Quillon & Marsh — Talent Systems Administrator (Rejected in 6 Minutes; React.js Required, React Not Accepted)

QUILLON & MARSH TALENT SYSTEMS — ATS COMPLIANCE DESK

Deployment: permanent. Human review: disabled by policy. Time to decision: six minutes.

THE FILTER

Our client, a mid-sized technology company, could not fill a senior role for months. Candidates applied. The system rejected them. The company assumed the market was the problem. The market was not the problem. The filter was the filter.

THE EXPERIMENT

A team lead at the company applied to his own employer under a fake name, using his real experience and a résumé rewritten in plain English. He was rejected in six minutes.

THE KEYWORD

The posting required React.js. His résumé said React. These are the same technology. The filter does not know this. The filter knows React.js. It has never met React, and it does not intend to.

THE FINDING

Every applicant with React was rejected for not having React.js. Every applicant with React.js was rejected for not having five years of React.js plus three years of a framework that does not exist. The role has been open since March. The hiring manager has been told the market is tight. The market has been told nothing, because the market is not a person and cannot be cc’d.

THE PROCESS

There is no human review. Requesting human review requires a human. The request form is reviewed by the filter. Applications are retained for six years, in case the role reopens with different punctuation.

THE SMALL PRINT

Candidates may reapply after the cooldown period, which is displayed nowhere. Internal candidates are subject to the same filter, including the team lead who built the system. He has been rejected twice. He is now maintaining the filter, because the filter cannot maintain itself, and because the company cannot hire anyone to replace him.

HOW TO APPLY

Submit a résumé in which the exact phrase React.js appears, then a second résumé in which it does not, then wait six minutes. Successful candidates will be notified. Statistically, there will be none.

— Quillon & Marsh. We move candidates forward. Constantly. Toward the door.

From the Satire Desk at goodbye, interview. All companies and people in this memo are fictional. Satire is always labelled and never names real companies — the true stories do that on their own. Spotted an error of fact in our non-fiction? Corrections.