benefit the other party experiences. What’s in it for them? If there isn’t anything in it for them, why should they help you? For each and every stage in recruitment, there is an opposed force, as candidates and the hiring process meet each other. It’s rarely an equal force, because every vacancy has supply and demand, resource, skill level, biases and intent at play. This is why each type of role has a different method of looking for work. Executive vacancies typically prioritise headhunted candidates, with fewer public adverts. Here the priority shifts towards building relationships with, and being discoverable by, Executive Search recruiters. If executives rely mainly on job boards, they may never think to focus on more suited channels. If you can learn what the other needs for that process to be successful, you can deliver the same. Speak to peers, speak to hiring managers you know, speak to recruiters, speak to former job seekers. How have they found work, and how would they recruit for your roles? Research your market to find viable employers, to identify recruiters and to build your network.  Then execute an appropriate strategy to access these channels.

“Imagine you’ve had a hard day driving to clients. Your car broke down. Your phone isn’t working. You’re knackered from lack of sleep. And you come home to your wife, asleep on the sofa, with a plate of chocolate cake and a glass of red wine next to her. How do you react?” That was the scenario given to us by our ante-natal instructor after she’d separated us from our other halves. Babies due three months later. We were given 5 minutes to discuss, followed by a group debrief. “It’s a trap!” I ackbared to my peers. I’d sussed out that she would be giving the mums the opposite scenario, which turned out to be the classic, old-fashioned, example of new mum baby chaos, utter fatigue, and an angry husband swanning in after a fun day with the adults. But we played the game and acknowledged that our likely reactions would be one of mutual frustration, tiredness and anger at our other halves. When in reality, we should be on the same team, with empathy for the other’s experiences. Of course, the baby will be the same for us both, but our experiences of it differ. Dad experience and Mum experience. With the added fun of Friend experience, months later, unable to comprehend how we could declare our love of being parents, while complaining about every moment of being parents. Experience that would later evolve into their own parenthood, and the apology of ‘now we know exactly what you’re talking about.’ Their disbelief of my excuses turned into insight into their own challenges, from exactly the same words. It’s funny isn’t it, that the only thing we actually know of the world is our experience of it. Everything else we take on faith. So to understand the experiences of others it’s helpful to categorise. Candidate experience Employee experience Employer experience These aren’t nice to have, they are a categorisation of how each live the vacancy. I expect this is why ‘lived experience’ has been a popular term in recent years, although it was coined by Simone De Beauvoir in her treatise on second-wave feminism in 1969. It’s a category definition to show that unless you’ve lived in their shoes, you can’t understand their position. The double empathy problem . I don’t use the phrase ‘lived experience’ personally, and I think it can be used in a way that makes it impossible to argue against a strong opinion, but as a category of experience, it’s valuable. Especially in the wonky world of out-of-date ‘facts’ used to tackle modern problems. With every problem comes the opportunity to find a solution. If the vacancy is the baby, and the candidate and employer are the parents - how can we look at the experiences of one to improve the experiences of the other? For me, it comes back to my Ackbar moment. While the NCT teacher was talking about one thing, the meaning I took from it was the other. How can I understand mum’s experience, and improve my behaviours and attitudes, in service of child wrangling? With the added benefit of lower risk of a grumpy mum? How can we understand candidate experience, and improve our behaviours and attitudes, in service of the vacancy? With lower risk of an unfulfilled employer? It’s true and fair to say that most people in a recruitment process work to their own needs. At the same time, many people complain about recruitment. Whether it’s a lack of candidates, ghosting, recruiter behaviour, employers changing their minds on whim, or anything else. These are complaints you’ll hear from candidates, employers and recruiters - hop on LinkedIn for five minutes and tell me I’m wrong. But in all of these complaints, there’s little recognition for the why of it. In shocking news, recruiters aren’t evil people - it’s the system that precipitates the behaviours. In even more shocking news, recruitment isn’t broken. It does what it says on the tin, in service of its users’ needs. It’s just that it’s the wrong users. And because it’s the wrong users, the right users suffer, and the intended users may experience poor outcomes. An ATS should be designed for the candidate, not the employer, to maximise the employer’s experience. Try out your own ATS, in the shoes of the candidate. How shite is it? An advert should be designed for the candidate, not the employer, for exactly the same reasons. Adverts are effective if you point them in the right direction. Double empathy exists in recruitment, in a tri-fold way. Candidate-recruiter Candidate-employer Employer-recruiter And if you can’t communicate in a way that caters to the individual needs of the other party, that communication error only becomes worse when you involve a third. This is why the principles of an outside-in approach to recruitment can be effective, particularly for problem vacancies and key hires. When vacancies matter most, why wouldn’t you put your best foot forward to try and fill them? Working outside-in, with empathy for the experiences candidates have had that may inform their decisions. With empathy for the experience they will have of your hiring process. With empathy for the experience that will most likely lead to them accepting an offer. And with empathy that what you experience of them isn’t the full story. That’s the opportunity of recognising double empathy for what it is brings. Which for me is filling difficult vacancies more straightforwardly. Thanks for reading. Regards, Greg p.s. I've picked up a couple of projects this week, though I've capacity for a third vacancy and to onboard a fractional client. DM me if you'd like to have a virtual Frappuccino.

Yesterday I came across one of many posts from job seekers expressing exasperation of the hoops they are asked to jump through. Within this list of Asks that would not be tolerated were questions that tackle social mobility and diversity monitoring. They are commonly used to check that recruitment outcomes broadly reflect the availability of candidate demographics. And where there is a mismatch, this is an opportunity to make their processes more accessible and inclusive. Additionally, they are data that is collected separately from the recruitment process, and is private and confidential, with no visibility to hiring teams. The only problem is that of perception: What is your date of birth? What is the highest level of education of your parents? Questions so unrelated to capability it seems there is a game being played. To the extent it can make out of work job seekers decide not to complete their application. This is candidate resentment distilled, and why I want to share Chapter 16 of A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) . A chapter on the assumptions that may be holding you back, and one which employers should consider too. 16 - About candidate resentment Over the past few years, a phenomenon has come to the fore in recruitment - candidate resentment. It’s the notion that the experiences candidates have of a recruitment process, and of their wider job search, informs their actions. Some examples: You’ve been lowballed a few times having applied for a job that advertised £competitive salary. Therefore, you won’t waste your time by doing so again ‘Hitting the ground running’, ‘a resilient approach’, ‘able to cope with ambiguity’ are red flags in a job advert An interviewer who asks silly questions shows a dodgy employer A protracted interview process shows a company that can’t make decisions ‘I will never apply to a company that uses Workday!!!!!!?!!!! 1!’ A high number of visible applications makes it pointless to apply for an advert. On an individual basis, employers won’t see this as a big deal, especially if they’ve filled the vacancy. However, we live in a connected society where experiences are shared widely, which can create a wave of resentment. Employers would do well to recognise this phenomenon and deliver a process that does the opposite. This would stand out for candidates and reduce the possibility of candidates stepping away from a recruitment process. The sale of hope Candidate resentment is driven by strong emotion and common experience - something that’s easy to take advantage of by the cynical. How often have you read a promotional message, which said something along the lines of: How annoying is it when you’ve spent two hours applying for a job and the ATS rejects you instantly? ATS won’t even look at you if your CV / resume isn’t compliant! Buy my ATS compliance writing service Apply for 100 jobs with no replies? Try the hidden jobs market! Buy my services and I’ll show you the way Worse, these messages feel true and are widely spread, irrespective of any basis in fact. And this resentment informs your actions. Actions which may cut your nose off to spite your face. What employers do Recruitment is a rare function that has no continuing professional development and little in the way of best practice to guide employers. Because there isn’t a north star for the profession, employers often make it up as they go. We don’t have the equivalent of CIMA, ACCA, CIPD, CIPS or any other chartered body in the UK. We’re an industry that looks at what others do because starting from first principles is hard. If others have a suboptimal process, it’s likely we do too. It’s one reason why ChatGPT type tools are becoming popular - they allow adverts to do exactly the same as everyone else quicker, and perhaps more engagingly. Even if it does nothing to help those adverts sell or stand out. Where there is a formalised approach, it’s typically because recruitment is contained in another function - such as within HR or Administration, or in the role of a founder. These are functions which have other priorities, leading to recruitment being seen as an administrative burden rather than a commercial opportunity. When times are busy, it’s easy to either do recruitment habitually (rather than intentionally) or fit it in where you can (rather than strategically). Of course, some employers are rubbish at recruitment in the same way they are rubbish at employment. It’s easy to assume that anyone who gives a poor experience in recruitment will be that kind of employer. This isn’t true. Herein lies the problem with candidate resentment, for you, as a job seeker, in a job search that has no doubt created much resentment. I speak to many employers who do exactly the things people resent yet are great employers for the right people. Sometimes £competitive salary is stated due to a compensation philosophy that is generous but not fixed. Perhaps not ideal, but not necessarily a lowball. Some use Workday because of its Accounting and HR functions with the ATS being a bolt on. And so on. Real life has nuance that socials don’t show - because nuance reduces engagement. You are less likely to read them, and dopamine hungry writers are less likely to write them. And you? Assume nothing. Where possible, gain insight. A bad hiring step might hide a great employer. If you find yourself reacting emotionally to something on socials - stop, breathe and look at it logically. Look for evidence and always ask ‘where is the money?’ The answer to that question may show why a post was written. Do people want to be popular as hero employers / recruiters / career coaches? Or do they have something to say that’s helpful? Treat low effort processes reciprocally and invest your energy in the ones that matter. But you also want to put yourself in a position where you have the best chance of saying no, rather than the employer doing that for you. You may not like £competitive salary - you can always apply and state your salary expectation. Take note of the application (in case they contact you) and move on. In some ways resentment is helpful, even healthy - it can protect, it can help you cope, it can help you heal, it can flag danger to others. Take care not to let it define how you act or who you are. 

What follows is an updated Chapter 32 of A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) . It examines the nonsense argument that passive candidates are better than active candidates. It also examines why that perception happens, and what you can learn from it to present yourself as a more compelling candidate. Because, after all, recruitment is psychology. And the hardest psychology to master is your own. 32 - A passive opportunity Speak to headhunters and many will say that passive candidates are inherently better than active candidates. Active means you are actively looking for another job. Passive means you aren’t yet may be open to conversation. The argument goes further stating that something like 80% of the candidate marketplace is passive, while only 20% actively apply for adverts. Therefore, if you recruit only through advertising, you will miss out on a huge chunk of viable candidates. This isn’t a terminology I like - I use ‘ problem awareness ’ as a differentiator instead. It doesn’t help that, in the market we are currently in, adverts can receive 100s of applications, few of which are viable candidates. If an employer doesn’t think adverts are effective, and that candidates are likely to be passive, they may not even advertise, instead relying on activities like headhunting. If all you do is rely on active channels such as adverts, you limit your opportunity. There are two elements to the active / passive argument that are worth talking about. The first is how you come across the vacancy. The second is how you are assessed for the vacancy. How recruiters look for passive candidates Recruiters take an inbound and outbound approach to filling vacancies. Using the argument above, only Active candidates are inbound, whereas Passive candidates are found through outbound work such as headhunting. Outbound work is more controllable because the recruiter only contacts candidates who meet their specific criteria, typically through LinkedIn, CV databases (job boards and agency), networking, referrals and headhunting. I differentiate headhunting from LinkedIn, because anyone can headhunt on LinkedIn using recruiter licence, but proper headhunting should work across multiple channels and involve more rigour throughout. I know because I trained in a headhunting firm that enjoyed a strong reputation well before LinkedIn was invented. And those additional channels are just as effective today - if not more so because of how democratised LinkedIn has become. To be found like a Passive candidate you have to take advantage of the channels used by recruiters. I take a whole of market approach across all inbound and outbound channels where appropriate. Early last year, I had a Talent Acquisition vacancy that went live, although we hadn’t finalised the job description. We agreed that I would only speak to out of work TA folk in London (of which there are many), because the ambiguity of the brief would be less problematic. I didn’t advertise for the same reason. I took the same approach I would to target passive candidates, only concentrating on out-of-work active candidates instead. We had a shortlist of 6 qualified candidates, and another 6 on the backburner. No one else would know this vacancy existed due to its lack of visibility. I recruited it by ordinary means, without advertising. Of course, that vacancy was cancelled, such had been the way of 2025. How to get found like a passive candidate This is simpler than you might think and comes down to understanding how we look for candidates, then optimising your visibility in kind. I call this principle inversion. I’ve written advice on each in part three (edit for this newsletter: you'll see many of these chapters published for free in previous editions). Each of these reflects how I might look for candidates without advertising: optimising for LinkedIn Recruiter licence, CV databases and other data repositories; asking for referrals in thin markets; networking; direct research into incubator companies; industry events and so on. Not all of these are replicable, and the balance of what is effective relies on your specific market conditions. Why passive candidates can be more appealing at interview Passive candidates are already in a suitable job that is at least adequate. To move would have to be for good reason. Which means they may only interview for roles they are closely aligned to and have the freedom to walk away from. This combination of detachment and alignment makes a compelling proposition. Passive candidates are typically in fewer recruitment processes than active candidates, often only one, which allows employers better odds of them accepting an offer. How many recruitment processes are you in? If you had the nice problem of having two or more offers to choose between, how many could you accept? This is a real and quantifiable risk for employers - is there an argument to reduce this risk by only offering candidates who are only in one process? This risk links to the emerging situation of automated AI optimised applications. When employers have a high volume of homogenous applications designed to 'beat the ATS', the entire application base loses credibility. A candidate found through headhunting immediately has the semblance of being more real, even if all they did was optimise their LinkedIn profile. Yet another reason why the myth of 'ATS compliance' will work against you, given passive candidates haven't even read those articles and get hired with CVs that look similar to the ones you used to use. There is a more cynical side to the passive argument, which is that ‘only headhunters can access them.’ These uniquely skilled professionals sometimes rely on an obfuscated process. It’s a boon that employers don’t understand how they work. It can be advantageous not to represent active candidates at all. I choose to lay my process bare and it’s only one way in which I look for candidates. The passive candidate features that improve your odds Detachment. If you are out of work, typically you need a job, which can involve a number of compromises, rather than solely being interested in that one job for what it is. Detaching yourself from the outcome of an application makes you a better candidate, because that freedom to walk is a strong negotiating position and informs the rest of your approach. This same detachment can make knockback less damaging. Read up on detachment and Stoicism for more - some of which is covered in A resilient job search. It's a classic quality of a successful salesperson. Alignment. It's completely understandable that you'll go for jobs that aren't strong fits if you need to get back into employment. For every compromise you make, there will be candidates for whom that compromise is an attraction point. Compromises which typically move you away from a core fit to being a candidate with transferable skills. Like for like, a less suitable candidate than those above. Yes, employers could have the imagination to see how out of box candidates with transferable skills can be brilliant. Something that's out of your control. If a role is of strong interest to you, articulate how your skills and aspirations apply to make you a core fit. If you can't, your odds will be lower. This informs how you communicate throughout the process. Accountability It's easy to compromise on your requirements and expectations in a job search. Such as widening your salary band, and the jobs you'll apply for. Unless you are in a skill short industry or have a connection that can refer you to a role, your odds drop the further away you move from ideal fit roles. Stick to your guns. Don’t use up time and energy on unhelpful activity. Intermediary representation That's what we are as recruiters. An effective recruiter does work behind the scenes to manage expectations, concerns and objections. Something that can improve your odds as a job seeker. If you are in the fortunate position to be working with a recruiter that has your back, trust in the process. The interview How you execute your interviews is key. Read the interview chapters in Part Three. Note: I've made a rare inclusion for the newsletter in this chapter, given others published are verbatim from the Summer update coming out soon. But I'm conscious some of these chapters rely on, lead into and are interconnected with other chapters in the book. It's why if you find these chapters helpful, you'll find the book more-so, as a reference kit for your career.