The Hiring Crisis – When HR Lost Sight of the Human Being

One of the greatest contradictions in Central Europe’s labour market is that, while companies complain of labour shortages, qualified people who genuinely want to work are being caught in increasingly rigid selection filters. Drawing on personal experience, this opinion piece examines how recruitment has, in many organisations, shifted from finding the right person to searching for the perfectly optimised candidate.

Author: Olga Nádra

Recently, I have taken part in seven job interviews and sent countless CVs to a wide range of companies. In some respects, I am fortunate: I work in a shortage occupation where market demand is so strong that I could find a job almost immediately simply by walking through the doors of one of the relevant institutions. Yet this comparatively favourable position makes the systemic distortions of today’s recruitment market even easier to see. It is deeply discouraging that a transparent and honestly written professional CV is often no longer enough to gain entry. Applicants are effectively forced to tailor their applications artificially to the profile of a particular company and, when necessary, to embellish or omit parts of their career history in order to fit the expected mould.

At my most recent interview, the contrast between this sterile system of expectations and human reality became particularly stark. When I was asked about a visible nine-month gap in my career, I answered honestly: I had to take time away from work to care for two close relatives at home. The HR representative immediately appeared uncertain about how to process this answer. Within the logic of rigid corporate templates, I suddenly became a ‘risk factor’ – someone who might leave the team if another crisis arose. The hiring manager, by contrast, responded as a human being and expressed sincere sympathy. I had not said that my relatives had died; he had simply read it in my expression. His gesture meant a great deal to me, but it also illuminated one of the greatest paradoxes of contemporary recruitment.

Economic analyses and industry reports regularly describe structural labour shortages across Central Europe, while hundreds of qualified people who want to work are stopped by HR filters. How is this possible? Because the HR problem is merely a symptom. The deeper problem is that common sense has largely disappeared from selection processes. The workforce may not necessarily have vanished; the channel connecting companies and applicants may simply have become blocked. Recruitment has therefore become one of the weakest links in the modern labour market.

The Death of Functionality and the Theatre of Loyalty

In the past, recruitment and job interviews rested on pragmatic foundations. The employer asked the simplest and most important question: ‘Can this person do the job?’ What mattered was the applicant’s competence, work ethic, professional experience and reliability. If the answers and references were convincing, an agreement was reached.

Today, by contrast, recruitment in many organisations has become an over-psychologised theatre of loyalty. The cult of the cover letter has become the first line of defence. Absurdly, even a cashier, warehouse worker, nurse or mechanic may be expected to write an essay demonstrating commitment. Applicants are forced to perform the degrading fiction that they have dreamed since childhood of working for that particular logistics company or multinational retail chain. The system treats a straightforward reality as almost taboo: people apply for jobs because they need a livelihood, fair pay and predictable work. In many cases, genuine professional assessments have been replaced by manipulative HR template questions whose approved answers can easily be memorised online – most notoriously, ‘Where do you see yourself in five years?’ Such questions do not necessarily measure real ability. More often, they measure conformity and the ability to perform the expected role.

Potemkin Wellbeing – When HR Becomes a Marketing Agency

As recruitment has drifted away from reality, human resources management has increasingly come to resemble an in-house PR and marketing agency. The emphasis has shifted towards selling superficial benefits and fashionable slogans. ‘Fruit days’, ‘beanbag chairs’, ‘table football’ and ‘Pizza Fridays’ have become standard features of job advertisements. Positions are marketed with promises of a ‘young, dynamic team’ and a ‘motivating environment’.

This Potemkin wellbeing, however, may stand in sharp and almost painful contrast to internal reality. Behind the glossy facade, existing staff may be struggling with chronic understaffing, constant overtime, systemic burnout and incompetent or toxic management. HR can become so occupied with building an attractive image for the outside world that its most important responsibilities – retaining existing employees and addressing fundamental organisational problems – are pushed completely into the background.

The Dictatorship of Algorithms

Technology has accelerated the depersonalisation of recruitment. Recruiters now manage not only people, but also data points, keywords and LinkedIn profiles. The first-stage processing of applications is increasingly supported by automated applicant tracking systems, or ATS platforms, and tools built on artificial intelligence.

This technological filter can easily become mechanical and inflexible. If an excellent professional’s CV lacks a few specific keywords, or if their career has not followed a sterile, perfectly straight line, the system may reject them at the very first stage. As a result, the most creative, unconventional or genuinely valuable candidates may fail within the first millisecond. Selection no longer rewards brilliance or real aptitude; it rewards the most precise possible adaptation to the machine’s expectations.

A whole interview-preparation industry has emerged on social media as a direct consequence. Career advisers and influencers teach employees how to outmanoeuvre the robots and HR professionals. Applicants have not necessarily become better qualified for the work itself; they have simply become more skilled at gaming the system.

The Invisible Wall Facing Hiring Managers

The tragedy is that hiring managers often see almost none of this. Senior management receives only sanitised KPIs and charts: ‘Twenty thousand people saw the advertisement and two hundred applied, but the market has been exhausted. We cannot find anyone.’

Only candidates who have made it through the algorithms and the theatre of loyalty ever reach the hiring managers. They may sometimes be professionally weaker, but they are exceptionally ‘interview-ready’: they have memorised the right phrases and perfectly optimised their profiles. The raw talents who could genuinely solve the company’s problems never reach the decision-makers. Managers conclude that no suitable applicants exist, even though their own system has removed those applicants from the process.

Systemic Empathy – HR Professionals Are Prisoners Too

It is important to recognise that the root of the problem does not necessarily lie in the personal incompetence or ill will of HR professionals. Blaming them is easy, but in reality they, too, are prisoners of a badly designed and dysfunctional structure.

Corporate HR departments operate under enormous time pressure, unrealistic managerial expectations – such as the classic demand for a ’25-year-old expert with ten years of experience’ – and strict bureaucratic constraints. In this environment, organisations cultivate a culture of risk avoidance. If a recruiter relies on a rigid rule or an algorithmic decision, their personal accountability is limited if the person hired does not work out. If, however, they trust their judgement and the human factor and recruit an unconventional and eccentric but brilliant candidate, and that candidate ultimately fails, the responsibility is theirs alone. The modern corporate structure rewards safe mediocrity over brilliant risk-taking.

HR has also expanded beyond its natural boundaries: a form of ‘HR inflation’ has taken place. It has sought to become a strategic partner, a psychological laboratory and a marketing centre, while becoming increasingly unable to perform its basic function: finding the right person for the job simply and efficiently.

Putting People Back at the Centre

It is time to acknowledge that the overregulation and digitalisation of selection systems have produced not only efficiency, but also blindness. If a company genuinely wants to solve its human resources problems, it must return to first principles. Behind CVs and algorithms, it must look for the human being; instead of internal PR and marketing, it must create fair, decent working conditions.

As for me, after seven interviews and the constant need to prove an appearance of loyalty, I have decided to abandon this battle against windmills. Shortage occupation or not, I would rather take a job at the checkout of my local supermarket chain. I shop there, I know the product range, and I will have no difficulty mastering the internal training and technology. At least I will not have to pretend that sitting at a checkout fulfils my childhood dreams, and my nine-month career gap will not be treated as a national security risk. I will simply do the work I am paid to do.

Until companies are willing to dismantle the bureaucratic wall they have built around themselves, economic indicators will not improve in any meaningful way.

The equation is remarkably simple: perhaps there is no labour shortage. Perhaps there is a hiring crisis.

Cover photo credit: CEA Magazine. Edited with AI assistance using ChatGPT

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