I have a friend who was working in this space in 2019.

Their customers were hiring something like 10k jobs worldwide annually, which means 500k+ applications to go through.

AI was used for the first filter to get a person through to later rounds.

It makes sense at that scale, and not for "hiring" but just to make decisions as to who gets to the next round.

The alternative is that you end up having to hire so many people to go through the applicants and then those people get bored of asking the same initial questions again and again.

I remember hearing an anecdote, back in the days of paper resumes, that hiring managers would take the huge stack of resumes they got, divide them in half and throw half in the bin. That half would be considered unlucky, and you don't want to hire unlucky people.

But seriously, with the number of job applicants, for certain positions, what are the alternatives to getting AI to help?

If you have 10k jobs and 500k applications, that's 50 applications per job. Spending a few minutes on each application would mean a few hours for the initial screening for each job, but if that job is filled, you'll get a person who'll stay there for a few years. How is that not worth it? Why would you need to automate it? If you're interviewing for people to do some quick task and leave, sure, but companies want long-term hires.

Realistically there's a point where you haven't interviewed enough people and another when you've interviewed so many you're wasting time.

Do you need the global optimum candidate, or do you need a very good candidate? If you need the global best then you're probably better off headhunting than posting a job listing.

"But seriously, with the number of job applicants, for certain positions, what are the alternatives to getting AI to help?"

How about hiring enough managers to hire that many people. Not sure why you think hiring should be free.