AI has made it incredibly easy for candidates to create resumes, customize applications and apply to dozens, sometimes hundreds, of jobs in very little time. On the other side, employers are using increasingly sophisticated tools to screen those applications, rank candidates and automate large portions of the hiring process.
Everyone is moving faster, but are we actually making better hiring decisions?
At Abrazo, we think that is the question more companies should be asking.
More applications do not necessarily mean better candidates
According to LinkedIn's 2026 talent research, applicants per open role in the United States have doubled since the spring of 2022. At the same time, two thirds of recruiters, 66 percent, say it has become harder to find qualified talent over the last year.
Think about that for a moment. Companies have access to significantly more candidates, yet identifying the right ones has become more challenging.
Greenhouse reported similar findings in its 2026 hiring benchmarks, drawn from more than 640 million applications across over 6,000 companies. Applications per job increased 111 percent between 2022 and 2025, while the average time required to fill a position increased 37 percent.
That is a lot more activity without a corresponding improvement in hiring speed.
Part of the problem is that AI is now operating on both sides of the recruiting process. Candidates use it to optimize their resumes and applications, while companies use it to evaluate those same materials.
We have essentially created an environment where AI helps people apply for jobs and another layer of AI decides who deserves an interview.
Somewhere in that process, qualified people are inevitably getting overlooked.
AI is an incredible recruiting tool. That is not the problem.
We are big believers in AI at Abrazo. In fact, technology is central to how we operate.
We are not alone in that. The same LinkedIn research found that 93 percent of recruiters plan to increase their use of AI this year, and 59 percent say it is already helping them find candidates with skills they would never have found otherwise. That second number is the one worth sitting with. It is not a claim about efficiency. It is recruiters saying the tools surfaced people they would have missed.
Today's recruiting platforms allow us to research industries, identify professionals with highly specialized backgrounds, understand competitive talent markets and reach candidates who might never respond to a traditional job posting.
For a boutique recruiting firm, that is a significant advantage. Technology allows us to compete with much larger recruiting organizations without needing their headcount or infrastructure.
We can move quickly, search more broadly and spend considerably less time on repetitive administrative work.
But there is an important distinction between identifying someone who looks qualified and determining whether that person is actually right for the job.
AI is exceptionally good at finding patterns, matching skills and organizing information. What it cannot reliably determine from a resume is why someone wants to leave their current employer, whether their experience translates to a different environment, how they communicate, what motivates them or whether their expectations align with the opportunity.
Those are the conversations that matter.
And they are still best handled by experienced people.
The resume is only part of the story
Anyone who has recruited for a difficult technical or leadership position understands that the best candidate is not always the person with the most impressive resume.
Sometimes it is an engineer whose background does not perfectly match the job description but who has spent years solving the exact problems a company is facing.
Sometimes it is a marketing leader from an entirely different industry whose experience is more transferable than it initially appears.
Sometimes it is someone who is not actively looking for another job at all.
We have seen plenty of situations where a candidate who might have been overlooked during an automated screening process turns out to be exactly what a hiring manager needs.
That is why conversations, professional judgment and understanding a client's business remain so important.
A resume tells you where someone has worked and what they have accomplished. A meaningful conversation helps you understand what they are capable of doing next.
There is a difference.
How we think about AI at Abrazo
Our approach is fairly straightforward. We use technology to improve the research, sourcing and efficiency of recruiting, but we do not outsource the judgment.
AI helps us identify talent, explore adjacent industries, build targeted candidate searches and uncover people who might otherwise be difficult to find. It also helps us organize information and move through the early stages of a search more efficiently.
But candidate evaluation is where experience takes over.
We want to understand why someone is interested in making a move, what they have actually accomplished, the environments where they have been successful and whether the opportunity makes sense for both the candidate and the employer.
We also want to understand the hiring manager's expectations beyond what is written in the job description. Every company has its own culture, challenges, personalities and priorities. Those details rarely translate neatly into a list of keywords.
That context is what separates presenting a resume from making a thoughtful recommendation.
And it is why we believe human judgment should remain central to every hiring decision.
The real opportunity is not replacing recruiters
There is plenty of discussion about AI eventually replacing recruiters. We see the future a little differently.
AI will absolutely change the profession. Much of the research, sourcing and administrative work that historically consumed a recruiter's day can now be completed faster and more efficiently.
That is a good thing.
But recruiting has never been entirely about finding names and matching qualifications. At its best, it is about understanding people, evaluating potential, building relationships and helping companies make decisions that have real consequences.
Those responsibilities become more important when technology makes it easier for everyone to look qualified on paper.
There is also a trust issue developing. Greenhouse's 2026 candidate research found that 38 percent of US job seekers surveyed had withdrawn from a hiring process because it involved an AI interview. The same research suggests candidates are not necessarily opposed to AI. They want transparency and meaningful human involvement.
We think employers should pay attention to that.
The hiring process is often someone's first meaningful experience with a company. Making that experience feel entirely automated may save time, but it can also create distance between employers and the people they are trying to attract.
Better technology. Better judgment. Better hiring.
We do not believe companies need to choose between AI and experienced recruiters. The real opportunity is combining the strengths of both.
Technology gives us the ability to find more people, uncover talent beyond traditional networks and operate with greater speed and efficiency.
Human experience gives us the ability to evaluate what those tools uncover, ask better questions, challenge assumptions and make informed recommendations.
For employers, that is ultimately what matters. Not how many resumes a recruiter can generate or how quickly an algorithm can rank candidates, but whether the person they hire can do the job, contribute to the business and succeed over time.
As AI becomes standard across the recruiting industry, access to technology alone will not be much of a competitive advantage. Nearly everyone will have access to similar tools.
The difference will be what people do with the information those tools provide.
That is the approach we are building around at Abrazo. Use the best technology available, move quickly, and keep experienced human judgment at the center of the process.
Because finding candidates has never been the same thing as finding the right one.