Maybe the best way to apply for a job in 2026 is… by fax

I’m not in recruitment, but as a keen observer of hiring and career trends, I despair.

A recent social media post stopped me in my tracks. Scientist and author Elizabeth Heider posted, “Yesterday I had the dumbest possible interview of my life.”

She describes an automated five-minute interview conducted through a video platform, where she conversed with a mirror image, like a virtual photo booth, instead of a real person. Questions appeared on screen; the interviewee had five seconds to read each one and fifteen seconds to respond, without the ability to pause, consider an answer, or start over. The position was for a senior operations analyst.

Fifteen seconds for a highly qualified and experienced scientist to explain her physics PhD and her 18 years’ experience at Microsoft, the European Space Agency and the US Navy, with governmental and military operations in Europe and Africa. It probably took you as long just to read that last sentence. 

The process made her feel like a teenager talking about a summer job at a yoghurt shop, Dr Heider wrote. A horrifically disconcerting and humiliating experience, she concluded.

This is what recruitment looks like in 2026. Virtual interviews, for those fortunate enough to be invited for an interview at all. 

With sometimes thousands of applicants vying for roles, how can qualified candidates stand out? More importantly, how can employers identify the individuals they seek? Of course, recruitment has been a numbers game for many years, but online platforms and apps have exacerbated the problem. One-click ‘EasyApply’ functionality has profiles or resumes fired off to recruiters at the click of a button, with zero effort required, but to what end? Leaving aside that applications are frequently written with AI, responding to job descriptions written with AI, and reviewed and filtered by AI, what are the odds of a recruiter genuinely finding the best candidate? I have a suggestion. Have a job to fill? How about listing only a telephone number for responses? Or, even better, a fax! If a candidate is genuinely qualified and interested, they’ll find a way. Less is more, I'd say. Maybe the answer to the current recruitment mess is no machines at all. While the world rushes headlong into AI-powered automation, it may be best to leave the business of human capital to, well, humans. 

The recruitment consultant is probably the best tool for the job. If your real-life network of friends and colleagues can't connect you to a suitable hire, a professional recruiter probably can. Of course, they don't work for peanuts, but neither are you looking for monkeys, right?