Amanda Bowler, a 48-year-old Australian psychology graduate with about A$44,000 in debt, submitted 50 applications over six months and received zero face-to-face interviews, reflecting a job market with record-high applicants per ad and shrinking vacancies.
Roughly four in five Australian companies use AI in recruitment while jobseekers increasingly use auto-apply agents, creating “bots botting each other,” but the power is asymmetric because employer systems render consequential verdicts without accountable authors.
The core harm is a closed loop where no human is obliged to read, leaving decisions unexplained, unappealable, and prone to bias, supported by evidence of race...
