Hiring for months but turning away qualified candidates? Manager's six-minute rejection raises questions about HR technique

The company’s struggle to fill a vacancy has sparked a debate over automated recruitment after a manager claimed on Reddit that his application for a position on his own team was rejected within six minutes.

The manager said in the post that his team had been trying to fill the senior associate position for several months, with HR repeatedly reporting difficulty finding suitable candidates. To understand why applicants were not moving forward, he said he applied for a vacancy with a different name and email address.

According to him, the request was rejected almost immediately, despite his familiarity with the role and its requirements.

The manager claimed the vetting process may have relied on exact keyword matching, with the system searching for “React.js” while his resume listed “React.” The claim raises questions about whether strict screening criteria may prevent potentially suitable candidates from reaching man.

The account has not been independently verified and the exact configuration of the company’s recruitment system is not publicly determined.

How a manager was rejected because of a vacancy in his own team

According to the Reddit post, the manager led a team of nine employees and was responsible for filling the senior associate position. He said the vacancy had remained open since April, even as the personnel department continued to report that the candidate list was weak.

He decided to test the recruitment process by applying under a different name and using a new email address. The resume was largely based on his own qualifications and experience, including skills related to the job description he said he wrote.

The request was denied within six minutes, according to the post.

The manager said he spent a week trying to figure out what caused the rejection. He claimed that a mismatch between “React” and “React.js” may have caused the screening system to filter out his application.

The manager wrote: “Since April we’ve been rejecting every qualified bidder for punctuation while I’ve sat in weekly meetings where I’ve been told the market is tough.”

If correct, the account illustrates how narrowly configured screening criteria could potentially exclude candidates whose skills match the role but whose resumes use different terminology.

(Disclaimer: This article is based on a viral social media post and online reactions. LiveMint cannot independently verify the authenticity of the content and does not claim or endorse it.