Greenhouse AI doom loop overwhelms recruiters with auto-applied jobs

Greenhouse CEO Daniel Chait says a Greenhouse AI doom loop is taking hold in hiring, as job seekers use automated tools to apply broadly and employers answer with more AI of their own. The result, he told Fortune, is a market in which candidates feel ignored and recruiters are buried under lookalike applications.

Chait said applicants are sending more résumés into hiring systems without seeing better results. Some have turned to paid AI products that search for roles and submit applications for them across Greenhouse listings, he said, with tools advertised online for about $20.

Greenhouse currently has 175,000 live jobs on its platform, according to Chait. He said each posting receives about 254 applications on average, and applications per recruiter have risen 412%.

What is the Greenhouse AI doom loop?

Chait uses the term to describe a cycle in which job seekers use AI to submit more applications, employers use AI to screen the surge, and frustrated candidates respond by applying to even more roles. He told Fortune that each side is trying to solve its own problem with AI while worsening the hiring system overall.

Recruiters can receive hundreds or thousands of applications within a day or two, Chait said. Because many are AI-generated, he said, they often become hard to distinguish, making it more difficult for companies to identify applicants with serious interest in a role.

The pressure is not limited to Greenhouse. Fortune reported that more than 1.2 million applications were submitted in the U.K. last year for fewer than 17,000 graduate jobs. The publication also cited the case of a master’s degree holder who applied to thousands of positions over more than six months without receiving a callback.

Goodwill CEO Steve Preston has said his organization is preparing for more unemployed young people as AI affects entry-level work, according to Fortune. Arvind Jain, the former Google engineer who leads AI startup Glean, told Fortune that his company receives thousands of applications a day yet still struggles to find the candidates it wants before they are hired elsewhere.

Actress Anne Hathaway has described a related problem from the employer side. Fortune reported that Hathaway said she received ChatGPT-written thank-you notes after a recent hire, warning applicants that automated messages may expose rather than help them.

How Greenhouse says it is trying to slow automated applying

Greenhouse has introduced a feature called “My Dream Job,” which lets a job seeker mark one role per month across the platform as their top choice. Chait said the scarcity of that signal gives employers a clearer sign of intent.

Nearly 500,000 “dream job” applications have been submitted since the feature launched, according to Chait. He said those applicants are hired at about five times the rate of other candidates.

Greenhouse also recently acquired Ezra AI Labs, an AI voice-interviewing company, according to the company. Chait said the goal is to let every applicant interview rather than reserving interviews only for people who pass résumé screening.

Chait argued that requiring an interview for every application could reduce the incentive to mass-apply. He also said résumé screening can add about six days to hiring and carries bias without enough value.

Other executives cited by Fortune pointed job seekers toward more personal signals. Netskope CEO Sanjay Beri told the publication that building relationships inside companies can matter because some strong jobs are not publicly posted, and he advised young job seekers to network two to three times a week.

This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.