RE: Urgent — ATS is auto-rejecting every qualified candidate

FROM

VP Engineering, Paradigm Talent Intelligence\nTo: Head of Talent Acquisition\nCC: CTO, CFO\nSubject: RE: Urgent — Q2 hiring pipeline\n\nJennifer,\n\nI pulled the last 90 days of rejections from the Paradigm ATS because our open headcount has not moved since March. Here is what I found.\n\nOf the 47 candidates who scored above 90% on our technical assessment, 44 were auto-rejected by the screening module before a human saw their application. The top rejection reasons:\n\n • Career gap exceeding 6 months (12 candidates)\n • Non-target university (9 candidates)\n • Previous salary below threshold (8 candidates)\n • Applicant name complexity index above 0.7 (6 candidates)\n • Email domain not on approved provider list (5 candidates)\n • Cover letter did not contain the phrase 'passionate about' (4 candidates)\n\nMeanwhile, the three candidates the ATS DID approve all failed the technical screen. One of them was the ATS vendor's own sales engineer, who apparently applied to test the system.\n\nWe have spent $340,000 on this platform. We are currently interviewing zero people for the twelve roles we were supposed to fill in Q2. The quarterly hiring report you sent to the board last week says we have 'a robust and diverse pipeline of pre-qualified talent.'\n\nI need a human being to review the last 500 rejections manually before end of week. If the ATS vendor tells you this is 'working as designed,' please loop in Legal.\n\nRegards,\nDavid

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