621 applicants for one role. Are you going to read them all?
One role on Seek drew 621 applicants.
That's the biggest we found when one of the EMeetE team checked 29 Seek roles that showed an applicant count. The middle one had 126. Six had more than 200. (Seek's figures, as shown at the time.)
applicants for the biggest of 29 roles we checked
applicants for the middle one
to read 621 CVs at five minutes each
Do the maths
At five minutes a CV, 621 applicants is about 52 hours of reading. At two minutes, it's 21. That's before a single interview, and it's your time, or your office manager's, or the person you were hiring to take the work off.
And that's only the reading. You've still got the job you actually do: the customers, the roster, the invoices. Hiring doesn't pause the rest of your week, so a big pile lands on top of everything else. Most of us are stretched already, and a week of CVs and cover letters is a week you don't have.
It isn't free. Employment Hero's survey, reported by RNZ, says about half of businesses had lost good candidates because their process moved too slowly. That's one company's survey, not an official statistic. But the pile is where the time goes.
And most of the pile isn't for you. One recruiter told us a marketing role drew 127 applicants and about 5 were a real fit.
So don't read the pile. Let it be sorted before it reaches you.
ON EMEETE
- Applicants who fail your hard requirements can't apply. You set the must-haves. People who don't meet them never reach you.
- Everyone who can apply is read in full. AI reads each CV against your job description and gives it a score out of 100, with a plain-language reason you can check.
- No cover letters to read. There isn't one. You get the CV, the score and the reason.
- You choose how many you see. Start with the top share of qualified applicants and widen it whenever you want.
- Nobody is auto-rejected or auto-hired. You decide, and every applicant stays your call.
- Every employer is validated by a person before they can post. Every listing is posted directly by the employer.
Post your first job free
Your first three listings are free. Set your must-haves and let the pile come to you sorted.
Post a roleWhat it costs
The first three listings are free. After that it's a flat fee per listing: $199 for a standard listing, $99 for freelance work, ex-GST. No tiers, no paying for position, no paying per click, no paying to see the CVs.
$2 LISTINGS END THIS MONTH
Until 30 November, listings are $2 and run for two months. From 1 December, the prices above apply.
That's it. One fee, and a shortlist you can read in an afternoon instead of a week.
Hiring this month? Post the role now, and let the pile come to you already sorted.
Sources: Seek applicant counts from one team member's applications (Aug to Oct 2026), as shown on Seek at the time; Employment Hero research via RNZ (Susan Edmunds), 2 Nov 2026; recruiter figure from a conversation with a recruiter (also used in the published guest-post material).