The candidate's resume never made it past the applicant tracking system. It was filtered out automatically -- one more qualified applicant swallowed by an algorithm that scans for keywords and discards the rest. Three days later, broke and running out of options, he sent a direct message to the startup's founder, Harshit Srivastava.
"Please help me. My financial condition is not good. I am an immediate joiner."
Srivastava, who runs a Delhi-based startup, did something the ATS could not. He looked again. "Not because I felt sorry for him," he wrote later on LinkedIn. "Because I wanted to make sure we hadn't missed someone worth interviewing."
The candidate was interviewed. He was hired. He called the founder afterward and said: "You saved me from unpaid EMIs and my parents' medical expenses."
Srivastava's LinkedIn post reflecting on the episode went viral, drawing thousands of reactions. "An ATS filters resumes. It doesn't understand human struggles. Technology should help us hire faster. It should never stop us from looking twice." In the comments, people with over a decade of experience described being systematically rejected by automated screens they could not see and could not appeal. One recurring observation: ATS filters were supposed to remove friction from hiring. Instead, they became another gate that good candidates never knew they were failing.