By Keith Davenport
If you’ve ever applied for a job that you were clearly qualified for, but never heard back, you’re not alone. The problem probably wasn’t your education and experience, it was most likely the way that the hiring team was forced to review applications. Most applicants have no idea what’s happening behind the scenes to create the issue. However, as more Johnson County employers experiment with new hiring tools, including platforms like MythicHire, the gap between how candidates are evaluated and how they actually perform is starting to come into focus.
Job seekers make a lot of assumptions when they never hear back about a job. Usually they say things like “they must have found someone more qualified,” “they must not have liked my background.” Sometimes the assumptions are even more painful: “they thought I was overqualified,” “they thought I was underqualified,” “no one wants to hire someone my age,” “my resume must be bad,” or “I must be asking for too much money.” So job seekers take these assumptions to heart and change which jobs they apply for moving forward. The problem is, these assumptions are not likely even close to the truth.
What’s really happening? There are a number of issues that contribute to qualified job seekers not getting a chance to interview and not hearing back. First, the volume of applications has never been higher. Recruiting firm Robert Walters reported that corporate jobs receive an average of 250 applications per position in 2025. Resumes were practical in the 1930s when they first gained popular use in the United States, but they’re not as effective now. With technology like “easy apply” buttons and artificial intelligence that automates applying for positions, hiring managers are overwhelmed by the number of applications they are receiving.
In order to decrease the number of applicants, many workplaces have increased the years of experience and education requirements for entry-level and mid-level positions. So now, experience is even required before you can apply for an internship. Although these requirements are often consistent throughout an organization, they are based primarily on arbitrary criteria and anecdotal evidence. The challenge is though that years of experience and degrees are one of the few metrics that can be measured the same way across applicants. However, with the exception of licensure requirements, research shows that years of experience and specific degrees rarely translate to a good fit into a position. This hasn’t stopped hiring managers from immediately screening out applicants who don’t explicitly meet these requirements.
Leading applicant tracking systems have tried to address this feeling of overwhelm by leveraging technology to make applicant review easier. Platforms will read applications and automatically screen out candidates that don’t meet the minimum requirements included in the job positing. Other technology uses artificial intelligence to review resumes to see if the keywords match the ones in the job posting. However, if job seekers use platforms like Canva or other design-rich options, their resumes often cannot be read by this technology and so they aren’t even considered. What makes the applicant review process even more difficult for employers is that more and more candidates are using artificial intelligence to optimize their resume and cover letter for each job. Ultimately, employers are using AI technology to read AI-generated resumes. They end up interviewing the candidates who are the best at making resumes instead of the ones who will do the best job for the position.
Some Johnson County employers have begun to conclude that traditional applicant tracking systems may be costing them strong candidates. Rather than relying on keyword matches or rigid experience thresholds, they’re experimenting with skills-based review tools like MythicHire, which evaluate how candidates think, communicate, and solve problems. For employers, that often means reviewing fewer applications and spending less time screening. For job seekers, it means being evaluated on their actual abilities rather than how closely their résumé mirrors a job posting.
Hiring systems shape who gets opportunity and who gets overlooked. As local businesses compete for talent in a tight labor market, the tools they choose will increasingly determine whether qualified candidates ever get the chance to be seen.
Find your unicorn candidate with real-time applicant scoring and ranking. Fast, fair, and first of its kind. Contact MythicHire today.
