AI가 이력서와 지원서 작성을 자동화하면서 채용 담당자들은 하루에도 수천 건의 지원서에 파묻히게 됐고, 가짜 지원자와 AI로 작성된 유사한 이력서를 구분하기 어려워졌습니다. 이에 채용 업계는 그동안의 '쉬운 지원' 정책에서 방향을 바꿔, 오히려 지원 과정에 '마찰(friction)'을 의도적으로 늘리는 것이 필요하다는 결론에 도달하고 있습니다.
번역된 본문
3년 전, 앤드류 스톡웰(Andrew Stockwell)은 채용 루틴을 과학적으로 체계화해 두고 있었다. 소프트웨어 구매 기업 Vendr의 인사 총책임자였던 스톡웰은 채용 공고를 올리고 며칠 기다린 뒤 수십 건, 운이 좋으면 100건까지의 지원서를 검토했다. 리크루터들이 다른 유망한 후보자를 찾아내 지원자 풀을 조금 더 늘리기도 했다. 스톡웰은 이력서를 읽고, 면접을 진행하고, 우수한 후보자를 채용 담당자에게 넘겼다. "정말 좋은 인재를 찾아내고, 그 인재를 파악하고, 대화하고, 최고의 인물을 가려내는 것이 핵심이었습니다"라고 스톡웰은 WIRED에 말했다.
그런데 지난 1년 사이 어느 시점부터, 스톡웰에 따르면 모든 것이 변했다. 과정은 같게 시작했지만 하루 이틀 만에 스톡웰이 보게 된 것은 100명의 후보자가 아니었다. 대신 수백 건의 지원서가 쏟아졌다. 때로는 1,000건을 넘기기도 했다. 상당수는 '완전히 가짜', 즉 허위 지원자였다고 스톡웰은 말한다. 그 외에도 많은 지원서가 인공지능(AI)으로 작성된 것으로 보였고, 과장된 내용 때문에 지원자들을 서로 구분하기 어려웠다. 그 엄청난 양 자체가 압도적이었다. 스톡웰은 "고액 연봉의 우수한 인재 확보 전문가들이 하루 종일 그저 지원서를 뒤지는 일만 하게 됐다"고 말했다.
스톡웰은 구직 활동이 근본적으로 망가졌다고 믿는 수많은 채용 전문가 중 한 명이다. 2026년, 일자리 찾기는 온라인 쇼핑만큼 쉬워졌다. AI는 맞춤형 이력서와 자기소개서를 몇 초 만에 뽑아낼 수 있다. 브라우저 확장 프로그램은 사람의 개입 없이 지원서를 자동으로 채워 넣는다. LinkedIn은 하루에 수십 개의 일자리를 사용자에게 추천하며, 많은 경우 '클릭 몇 번'으로 지원할 수 있는 옵션을 제공한다.
"1년 전만 해도 모든 리크루터가 '지원을 최대한 쉽게 만들고 싶다'며 후보자에게 '매끄러운 경험'을 제공하겠다고 말했습니다"라고 채용 플랫폼 Greenhouse의 음성 AI 총책임자 오피르 샘슨(Ophir Samson)이 WIRED에 말했다. 샘슨은 올해 초, AI로 채용 면접을 진행하던 그의 스타트업을 Greenhouse가 인수하면서 합류했다. "그 결과 얻은 것은 24시간 만에 한 자리에 2,000건의 지원서였습니다. 그건 모두에게 끔찍한 경험입니다."
우수한 지원자는 눈에 띄지 못하고, 부적합한 후보자는 틈새로 빠져나간다. 샘슨에 따르면 리크루터들은 매일같이 수천 명의 후보자를 평가하는 고된 작업에 직면한다. LinkedIn에서 이상적인 인재를 찾는 데 시간을 쓰는 대신, 지원자 관리 시스템(ATS)에서 필터를 조정하며 어떤 지원서가 30초 훑어볼 가치가 있는지 가려내는 데 몇 시간을 보낸다. 이제 리크루터들은 샘슨에게 "사실, 우리는 좀 마찰이 필요하다"고 말한다고 한다. "마찰은 좋은 겁니다. 지원을 더 어렵게 만들고 싶습니다."
지원 과정의 고통 지점을 없애려는 욕구는 이치에 맞다. 최대한 많은 유능한 후보자가 한 자리에 지원한다면, 기업이 최적의 인재를 찾을 확률을 극대화할 수 있기 때문이다. 그래서 수년간 리크루터들은 구직 사이트와 LinkedIn에 공고를 올렸고, LinkedIn의 '간편 지원(Easy Apply)' 기능에 가입했으며, 후보자에게 '원클릭' 지원 절차를 약속했다. 팬데믹 이후에는 인력 공석을 채우려 고심하던 고용주들의 노력으로 지원 절차 간소화가 더욱 가속화됐다. "모두가 이직을 거듭했습니다. 오후 몇 시간 만에 세 개의 오퍼를 받을 수 있었으니까요"라고 부동산 거인 JLL의 전환 총책임자 제인 커런(Jane Curran)이 WIRED에 말했다. 지금은 "정반대 상황"이다.
미국 노동통계국 데이터에 따르면 일자리 공석은 2022년 3월 사상 최고치인 1,230만 개를 기록한 뒤 2년간 감소세를 보였다. 2024년 중반 이후 공석은 약 700만 개(±50만) 수준에서 오가고 있다. 그러나 일자리 공석이 줄어드는 동안 지원의 진입 장벽은 오히려 더 낮아졌다. 2022년 말 ChatGPT 공개와 함께 주류가 된 AI는 지원자가 이력서를 즉시 다시 쓰고 새 공고를 추적할 수 있게 해준다.
Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Three years ago, Andrew Stockwell had his hiring routine down to a science. As head of people for the software-buying company Vendr, Stockwell posted a listing , waited a few days, and then reviewed a few dozen applications—up to 100, if he was lucky. Recruiters identified other potential candidates, adding a few more applicants to the mix. Stockwell read résumés, conducted interviews, and passed along sterling candidates to hiring managers. “It was really about finding that great talent, sussing out that talent, speaking with that talent, and identifying the best possible people,” Stockwell tells WIRED. Sometime in the last year or so, Stockwell says, everything changed. The process started off the same way, but within a day or two, Stockwell wasn’t looking at 100 candidates. Instead, he was flooded with hundreds of applications. Sometimes, the incoming topped a thousand. A good chunk were “total bogus,” Stockwell says—fake candidates. Many more appeared to have been written using artificial intelligence , stretching the truth and making it difficult to distinguish one applicant from another. The sheer quantity was overwhelming. Stockwell says he found himself “paying my talent-acquisition professionals—who are high-paid, high-quality individuals—just to look through applications all day long.” Stockwell is one of many recruitment professionals who believe looking for a job is fundamentally broken. In 2026, job hunting has become as easy as online shopping: AI can crank out tailored résumés and cover letters in seconds. Browser extensions can autofill applications, no human necessary. LinkedIn serves users dozens of jobs a day, many with the option to apply with “just a few clicks.” “A year ago, every recruiter would tell me: We want to make it as easy as possible to apply for jobs,” offering candidates a “seamless experience,” Ophir Samson, the head of voice AI for Greenhouse, tells WIRED. Samson joined the recruiting platform earlier this year, when it acquired his startup, which used AI to conduct job interviews. “What they got was 2,000 applicants in 24 hours for a job. That is a shitty experience for everyone.” Good applicants can’t stand out, while bad candidates slip through the cracks. Recruiters, Samson says, face the tortuous task of judging thousands of candidates, every single day. Instead of taking the time to search LinkedIn for dream employees, they spend hours in applicant tracking systems, tweaking filters to try to determine whose applications are worth a 30-second skim. Now, recruiters are telling Samson, “actually, we kind of want friction,” he says. “The friction is good. We want to make it harder.” The desire to remove pain points in the application process makes sense: If the highest number of qualified candidates apply for a role, it stands to reason that a company can maximize the chances of finding the best possible fit. So for years, recruiters have posted on job boards and LinkedIn; they signed up for LinkedIn’s “Easy Apply” feature; they promised candidates a “one-click” application process. Post-pandemic, recruiters’ efforts to simplify the process went into superdrive, as employers struggled to fill open roles. “Everyone was job hopping, because you literally could have three offers in an afternoon,” Jane Curran, the chief transformation officer at real estate giant JLL, tells WIRED. Now, “it is the polar opposite.” Openings peaked at a record 12.3 million in March 2022, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, followed by two years of decline. Since mid-2024, openings have hovered at around 7 million, give or take 500,000. But as the number of job openings contracted, the barriers to entry for applying declined even further. AI—which entered the mainstream in late 2022 with the public release of ChatGPT—allows applicants to rewrite résumés and track new postings almost instantaneously. Companies like JobAssist, Sonara , and Ladder’s Apply4Me promise applicants that their technology will handle all the busy work of applying for jobs, by submitting “10x as many applications with less effort than one manual application.” If you wanted to, you could apply for dozens of jobs a day. This formula has led to ballooning candidate pools and laborious hiring processes. LinkedIn tells WIRED that submissions per applicant on the platform are up 46 percent compared to February 2020. Since the launch of ChatGPT, applications are up 22 percent. The explosive number of applications led to LinkedIn adding limits to cut back on automated and low-quality applications. This month, the platform is rolling out a feature that informs (seemingly) underqualified applicants that they probably aren’t a good fit for a role, and suggests other jobs. “We're currently in a place where employers are complaining that they can't find good people, and people are complaining that they can't find jobs,” Tessa White, a former HR executive, tells WIRED. White worked in HR for two decades before leaving corporate America in 2018. During the pandemic, she began posting on TikTok, where she has built a following of 800,000 by sharing advice and commentary on the job market. She believes the current situation is unworkable, and is a result of recruiters’ quest for speed and ease. “Every time we seem to strive for efficiency, we seem to give up quality,” she says. Recruiters know they have a problem. Sure, an avalanche of résumés is welcome for some roles, such as skilled trades workers, where employer demand consistently exceeds employee supply. But for the typical unemployed white-collar knowledge worker , JLL’s Curran says, there “is not enough churn, not enough jobs coming into the market.” That means recruiters in these industries face a barrage of résumés every time they post a new role. Many recruiters are turning to AI tools themselves, hoping to wrangle the sea of applications into something more manageable. Companies have used automated applicant tracking systems to screen résumés for at least a decade; now, many are using agents to conduct first-round interviews with candidates. “We frequently hear from recruiters: They have 1,000 applications, but they know that only 30 of them are serious,” Greenhouse’s Samson says. An AI interview can sort the unserious from the serious, he says, offering recruiters context beyond a résumé. While Samson says that these AI interviews are not friction for friction’s sake, they have the added bonus of weeding out bots and halfhearted candidates. Curran says she expects some companies to turn to knock-out questions that cut down the application pool via strict criteria. Others might add skills testing earlier in the process. But White isn’t convinced these changes fix the underlying problem—that the frictionless résumé drop has rendered the first round of the application process essentially worthless. “Employers are having such a hard time hiring people with the current antiquated process,” White says. “Even AI and applicant tracking systems, which sound so high-tech, are an antiquated way to look at people and skill sets.” AI simply does not have the capabilities, she says, to accurately judge someone’s potential. “I definitely think recruiting and the way we do it is due for a massive overhaul,” White says. “And I don't even know that I have the right answers.” The deluge of applications has increased recruiters’ reliance on referrals and internal hires. While these human-to-human connections have always been important, today, some see them as the only ways to circumvent the glut of applications. Stockwell believes this benefits people whose backgrounds align with existing employees’, which isn’t conducive to a diverse workforce. “The whole thing is a big mess,” he says. Stockwell is now dealing with the mess from the other side of the application portal. In February, he left Vendr, and is now on the job hun