A person sitting at a kitchen table preparing for an online job interview, reflecting modern recruitment, job applications and the pressure candidates face.

Why Does Applying for a Job Now Feel Like The Hunger Games?

Essays

September 12, 2026•4 min read

Why Does Applying for a Job Now Feel Like The Hunger Games?

Once upon a time, you sent in your CV, had an interview and somebody told you whether you’d got the job.

Apparently, that was far too straightforward.

Welcome to modern recruitment.

First, upload your CV.

Excellent.

Now please spend 45 minutes manually typing everything from that CV into twelve separate boxes.

Then come the competency questions.

The personality assessments.

The online tests designed to establish whether, when faced with a hypothetical workplace disaster, you are “most likely” or “least likely” to tell Sandra from Accounts.

Pass those and you may be invited to record yourself answering questions alone in your kitchen while a countdown clock flashes ominously at you.

Congratulations.

You’ve reached round three.

Next comes the Teams interview.

Then the hiring manager.

Then their manager.

Then someone from HR.

Then someone who apparently “just wants an informal chat”.

There is nothing informal about an interview when you’re wearing your best shirt and have rehearsed your greatest weakness seventeen times.

Make it through all that and you might be asked to prepare a presentation, complete a task or demonstrate how you’d respond to a fictional crisis involving six diaries, an international flight and a CEO stranded in Zurich.

And then?

Silence.

Not a polite no.

Not a short email.

Not even a badly formatted template sent from a recruitment system at 11.43pm.

Just silence.

The kind of silence that makes you check your junk folder like it might suddenly reveal your future.

I’m completely in favour of companies taking recruitment seriously.

Hiring the right person matters.

A bad hire is expensive. A good hire can change a team.

So yes, ask questions.

Understand experience.

Look for values.

Make sure the person can actually do the job.

But somewhere along the way, some organisations seem to have forgotten something important.

Candidates are assessing them, too.

People applying for jobs are not contestants begging to be chosen.

They are professionals offering their skills, experience and time.

They may be between jobs.

They may be unhappy where they are.

They may be trying to rebuild confidence after redundancy, burnout, illness, a career break or simply one too many Monday mornings that felt heavier than they should.

Behind every application is a person.

A person who has read the job description carefully.

Adjusted their CV.

Written the cover letter.

Taken the call.

Moved meetings around.

Sat in the car before an interview giving themselves a quiet pep talk.

Smiled professionally while trying not to look desperate.

Answered the same question for the fifth time because apparently everyone involved needs to independently confirm they are a “good fit”.

And when somebody has invested hours in your recruitment process, the very least they deserve is an answer.

Not a medal.

Not a handwritten note.

Just basic professional courtesy.

Because there is something quietly draining about giving your best version to a process that does not always give basic respect back.

You start every application with hope.

This could be the one.

This could be the change.

This could be the door opening.

Then slowly, somewhere between the automated portal, the video interview and the fourth person asking where you see yourself in five years, that hope starts to feel managed out of you.

And perhaps that is the strangest part.

Companies spend so much time talking about culture, values and people.

Then sometimes the very first experience a person has with that culture is confusion, delay and being ignored.

That tells a story too.

By all means, interview us.

Challenge us.

Ask intelligent questions.

Let us show you what we can do.

But remember that recruitment is not just about choosing someone.

It is also about showing people who you are.

The process matters.

The communication matters.