12,000 Applications. 450 Interviews. Zero Hires.

An unnamed tech company received 12,000 applications for an open role. They interviewed 450 candidates — roughly one in twenty-seven applicants made it to a conversation. After all of it, the company hired nobody. The thread on r/recruitinghell drew thousands of comments calculating the collective hours burned: conservative estimates put it north of 400 person-days of interview time alone, not counting the screening, the prep, the follow-ups that never came. The role remains unfilled.