This isn't really a new problem. I remember back during a previous tech downturn, the small-ish (~200 people) no-name company I worked for also got hundreds of applications a day. Yes, today, fake candidates and AI make it worse, but fundamentally the "huge number of people in the top of the funnel" problem has been a thing for a long time.

I was mostly replying to this bit:

> employers just don't want to go through the effort into finding great candidate

The notion that employers can put in the effort to give every candidate a totally fair shot so they can find the best ones is, I think, wrong, let alone the notion that they could but choose not to.

At my last company, we would have needed more people doing application reviews and interviews than we actually had employees if we wanted to do that.

Hell, I remember in college applying for a stock job at the local liquor store. When I went to hand in the application, I was told to put it on the pile- a stack of filled out applications thicker than several of my textbooks put together, suspiciously placed at the edge of a desk right next to a trash can.

> There's simply no way for employers to fairly go through them.

Sure there is. Randomly sample N, filter down to M, go through preliminary interview stages. Depending on how many that leaves you with rinse and repeat.

The important thing here isn't fairness from the perspective of the applicant. It's a process that works reliably for the company and doesn't unfairly waste applicant's time.

If the very first stage (application plus resume) is no longer a reliable signal then accept that fact and rework the process to match.