February 19, 2026
Welcome to the HR Hunger Games
Why applicant tracking systems are broken by design
Resumes vanish, HR guards the gates, and commenters cry power grab
TLDR: The article says applicant tracking systems are broken because they serve compliance-minded buyers, not recruiters or candidates. Commenters fire back that it’s intentionally this way: HR exists to minimize risk, power sits with employers, and some accuse the author of shilling a new tool
ATS—those online portals where your resume goes to die—are getting roasted. The article argues they’re broken by design: buyers are VPs who want compliance boxes checked, not recruiter joy, and the product is a flashy demo while teams secretly wrangle candidates in Google Sheets. Cue community meltdown. One camp says this isn’t a bug, it’s the plan: as snapetom puts it, companies prefer thousands of applicants because it shifts power their way. Another camp shrugs, saying HR’s job is risk control, not finding unicorns—helle253 calls it out plainly: minimizing corporate risk is the whole mission.
There’s spicy side-eye too. Aurornis claims the post is “just an ad” for a new tool, setting off the classic Internet trust tug-of-war: is it a diagnosis or a sales pitch? Meanwhile, folks laugh at the price tag comparison from Paul Copplestone—$25 for a database, $7,491 for a hiring platform—turning it into a meme about paying more to reject you faster. Jakub_g co-signs the meme-worthy line: “the product is the sales demo that impresses VPs,” while recruiters still live in spreadsheet purgatory. And x3cca delivers the bleak truth: hiring isn’t optimized for “best candidate fast,” it’s a status signal, a gatekeeping ritual, and a corporate comfort blanket. The crowd verdict: ATS aren’t just clunky—they’re a power system, and no shiny UI is fixing that
Key Points
- •The article argues ATS are structurally broken due to misaligned incentives and buyer dynamics, not merely poor design talent.
- •Early modern ATS like Lever and Greenhouse improved on legacy systems such as Taleo, but progress has stagnated.
- •HR tech purchasing is driven by legal and compliance requirements, exemplified by NYC’s Local Law 144 on bias audits for AEDTs.
- •Fintech shows innovation can thrive under regulation (e.g., Stripe, Brex, Ramp, Mercury) because buyers and users align and ROI is measurable.
- •In HR, buyer–user misalignment and regulation act as moats for incumbents, making building an ATS a risky “trap” for founders.