Are All These Applicants for Real?

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From Day One Editors
August 26, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 19 minutes

When Alexandra Magaard applies for a job these days, the problem isn’t about having to wait long for a response. In fact, it’s usually only seconds before she’s invited to be interviewed. 

“You submit your application, and then immediately you get an automated text saying, ‘Are you available for a short call with a recruiter?’ It’s instantaneous,” she told Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza, contributing editor at From Day One.  

Magaard, who has eight years of experience in public policy, is eager to get back to work. She has been applying for tech policy jobs in mid-size companies and consultancies since late 2024. 

But when the call comes, it’s not a recruiter on the other end: It’s an AI bot reading a script. “The AI was like, ‘How long have you worked in policy? Where are you based? Are you open for a full-time role? Are you open to remote?’” she said. Answers to all of these questions were clearly laid out in her application.

Despite selectively applying to roles for months, Magaard seems to be a casualty of the AI arms race taking place in the job market right now.

With fewer open positions and more people competing for them, job seekers are using AI-powered tools to churn out applications at an unprecedented rate. Employers, in turn, are adding AI to their recruiting stacks to keep up with the avalanche of resumes that arrive by the thousands.

At New York Life, recruiters receive as many as 100,000 applications for 1,400 open roles. Based on those numbers, “it’s easier to get into Harvard than it might be to get a job at New York Life,” said Glenn Padewski, the firm’s head of experienced-professional hiring and executive search, during a From Day One conference earlier this year.

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HR analyst Josh Bersin told us a similar story via email: One of his clients posted a banking IT job at midnight and clocked more than 1,000 applications by 12:05 a.m. While not quite on the level of requests for Taylor Swift tickets, most employers aren’t equipped to thoughtfully consider that many applications.

Even with hiring at a low ebb, recruiters are now juggling 56% more job postings than a few years ago, said Steve Bartel, founder and CEO of recruiting platform GEM, during a From Day One webinar. Applicant numbers have tripled for many roles, yet recruiting teams aren’t growing. “In fact, 20% of our customers see thousands of applicants for a single role,” he said.

“How can an employer deal with these floods,” Bersin wonders, “and what possible good is this ‘AI-war’ doing for job seekers?”

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