Where Ambition Goes to Die: How Broken Hiring Processes Demoralise Talent

I once believed experience and skill would open the right doors.
Seven hundred and fifty applications later, I was still waiting.

The Illusion of Effort

When I began my most recent job search in Johannesburg, I carried a quiet confidence. I had years of finance and operations leadership experience. My CV had been sharpened. My skills had multiplied since the last time I looked for work.

The last time I was in this position was 2017. Back then, I applied for about sixty roles and ended up with three offers. It wasn’t easy, but the process felt manageable. Put in the effort, craft a decent cover letter, and somewhere the system would recognise you.

Fast forward to 2025, and the experience could not have been more different. I applied for more than 750 positions in the space of a few months. On one record day, I sent out 122 applications. My inbox, however, remained almost entirely silent.

That silence is where ambition goes to die.

A Day in the Life of Futility

Let me paint the picture of one of those 122-application days.

On one screen, I had LinkedIn jobs open. On the other, ChatGPT was running. I fed it role descriptions and asked it to tailor my CV or generate cover letters. It wasn’t elegant, but it helped me move faster.

The “easy apply” jobs went first. Dozens of clicks, dozens of CV uploads. Then came the external portals, each with its own forms, its own quirks. By midday, I had applied to 20–30 jobs.

After lunch, I shifted to the larger recruitment platforms. Many of them were powered by Workday. Each one looked the same on the surface, but each demanded a fresh upload of my details. CV. Work history. Education. Competencies. Questionnaires. Even if I had filled in the exact same form the day before, a new portal meant starting from scratch.

An application could take 10–15 minutes, sometimes longer. Multiply that by dozens, and you start to see the madness. It felt like running a marathon on a treadmill: immense energy spent, no forward progress.

The False Hope of Rejection Letters

When replies did come, they rarely contained anything useful.

“Thank you for applying. We appreciate your interest. Unfortunately, we will not be moving forward with your application at this time. Please sign up to our portal for future roles.”

That was the common refrain. A polite brush-off followed by an invitation to remain in their ecosystem. It wasn’t feedback. It wasn’t growth. It was brand maintenance.

On rare occasions, a recruiter gave me hope. One spent significant time onboarding me, assuring me I was a strong candidate. A few weeks later, I received a message that the role was “open again”, a clear sign I hadn’t been first choice. I pushed forward regardless, only to be told after an interview that I sounded too nervous.

Perhaps I did. But the deeper issue was clear: I had no mirror, no feedback loop to improve. Without insight, you’re left guessing.

From Fatigue to Hopelessness

At first, I tried to power through. I’ve always carried a strong sense of independence. My outlook is simple: if you work hard and keep moving, opportunity eventually crosses your path.

But after months of silence, fatigue set in. The cycle was brutal. Wake up. Apply all day. Sleep. Repeat. When nothing came back, hopelessness crept in.

In psychology, hopelessness is one of the strongest predictors of burnout. It’s not the long hours or the hard work that break you. It’s the absence of progress. A candle doesn’t burn out from flame alone; it suffocates when the air is gone.

That’s what the job market feels like for many today: a suffocating space where air is scarce.

Then vs Now: The Decline

The comparison with 2017 still shocks me. Sixty applications, three offers. A 5% success rate.

In 2025? Seven hundred and fifty applications, barely a handful of replies. A response rate so close to zero it hardly matters.

The market has shifted. Recruiters face floods of CVs. Automated systems screen applicants before human eyes ever see them. Businesses are either slowed by bureaucracy or too lean to process applications well.

None of this is malicious. But the effect is devastating.

The System Is Overloaded, Not Just Broken

Is the system broken? Yes. But it is also overloaded.

Corporate hiring processes collapse under their own weight. Forms multiply. Committees delay decisions. Candidates disappear in the fog of red tape.

Small businesses face the opposite challenge. They move fast, sometimes chaotically, without the tools or staff to manage applications properly. Promising candidates fall through the cracks, not because of intent but because of absence.

In both cases, ambition is the casualty.

The Human Cost

The numbers tell part of the story. South Africa’s unemployment rate sits above 30%, with youth unemployment even higher. Globally, surveys show that less than 10% of applicants ever hear back after applying for a role. Recruiters admit they simply don’t have the time to respond to everyone.

But behind every number is a person. Someone who spent their day tailoring CVs. Someone who believed their skills might finally be recognised. Someone who checked their inbox one more time before bed, hoping for a reply that never came.

Hopelessness doesn’t just sap ambition. It erodes identity. For professionals in mid-career, rejection after rejection forces you to ask: am I who I thought I was? Do my skills matter?

That’s the hidden toll of a broken system.

Coping in the Void

I leaned on a few strange supports to keep going.

During lockdown, I had discovered a tarot reader on YouTube. I never believed in her predictions. But the act of listening, of hearing someone suggest that August might bring opportunity, nudged my mind open. I began asking myself: what opportunities could come? What should I prepare for?

It wasn’t truth. It was a crutch. And sometimes a crutch is enough to keep walking.

For others, coping takes different forms. Some find relief in networking. Others turn to side projects, freelancing, or reskilling. But the common thread is the same: without feedback, we invent our own signals. We need something, anything, to guide the next step.

Toward a Redesign

The solution is not to blame recruiters or hiring managers. They are also drowning.

The solution is to redesign the system itself. To build processes that close the loop. To provide feedback, even when negative, so that candidates can improve.

Imagine if every rejection came with a simple report:

• You were not shortlisted because X.

• To improve, you might consider Y.

• Here are resources that can help.

That one step would transform hopelessness into action. It would turn wasted effort into learning. It would keep ambition alive.

This is what I’m working to build: a system that restores dignity to job seekers and clarity to recruiters. Not a job board. Not another platform to store CVs. A mirror that reflects reality and lights the path forward.

Quiet Strength

The truth is, we cannot control the economy. We cannot force recruiters to reply. We cannot untangle decades of bureaucratic knots overnight.

But we can control how we respond. We can choose to keep improving, even when feedback is scarce. We can choose to support each other, to share insights, to lift ambition where the system fails to.

The hiring system may be broken. But ambition does not have to die here.

Closing Reflection

If you’ve been through this grind, you know the fatigue. You know the silence. You know the hopelessness.

You are not alone.

The question is: how do we build systems, and cultures, that keep ambition alive, not bury it in silence?