I don't know how to solve this in the current environment. A hiring manager friend said he's getting unprecedented number of application for a software engineering role.

Ultimately applicants will endure whatever companies put in front of them with a job market that is this bad.

If the government made this illegal companies would come out with ever increasingly silly filters, such as demanding specific college degrees, handwritten applications by snail Mail etc.

▲ clusterhacks 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Just to add some hope and a different perspective, we received 23 applicants for an entry-level or early-career software developer position when it was open for a couple of months in early 2025. This is about the same number of applicants we usually get for an opening.

Applicant count for similar positions by year:

  23 - 2025 (the position I mentioned)
  31 - 2025
  10 - 2019

The above are three jobs where I was on the hiring committee and are relatively recent. My organization is relatively well-known but also pays a little bit below market in general.

I do think the market is very rough right now for software developers. I also know for a fact that "attractive" hiring companies can get a crazy number of applicants for each opening. SAS was famous for getting 1,000+ applicants per job just after the dotcom bust in the early 2000's.

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ewoodrich 6 days ago | parent [-]

If you're willing to share, was this a remote or in-person/hybrid position? Which job sites do you list on (if any)?

	▲	clusterhacks 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		We have always been in-person or hybrid with staff mostly very local. Openings tend to pop-up on indeed, linkedin, and probably other job aggregator boards.

▲ armchairhacker 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

1. Use a TripleByte replacement (e.g. https://www.otherbranch.com/) to filter out obviously bad applicants. Basically, job-seekers do a long set of interviews, and if they pass, are considered generally competent.

2. If you get a lot of generally-competent employees after applying reasonable filters (e.g. matching skillset, expected salary), don't give them a long automated test, pick a smaller set randomly. All of them have demonstrated competence, and the likelihood that the test will give you more the more competent employees is offset by the likelihood that they'll move forward with applications more respectful of their time.

3. Do final-stage (human) interviews with the small set of employees, where you test specific skills relevant to the job. Here you can also throw a couple general-skill questions to ensure the applicant really is generally competent; it's not disrespecting their time, because it's part of the interview time and you're spending it as well (maybe it is if the entire interview is especially long, but then you're wasting also your own time).

The important part is 1). Otherbranch may not be good or popular, but at least if/when employee supply falls below demand, "mass interview" seems like something employers will need to filter out bad applicants without wasting good applicants' time.

▲ petesergeant 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

This 100%, and most of the other replies to the story are bullshit. This works because we currently have an oversupply of candidates for roles. When (if) that flips back, this will likely go away.