by: elgertam

Introducing JobbyPasta, the service that will hand-complete and mail in job applications for a small fee of $9.99 per application. Add on a transcription of your cover letter for an additional $4.99, or have us generate one (with your approval) and transcribe it for $7.99.<p>Have a lot of applications to send out? Subscribe to us monthly for $34.99&#x2F;mo (billed annually).

1/30/2026, 1:12:28 AM

by: staticshock

Instead, the approach that will continue increasing in dominance is hiring referrals and finding jobs through personal networks.<p>In a world that increasingly resembles The Library of Babel,<p>- the main way to know what&#x27;s true is to tune into news sources you <i>trust</i> (monolithic old school media, or personality driven new-school media, social media, etc.),<p>- the main way to learn what to watch&#x2F;listen&#x2F;read is to take recommendations from people you <i>trust</i>, or received through channels you <i>trust</i>,<p>- the main way to hire or get hired is, increasingly, by exploiting a network of people you <i>trust</i>.<p>All of this compensates for ambient oversaturation by using the best available (and tunable!) desaturation filter: your trust network.

1/30/2026, 1:26:46 AM

by: antasvara

I like this as an optional &quot;this will be read and considered by a human&quot; guarantee added to a job posting. That way, you can still get the reach of digital submissions but the benefits of this approach.

1/30/2026, 12:44:40 AM

by: siliconc0w

I think something like an escrowed fee that both the applicant and the employer pay would be a reasonable way to solve the spam and keep both parties honest. If either the applicant or the employer are unhappy with the process (resume doesn&#x27;t match, employer ghosts) - the fee is sent to charity, otherwise the fee is returned to both parties.

1/30/2026, 1:15:22 AM

by: malfist

2D plotters are what, $100? That&#x27;s basically no cost for someone wanting to spam &quot;handwritten&quot; letters

1/30/2026, 1:12:44 AM

by: softgrow

I&#x27;d really like a rejection physical letter back saying thankyou for application but no thanks signed by a human. I put some effort in to applying, they could at least exert some effort coming back, rather than simply ghosting. A reasonable barrier to bots collecting CV&#x27;s.

1/30/2026, 1:14:18 AM

by: stackskipton

After seeing the flood of resumes for application, I do think a small cost to apply wouldn&#x27;t be a bad thing for either applicants or companies. I also realize that if someone is unemployed, getting them to pay money they don&#x27;t have to find a new job is counterproductive.<p>However, when we wanted to hire a new Ops person at work, the flood of obviously not qualified at all applicants we got was insane.

1/30/2026, 12:30:30 AM

by: 1970-01-01

At this rate we just need the entire system to breakdown so we can rebuild it with some hard standards. I shouldn&#x27;t need to reenter my information. Period.

1/30/2026, 12:11:57 AM

by: ralph84

They already do this, listen to the radio at off hours and there will be many job ads with instructions to apply via postal mail. Of course the reason isn&#x27;t to deter LLMs it&#x27;s to deter Americans so the employer can claim no Americans applied in their visa and green card filings.

1/30/2026, 12:30:27 AM

by: zabzonk

Surely few people have a printer these days? I do (a color laser printer) but I&#x27;m a bit old school. And yes, my handwriting is, and always has been, dreadful.

1/30/2026, 12:38:25 AM

by: personjerry

This does nothing.<p>I&#x27;ll just start a business that mails letters to companies for you.<p>Now, an APPLICATION FEE, that&#x27;s interesting. Hmm.

1/30/2026, 1:05:47 AM

by: boogrpants

Fix the jobs problem hiring mail rooms full of people again!<p>No poorly paid (relative to company performance) recruitment team is going to take on sorting mail <i>and</i> recruitment.<p>So this just blows up business operations costs. Non-starter.

1/30/2026, 1:19:22 AM

by: oojuliuso

And before the in-person interview, the applicant is required to produce a handwriting sample in front of the interviewer of random text, which is then compared against the mailed documents.

1/30/2026, 1:22:31 AM

by: voxelghost

Perhaps we just need Tinder for employee-employer relationships?<p>Its all in the profile - and we can all just swipe left&#x2F;right instead.<p>Dysfunctional FAANG seeks 10X prompt engineer in hyderabad

1/30/2026, 1:22:37 AM

by: isodev

And maybe employers&#x2F;recruiters should be required to include a template (but .doc is not allowed) of what format they expect, disclose if they will be OCR-ing it and with which tool&#x2F;LLM, will they read it or feed it to an AI etc.

1/30/2026, 12:38:47 AM

by: Arch485

As someone who is currently looking for a job, I don&#x27;t like this idea.<p>All this does is increase the effort and barrier to entry to apply for a job. This is not a good thing. Applying to jobs is already time consuming as it is; nobody wants more hoops to jump through.<p>I understand that recruiters&#x2F;hiring managers&#x2F;whatever get a lot of junk applications, but frankly, it is your job to sort through them. You are paid to do this.<p>Could the hiring&#x2F;job seeking process be better? Yes, absolutely. Currently, it&#x27;s terrible, and almost everyone involved is making it worse. But the solution is not mailing job applications.

1/30/2026, 12:43:27 AM

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1/30/2026, 12:47:27 AM

by: ksenzee

Has anyone tried this from the applicant side? Just send in a cover letter and resume, old-school?

1/30/2026, 1:03:34 AM

by: wavemode

For every 1 LLM applicant that this idea would deter, you would also deter 50 humans who simply don&#x27;t feel like having to send a letter to apply to a job.

1/30/2026, 12:06:10 AM

by: Leynos

Brought to you by the same people who think that it should be possible to sack an employee without cause and without notice.

1/30/2026, 1:21:06 AM

by: stevage

Reminds me of how it was common in France until pretty recently for employers to use graphology (pseudoscience) analysis of candidate&#x27;s handwritten letters to assess personality traits etc. When I was looking for work there I was lucky that the tech sector was already a abandoning the practice.

1/30/2026, 1:11:22 AM

by: kittikitti

In my last job search, I sent out a few dozen resumes utilizing snail mail. It was from a job board that searched for job descriptions that only accepted applications through physical mail. There were some big tech companies I was able to apply to. Ultimately, I didn&#x27;t get a role from snail mail but it was an interesting process. I would probably expose myself if I detailed the specific service I used, but you can lookup online tools where you upload a PDF and they print it out and send it to an address for like $1 each (more for certified, priority, etc.) and I confirmed it worked. I even had companies mail me back rejection letters, so that was a first.

1/30/2026, 1:33:27 AM