Alex Newe

I remember when I was 15, applying for my very first job. I walked into my local pool, nervously clutching a printed-out “resumé” I’d drafted in Word and asked the receptionist if they were hiring. A week later, they called my landline to offer me an interview, and a few weeks after that, I was standing poolside in my red and white lifeguarding gear, whistle around my neck, feeling like I had arrived.

Fast forward 10 years, and the job-hunting landscape looks almost unrecognisable.

Picture this: you spend hours tailoring your CV, sharpening your portfolio, fine-tuning your cover letter until it feels like a perfect mirror of your ambition and experience. You hit “submit”

You’re hopeful, maybe even a little excited. And then, days or weeks later, it arrives: 

The polite, polished no.

“We received a large number of applications…”

It’s the modern job market’s most familiar refrain — a soft rejection wrapped in corporate courtesy. It’s not cruel. It’s not even unkind. But it is, undeniably, impersonal. Just binary on a screen. Cold.

But this is the reality now. We are undeniably in an age where digital platforms make it easier than ever to apply en masse, and in doing so, the intimacy once associated with the hiring process has disappeared. You’re not just competing with a handful of locals, sometimes it’s hundreds of people from across the world, all with dazzling portfolios, SEO-optimized cover letters, and LinkedIn pages that read like polished press releases.

Algorithms often scan your application before human eyes ever get to glance your way. A typo, a formatting issue, or a keyword you didn’t think to include can mean the difference between consideration and rejection. Then there’s the added joy of job boards telling you exactly how many people have applied and, in some cases, how you rank among them. Nothing says motivational quite like learning you’re applicant number 543 and the job closed yesterday.

And so, when the rejections come, they aren’t cruel, but they are painfully sterile

No feedback. No conversation. Just a cordial wish for your continued efforts.

This is the paradox of modern job hunting: deeply personal effort met with systemic indifference. The system asks for personality that soars above the rest, for creativity that breaks boundaries, and individuality that separates you from the mass, but yet it treats applicants as a volume. A problem to be solved.

Is there a silver lining?

We’re all in the game. We’re all showing up, trying to acclimate to the fast paced digital world of creating and submitting. In a landscape defined by automation and quantity, our persistence is still the rarest and most powerful tool.