[lp0_on_fire]

> Applicants must wade through large volumes of job postings, which are often poorly written, and frequently lacking key information which is important to the applicant.

> Employers are overwhelmed with large numbers of applicants, most of whom don't meet the requested minimum requirements.

> Employers are then too overwhelmed to reply to all the applicants.

Employers should stop casting such a wide net, then. If you post on a site like monster and say the position is remote then obviously you're going to get a lot of applicants. If you're not prepared for that you should post locally or tailor your advertisement better.

IMO the job postings are often deliberately written that way because the people doing the hiring a) don't understand what they're looking for (see: "we need 10 years of experience in [technology that was released last year]) or b) they know they need a body but don't want to lock that person into a particular "role". It's just another version of "and other duties as required".

The remaining points in your OP can be solved when employers solve the problems in 1-3.

[sokoloff]

Most of the problem in 2 is on the applicant side (shotgunning applications to every opening).

[BeetleB]

As I mentioned in another comment, the problem with 2 is that employers routinely hire people who don't meet the minimum requirements. If you don't apply to those jobs because you don't satisfy that one bullet out of the 6 they listed, you're hurting your chances.

They can fix it by actually posting minimum requirements.

[sokoloff]

I believe that that still won't stop applicants who don't meet the minimum requirements from applying. What's the cost to an applicant to spam their resume to an additional listing? Almost $0. What's the possible reward? Very high, if it's less than a 1 in 10-million shot that the company will decide to hire you.

How many Powerball tickets would you take if they cost $0?

[BeetleB]

You're right, which is why I added more factors in my original comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34902201

I guarantee you that if your application process requires a cover letter, and will not proceed until you upload one, you will probably lose a fraction of applicants.

You can ask them to put the string "xyzzy" in the cover letter as a screening measure. This will almost certainly curtail the bulk of applicants.

The basic idea: Add enough friction to the application process so you'll get higher quality candidates. This is trivial to do.

[noirbot]

Sure, but that's a classic tragedy of the commons. I've been applying selectively to some places over time, and have had less than 10% even send me a rejection letter. As an applicant, if I actually needed a job, I can't afford to send out a handful of applications and wait 2-3 weeks to find out if I'm even being considered before sending out more.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, I've often had companies who did interview me take weeks to initiate the process from when I applied.

[sokoloff]

If you’re applying to jobs that you (more or less) meet the qualifications for, there’s nothing at all for anyone to object to.

What I do find negative (and unlikely to succeed anyway) is people shotgunning to roles that they aren’t remotely qualified for.

I think qualified applicants have a hard time believing the volume of utterly unqualified applicants who knock on the virtual door of every SWE opening.

[noirbot]

But what would a company do about that? That feels like complaining people don't read their email because of spam. You can't unilaterally prevent spammers, you can just improve filtering, which is something that's more on the company than something to blame on applicants.

[sokoloff]

Erecting algorithmic/automated testing to qualify candidates is the rational response (that’s frequently complained about by candidates).