Here's what's happening.

🧠 Why even great candidates are finding it harder to break through

If you’re job hunting right now and it feels harder than it used to, you’re not imagining it.

A few years ago, the market was tilted in your favour. In much of Europe, if you had the skills and a solid CV, you’d get interviews. For many roles, the challenge for companies was findinganyonewho fit.

That’s flipped.

Look at the US and UK, often the canaries in the coal mine, and you see it clearly:

• A Reuters story followed a US bootcamp grad who sent out 600+ applications with zero interviews.
• The Guardian says graduate roles in the UK are down a third, as AI replaces entry-level tasks.

Here in the Nordics, we still see demand for deep specialists, the kind of roles where youhaveto attract passive candidates. But for many jobs? The inbound quality is staggering. One founder in Oslo told me their last marketing role had “ten people we’d have been lucky to hire in 2019”, plus hundreds of good-but-not-as-great applications.

That’s the real shift: the quality bar is higher because the talent pool is stronger. Global layoffs, remote work, and yes, AI tools that help candidates present themselves better, have all poured high-quality players into the market.

It’s not that you’re not good enough. It’s thatmore people are.

And AI is amplifying it.

• Candidates use it to polish CVs, write better cover letters, and research roles.
• Employers use it to filter, rank, and speed through applications.

That means even great candidates can disappear in the noise. Not because they’re unqualified, but because the pile of qualified people is taller than it’s been in years.

For job seekers, the answer isn’t to play the numbers game harder. It’s to play thesignal game: clearer positioning, sharper narratives, more direct connections. Because in this market, the difference between “no response” and “first interview” is often justbeing remembered.

🔍 Signal of the Week

• The bottleneck is quality, not volume: Recruiters in Oslo, Stockholm, and London all say the same thing; they’re seeingmore excellent candidatesfor each role than at any point in the past five years.
• “From Bootcamp to Bust: How AI is Upending the Software Development Industry”follows Jonathan Kim, who applied to over 600 software engineering jobs and received no offers, highlighting how bootcamp placements have crumbled amid AI disruption.
• Revelio Labsdata shows a31% decline in openingsfor roles involving AI-exposable tasks (like database admin, IT support) since the release of ChatGPT in 2022.
• Graduate vacancies in the UK aredown 33% year-on-year, sitting at the lowest point in seven years. Employers are using AI to replace entry-level tasks, making the job market notably tougher.

✍️ What We're Seeing

We’ve been running job scoping, screening, and shortlisting for a mix of growth companies lately, and the numbers are striking. Recent roles have seen hundreds of applicants each –433 for a fullstack position, 331 for frontend, 298 for designer, and 311 for marketing. What’s surprising isn’t just the volume, but the sheer quality. Even after our AI filters out half based on hard experience, you’re still left with hundreds of relevant, competent people vying for the same spot.

That’s why so many “it’s not you, it’s someone else” rejections are real. This week alone, I reviewed a few hundred profiles and kept thinking, “this is a good one.” But compared to the top 30, most won’t even get a call. As Y Combinator says when rejecting startups: it’s rarely because something is wrong, it’s because others areexceptionallystrong. That’s exactly what we’re seeing in today’s market.

For job seekers, the implication is clear: you’re competing in a deeper talent pool than at any point in recent memory. That means showing your skills and experience as clearly as possible, finding warm connections that help you rise above the noise, and protecting your energy through the grind.

🔮 The Hiring Shift

The high bar isn’t going away, but with sharper positioning and strategic outreach, you can still clear it. In this climate, job seekers win by playing smart, not hard. Try these:

Make every application count: Highlight the experience that matches the role most, even if it means reordering your CV or rewriting your intro.

Use AI as a tool, not a crutch: In one recent role we screened, two candidates hadidenticalwording in their cover letters because they’d let ChatGPT simply mirror the job ad. AI can help you polish and structure your pitch, but it can’t tell your story. That’s still your job.

Protect your momentum: Batch your applications, take breaks, and track wins (big or small) so the process doesn’t wear you down.

About Vouch – your hiring assistant

Vouch is your AI-native hiring assistant. Imagine a recruitment system that actually understands your company, your roles, and your candidates – not just tracks them. We help modern teams scope roles, find better candidates, and make faster, smarter hiring decisions. Everything you'd expect from an ATS (and candidate CRM) is included, but the real value is in how it’s used. Learn morehere.