Recruiting in the Fog

Photo credit: Wall Street Journal | “Inside the $10,000 Job Search”

Recruiting in 2025 isn’t short on noise. We’ve got AI tools ranking resumes, companies downsizing and hiring in the same quarter, and headlines declaring the how-to’s of the online job posts every other week. And the elephant in the room – yes, tech and layoffs are changing the game. We’re in a fog of noise, cost, and confusion. 

Red Flags to Watch

• Job seekers blasting 200+ applications with zero traction – no strategy, no clarity, just volume.

• Employers posting vague, generic job ads, hoping the right candidate appears by chance.

• Veterans chasing degrees or credentials that dilute their real strengths and fail to tell their story.

• Recruiters spread too thin, reacting to every AI trend or industry forecast instead of focusing on what actually works.
  

Every week, headlines (paraphrased below) reinforce these distractions – time-sucking job boards, money-draining credential programs, and hiring processes that frustrate the processes for everyone:

• Finding Signal in the Job Board Jungle

• Retro Move: The In-Person Interview

• Myth of the Useless Degree For The Best Shot of Long-Term Success

What’s wrong with recruiting today?

The Core Problem: All these issues feed the same gap: candidates, recruiters, and employers aren’t aligned. That gap shows most clearly at the first interview – the first gate. If candidates can’t present themselves in a way employers recognize, recruiters aren’t framing the story, or employers keep shifting expectations, nobody clears that gate.

We’ll run a 3-part series to answer the what is wrong with recruiting today? It will help identify issues that cuts through the fog.

1. The First Gate
   Why the first interview is still the main hurdle – and why candidates, recruiters, and employers keep misfiring at this stage. We’ll expose the blind spots and set the foundation for fixing them.

2. The Recruiter Problem
   Not all recruiters are built the same. Too many add noise instead of clarity. We’ll examine how recruiters should serve as translators, not paper pushers, and what happens when they don’t.

3. The Employer Gap
   Employers keep moving the goalposts – shifting requirements, chasing culture fit, or screening out nontraditional candidates (especially Veterans). We’ll break down how employers can stabilize their hiring approach and stop screening out potential.

Our mission

Strip recruiting back to discipline, clarity, and ROI. The gap is clearest at the first gate: the interview invite.

Here are the parties stepping up to deliver:

• The Candidate’s Question

“How do I show my value to you, employer? Is it the haircut, the body language, or the bullet points on my resume? What’s the ‘look’ that gets me in the door?”

Most candidates believe the first interview is about looking perfect. It’s not. It’s about showing enough clarity and credibility to earn time. The trouble is, most candidates don’t know how much polish is enough – or in the case of Veterans and career-changers, they undersell their value entirely.

• The Recruiter’s Role

“How do I position my candidate’s value for you, client?”

Here’s the hard truth: too many recruiters think their job is shuffling resumes until something sticks. That’s not recruiting. That’s administration.

A recruiter’s real value is translation.

• Taking a candidate’s raw experience and reframing it in terms an employer understands.

• Coaching the candidate on what matters (and what doesn’t) to pass that first gate.

• Anticipating how the employer reads signals – confidence, clarity, adaptability – and prepping the clients accordingly.

When recruiters fail to translate, candidates get ghosted and employers shrug, “We’re not seeing the right people.”

• The Employer’s Blind Spot

“How do I frame the opportunity so it’s clear and actionable for a hire?”

Employers keep moving the goalposts. One quarter they’re demanding a long list of technical certifications, the next it’s “culture fit” and “intangibles.” They want confidence – but only the brand they recognize.

This blind spot hits Veterans and outsiders hardest. They may not come wrapped in corporate packaging, but they bring leadership, discipline, and adaptability most teams desperately need. Employers forget that potential often looks different depending on the background. When they only hire what feels familiar, they miss out on capability.

Why the First Interview Is the Gate

The first interview isn’t the finish line. It’s the opportunity to prove a candidate deserves a deeper look. If recruiters can’t position talent clearly enough to earn that shot, everyone loses.

The truth is, AI filters, layoffs, and market noise only magnify this gap. Candidates are spinning their wheels trying to guess the right haircut or buzzword. Employers are frustrated that their pipelines feel thin. Recruiters? Too often, they’re stuck in the middle, adding more noise instead of cutting through it.

Why This Matters

• Candidates: Stop obsessing over surface polish. Focus on clarity – what you can do, how you’ve done it, and why it matters.

• Recruiters: Your job isn’t passing paper. It’s helping candidates tell their story in a way employers recognize.

• Employers: Recognize when you’re moving the goalposts. Are you screening for performance or for packaging?

Fixing the Blind Spots

1. Focus Signal Over Noise: Stop chasing every job board, AI trend, or “must-have” credential. Identify the channels and strategies that consistently work for your target role or candidate type.

2. Translate Experience Clearly: Recruiters must reframe candidate backgrounds into language employers understand – especially for Veterans and career changers.

3. Align Expectations: Employers need to define what “fit” and performance actually look like before they post a job. Recruiters then position candidates accordingly.

4. Prep for the Gate: The first interview is the checkpoint. Candidates should know what story they’re telling, recruiters should ensure that story lands, and employers should evaluate based on capability, not packaging.

With these foundations, the fog of misalignment lifts. Candidates gain clarity, recruiters become force multipliers, and employers finally see the talent they need.

Recruiting’s first gate isn’t broken because of AI, layoffs, or technology. It’s broken because the three sides aren’t aligned. Candidates are guessing, employers are shifting, and recruiters aren’t translating. Fixing recruiting starts by fixing this first gate.

⚡ Next in this series: Part 2 will dig into how recruiters themselves add to the signal problem – and what it takes to cut through the noise.