2,011 people applied for one job. Nobody reads that many.
I run operations. In most small companies hiring belongs to the founder or to whoever runs operations, and more often than not that has been me.
The last role I opened took 2,011 applications. That is not a story about my company. Applications per recruiter are up 412% since 2023, while the number of recruiters per company fell by more than half.
Here is what actually happens
- 1The first 30 get read properly.
- 2By 100 you are skimming for job titles.
- 3By 300 you are sorting on company logos.
- 4The rest get a glance, and you tell yourself that is fine.
Somewhere in the ones I never reached is a person who could do the job.
That is the bit that stays with me. Not the workload. The near-certainty that I have already thrown away someone good, and that I will never find out.
I have had this problem twice over
I also run QuickHire VA, which places virtual assistants. Same problem, other side of the desk. Hundreds apply, most are nowhere near it, and the entire job is finding the few who are genuinely good before anyone burns an hour on a call.
So I built the sift by hand. Twice. Once to score the virtual assistants. Once as a rubric for the role I am hiring now.
Both times, the same thing fixed it
Not the software. The moment I was made to write down what I actually wanted, in plain words, the pile stopped being frightening. The trouble is nobody writes that down. It stays in your head, and the job description never says it.
So that is what Bower does
- 1It asks you what good looks like, out loud, before it reads anything.
- 2It reads every application in full, against your answers.
- 3Where a CV leaves a question, it asks the candidate directly, in a short voice interview.
- 4It hands you everyone, ranked, with the reasoning attached.
What it will not do
It has no reject button. Nobody is auto-rejected. You see everyone, you see why they are ordered that way, and every decision is yours. UK law on automated decisions in hiring changed in February 2026, and I would rather build for that than around it.
Where it is up to
Early. I am talking to people who hire 2 to 10 roles at a time and reading whether this is real. If you are working through 200+ applications around a job you already have, I want 30 minutes with you. You will get an honest answer about whether it helps.