The Talent You Never See: How Filters and Keywords Keep the Best Candidates Out

Some doors are locked long before you even reach them.
In the modern hiring process, many of those locks are invisible, until you hit them head-on.

I know this because I have hit them. Hundreds of times.

The Problem That Hides in Plain Sight

Over a period of months, I applied for hundreds of roles in finance, everything from financial manager and bookkeeper to financial director. I applied for jobs that were ambitious stretches, jobs that would be sideways moves, and jobs that would sit slightly below my current level. I read every job description carefully. I weighed up the duties against my skills and experience, and I was confident I could perform at least 85 to 90 per cent of what was required.

I am not a classically trained Chartered Accountant. I have not spent years collecting letters after my name. But I have run budgets, closed VAT returns, built financial models, led small teams, and steered operational decisions that had real impact. I taught myself to source products from China without anyone showing me how. I worked on the floor, then at the desk, and then in the boardroom.

None of that mattered when I met the qualification dropdown.

It was one box in an online form. You had to pick from a pre-set list: BCom, CA, MBA. If you did not have one of those, you could not move forward. You could lie, and deal with the fallout later, or you could stop then and there. I chose to stop.

That box became the lock I could not open.

A Video Game with the Wrong Controller

The experience felt like an old video game. Imagine you have mastered Level 1. You have the reflexes, the timing, the skill to take on Level 2. But when you try to start, you are told you need a controller with six buttons. Yours only has four. It does not matter that you can play just as well, you simply cannot start the next stage.

This is what keyword filtering and rigid qualification requirements do. They do not just test for skill. They decide, before the game even starts, whether you are allowed to play.

The Human Cost to Applicants

Over time, the pattern wore me down. I applied for 750 jobs. I stopped counting after 650. By my estimate, 10 to 15 per cent were blocked at the application stage because of a single filter like that dropdown. No conversation, no interview, not even a chance to make my case.

Each rejection at that stage was not about my ability to do the work. It was about the gatekeeping logic that equates formal qualifications with suitability for the role.

The choice was stark: game the system by lying, or step away. I stepped away. It cost me opportunities, and it drained the energy I had to keep looking.

And it is not just about me. Every founder or small-business owner who posts a job like this is losing out on candidates they will never even see. The most skilled, adaptable people may never make it past the first filter.

The Hidden Cost to Businesses

From the outside, degree-based filters look efficient. They reduce a pile of applications to a shortlist in seconds. They create a sense of rigour and compliance.

But efficiency at the wrong point in the process can be expensive.

When a filter knocks out strong candidates, vacancies stay open longer. Work piles up. Teams get stretched. In small companies, that can mean the founder is pulled back into operational tasks they had already delegated.

When the eventual hire is made, the lack of competition may lead to compromises on skill, fit, or both. Onboarding takes longer. The cultural fit may be weaker. In the long run, these are costs that far outweigh the time saved by an automated filter.

When Degrees Are Essential

This is not an argument against degrees. In certain fields, they are non-negotiable, and for good reason.

If you need brain surgery, you want a qualified neurosurgeon. If you are crossing a bridge, you want it designed by a trained and certified engineer. If you need your company’s tax affairs handled, you want a registered tax practitioner who understands the regulatory landscape.

These are roles where formal education is not just a box-ticking exercise. It protects people’s lives, safety, and financial security. In these cases, a qualification is not a gatekeeping trick, it is a safeguard.

When Experience Wins

Outside those high-risk, compliance-bound fields, the value of a degree is more nuanced.

Consider a warehouse worker who starts as a shelf-packer, becomes a forklift driver, moves up to floor supervisor, then shift manager, then inventory controller. Over years, they have handled stock counts, supplier issues, staff schedules, and crisis management. By the time they apply for an operations role, they understand that warehouse in ways no graduate could learn in a lecture hall.

Or think of a hospitality worker who starts as a waiter, moves into bar work, covers for the kitchen on busy nights, becomes a supervisor, then deputy manager, then manager. Along the way, they have managed stock, trained staff, dealt with suppliers, balanced books, and handled customer service at scale. They know the operation from every angle.

I have lived the same principle. No one taught me how to source product from overseas suppliers, I figured it out because the business needed it done. That kind of practical, adaptable skill is hard to capture in a qualification field.

The Rise of CV Theatre

In many industries, the formal qualification filter is not the only gate. Applicants learn to pad their CVs with keywords and formatting tricks to get past automated Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). This is what I call CV theatre.

Those who play the theatre game can advance. Those who are honest, straightforward, and focused on substance often do not. It is a system that rewards presentation over reality, and that is dangerous for both sides.

A Different Approach: Semantic Matching

The tool I am building takes a different path. Built on a simple foundational truth: match on intention, not just keywords.

When a new vacancy is onboarded, the process guides the employer to articulate the real need. Often, what is advertised as “bookkeeper” is actually a “creditors controller” requirement. The tool will surface that distinction.

On the candidate side, applicants complete a tailored set of psychometric-style questions, based on well-known models that help reveal working style, problem-solving approaches, and cultural fit.

The goal is a holistic match, aligning the true needs of the role with the real strengths of the applicant, regardless of whether a degree is listed on the CV.

Why It Matters Now

Right now, the build is in its final stages. There are no live results yet. I cannot point you to a case study with before-and-after data.

But the reason to talk about this now is simple. The problem exists today, and it is costing businesses and job seekers every day. The sooner we start thinking differently about filters, the sooner we can close the gap between the people we need and the people we see.

For founders, early awareness means you can start re-examining your own processes. You may not change them immediately. You may keep your current filters in place. But when tools like this launch, you will be ready to test them with a clear sense of what you are trying to solve.

The Lesson

Degrees can be a marker of skill and discipline. They can also be a blunt instrument that screens out the very people who could solve your biggest challenges.

The real skill in hiring is knowing which is which.

If you are a founder or a hiring manager, ask yourself: are my filters protecting me, or are they keeping out the talent I need? You do not have to drop them today. But you do need to know the cost of keeping them.

When this tool is ready, I will be looking for founders who want to see what they have been missing.

Are you one of them?