Kamal Ghorui
A young graduate in Delhi refreshes her inbox for the tenth time that day. She has sent out more than a hundred applications in a matter of weeks, each one carefully edited, each one carrying a measure of hope. Nothing arrives. No rejection, no acknowledgement, only silence that stretches longer with each passing day. Her experience is no longer an exception. It is fast becoming the norm.A recent report by pre-employment testing firm Criteria, cited by Fortune, confirms what job seekers have been quietly enduring: employers are increasingly failing to respond, and the trend is worsening year after year.
When silence replaces rejection
The data is stark. More than half of job seekers, 53%, reported being ghosted in the past year, according to Criteria’s findings. The rise has been steady and troubling, climbing from 38% in 2024 to 48% in 2025. At what point did acknowledgement itself become too much to ask?
A system flooded by its own efficiency
At first glance, it is easy to place the blame on unresponsive recruiters or overburdened hiring teams. But the reality runs deeper.The hiring process has been reshaped by technology. With the aid of artificial intelligence, candidates can create their own résumés and apply to jobs on an unprecedented scale. Thousands of candidates can apply to a single job posting in a matter of hours.Efficiency on one side of the equation breeds overload on the other side of the equation. Recruiting teams are left to sort through a mountain of applications, often struggling to find meaningful differentiations between candidates. The more applications they get, the less they can meaningfully engage with each one.And so, responses slow down. In many cases, they stop altogether.
When every résumé looks perfect
The résumé, once a personal and laboriously created document, is becoming less effective as a gauge of potential because the technology is constantly improving the language, structure, and keyword content, and all applicants seem to have the same level of polish.On paper, everyone is a good match. Everyone is a good fit. But what happens when everyone is a good match, and everyone is a good fit? This raises a pressing question:If everyone seems like the right fit, how does anyone get chosen?
The illusion of opportunity: Rise of ‘ghost jobs ’
Silence is only one part of the problem. The other is more unsettling. A 2024 report by MyPerfectResume revealed that 81% of recruiters admitted their organisations post roles that are either already filled or never existed.The reasons vary. Some companies aim to maintain visibility on job platforms. Others test how listings perform or gather insights about competitors and the market.For employers, these may be calculated decisions. For job seekers, they represent wasted time and misplaced hope.Applications are written, forms completed, interviews sometimes even attended—all for opportunities that were never truly open.What does this do to the credibility of the hiring process?
Two sides, one broken system
The narrative is often framed as a failure of employers to respond. But the system itself is under strain. Candidates apply in large numbers because they expect silence. Employers respond less frequently because they are overwhelmed by volume.This, in turn, encourages the other side to respond in a similar way, creating a cycle that is difficult to reverse.Somewhere along the way, the purpose of recruitment, which is to link people to meaningful work, has become secondary to the process itself.
The emotional cost of being ignored
There is a person behind every statistic. Silence, repeated over time, erodes one’s confidence. It fills one’s mind with doubt, where before there was clarity.Job candidates start to wonder if they’re good enough, if they made the right decisions, if they’re worthwhile in the job market. Without feedback, they don’t know how to get better, they don’t know what they did wrong.As a result, some are going to extreme lengths to get noticed: directly contacting hiring managers, showing up to offices, seeking online fame.But should visibility require this level of persistence?
A moment of reckoning for hiring practices
The questions now are difficult but necessary: Should companies be held accountable for failing to respond to applicants? Is it ethical to advertise roles that are not genuinely open? And in an age where AI shapes every application, what will replace the résumé as a measure of merit? Until these questions are addressed, silence will continue to define the job search. And for millions of applicants, the hardest part will not be rejection, it will be not being seen at all.
