Molasses, mud, and barbed wire. Or, the hiring process as we know it.

By John Arms, Fractional.

The Recruitment Machine Has Lost Its Way

At its heart, the goal of recruitment is simple:

• The worker’s desire → do meaningful work, make an impact, and be paid fairly.

• The company’s desire → bring in people who will move the business forward.

Simple.

But somewhere between those two ideals, things have gotten… messy. No—that’s not the right word. Messy is too soft. What's the word I'm looking for?

Weaponized.

Weaponized is better. Somewhere along the way, what should be a handshake turned into a fortress. A simple bridge between worker and company has been replaced with a minefield: walls of algorithms, moats of assessments, towers of interviews, and gatekeepers with clipboards. Both sides have to put on armor and low-crawl through the battlefield.

It’s not just messy. It’s militarized. An entire industrial complex built around what should be the simplest human transaction: “I can do this. You need this. Let’s get to work.”

The Candidate’s Journey: A Gauntlet of Frustration

For job seekers, the search feels less like an opportunity and more like survival:

• Endless scrolling through job boards, LinkedIn, Indeed, ZipRecruiter.

• Keyword-stuffed resumes written for algorithms instead of humans.

• Uploading the same information into ATS forms again and again.

• Tests, assessments, personality quizzes, case studies—often unpaid, often irrelevant.

• Radio silence: 75% of applicants never hear back at all.

• Ghosting after interviews, even final rounds—52% of U.S. job seekers report this.

It’s dizzying. Demoralizing. Often described as a full-time job just to apply for jobs. Candidates feel like they’re screaming into a void.

And the cost is real: in 2024, 26% of job seekers declined offers because of a poor process—communication breakdowns, unclear expectations, or simply too many hoops to jump through.

The Company’s Journey: Drowning in Noise

Employers don’t have it easier. They’re buried under:

• Floods of resumes, most irrelevant, thanks to “easy apply” buttons.

• Algorithm gaming—AI-generated cover letters, keyword stuffing, canned interview responses.

• Recruiting platforms that promise efficiency but deliver more dashboards, more steps, more noise.

• Time lost—HR managers spend an average of 13 hours per week on recruiting tasks. Time they’d rather spend on people.

• Drop-off rates climbing: screening-stage drop-offs rose 36% between 2019–2022, meaning companies lose talent before interviews even happen.

The cycle repeats: endless scheduling, rescheduling, interviews that go nowhere, and constant competition for a shrinking pool of applicants.

All of this instead of the simple function it’s meant to serve:

“Hi, I’m really good at what I do and I want to work with you.”

“Oh hi, that’s awesome, because we’re really stuck right now and need your help.”

What the hell? How did we lose the plot so badly?

A System Too Knotted to Fix

I’m not sure this system can be untangled. It’s a rat’s nest of knots—tight, layered, intertwined—that will never come apart.

The only recourse I can see is to walk away from the knot entirely. Or, in a moment of collective frustration, light the whole thing on fire. I took a nature walk with my friend Carl Levi last week and we spent a few minutes pondering the nature of this. Carl paused among the pines and said "Sometimes systems get so wretched it's just best to build something completely outside of it, rather than they to fix it." Nature walks are awesome.

And This, My Friends, Is Why Fractional Is Growing

Fractional skips the rat’s nest and walks straight down Main Street. The traditional path is like a muddy trench—you crawl, claw, and hope you don’t get stuck. Fractional takes the sidewalk: clean, direct, sun on your back, destination in sight. It’s not just faster—it’s saner.

The data proves it:

• Fractional jobs have risen ~57% since 2020. (Catalant)

• From 2021 to 2022 alone, there was an 18% jump in fractional/temporary leadership roles. (Catalant)

• The number of fractional leaders has doubled in two years—from ~60,000 in 2022 to ~120,000 in 2024.(ColumnContent) We are over 250,000 in 2025 and growing.

• Compensation keeps rising: fractional sales leaders earned $9,651/month in 2024, up from ~$9,350 in 2023.(Vendux)

Fractional doesn’t try to repair the broken system—it builds a new path around it. Instead of slogging through an adversarial machine, it’s about direct value exchange: experienced professionals stepping into businesses that need them, right when they’re needed.

Back to the End in Mind

At the end of the day, it’s still simple:

• A person wants to do their best at what they’re good at.

• A company wants that person on the team.

Fractional work is the cleanest, fastest, most human way we’ve found yet to bring those two desires together.

Here’s how it works at Voyageur U:

• A person learns the Fractional model and the value they bring. They build a network of support, begin helping others, and start receiving help. Hope replaces doom. Opportunity replaces fear.

• A company realizes they have a gap. Maybe the CFO is also carrying Operations. They ask around, “Who knows who?”

• The network effect goes to work. The two sides connect and move forward.

And allllll of that mess—all of that weaponization—is set aside, never to be seen again.

No doubt about it, we lost the plot.

Fractional is how we find it again. Voyageur U is where you begin.

https://voyageur-university.com

Jennifer Dixson Hoff Claire Driscoll Carrie Cook, MBA Fractional CFO Carl Levi

#FractionalWork #FutureOfWork #FractionalRevolution #FractionalLeadership #IndependentProfessionals #WorkReimagined #TalentShift #BeyondCorporate #HiringRevolution #FractionalCFO #FractionalCMO #FractionalExecs #FractionalLife #TransitionToTriumph #VoyageurU