Undo the Technology Tangle.
How to Navigate the Broken Hiring Process by Staying Authentically Human
Do the Technology Tangle
I spent more than thirty years helping companies hire. We built employer brands and beautiful advertising campaigns, designed best-in-class hiring tools and websites, and left no stone unturned in the quest to get the right candidate in front of the right job. I’m proud of that work.
Then I left my corporate career and became an executive coach to highly ambitious women. It has been the best six years of my life. It has also given me a front-row seat to what the hiring process has become for the people on the other side of it.
So when I tell you it is broken, I am not guessing. I helped build the engine. And if not me to say something, then who?
A client—five interviews deep into a hiring tools company—five—has been waiting three months for an answer. Not a yes. Not a no. Silence.
Another client has paid for a “résumé optimization” service just to get past the Applicant Tracking System, the little engine that doesn’t.
Every single woman I coach is now using AI to write her résumé, her cover letter, and her follow-up notes. On the other side, recruiters are using AI to screen them out faster than ever before.
Two algorithms, talking past each other, with real people in the middle—trying to navigate a process that does more harm than good.
The process is broken.
I’m not anti-technology. Use AI to brainstorm, to tighten a draft, to catch a typo at midnight. But the moment you let it fully write for you, you risk handing over the one thing that actually gets you hired—your voice.
We cannot dehumanize ourselves to survive a dehumanized process. That is a losing trade.
So here is my antidote to the technology tangle—and it is almost embarrassingly simple:
Work human.
Reach out to the people who already know you.
Former colleagues. Old clients. Friends of the family. Other parents. People in your network.
Tell them you are looking. Be specific about what you are looking for—the role, the kind of company, the size, the industry, even the location.
Because vague gets you vague. Specific gets you introductions.
Most people hesitate here. They do not want to bother anyone. They do not want to seem like they need help. They would rather submit one more application into the void than send one honest message to someone who already knows and respects them.
I challenge that every time.
People want to help people. We are wired for it.
And there has never been a better moment to lean into that truth than now—when the formal process has become so distorted that a warm introduction is often more valuable than fifty perfectly optimized résumés.
What is the worst that happens? They do not respond. You have lost nothing.
What is the best that happens? They respond. You reconnect with someone meaningful. And somewhere in their network is the conversation that changes your year.
Better input in. Better outcomes out.
The system is not going to fix itself before you need a job. So go around it.
Pick up the phone. Send the message. Use your actual voice.
The people who are getting hired right now are not just playing the game better—they are changing how they play it.
They refuse to let the algorithm define them.
And in a system built on noise and automation, being human may still be the most powerful advantage of all.
