In 2026, your CV will end up in the trash even faster than it does today — not because “the market collapsed,” but because the very idea of a traditional CV is losing its meaning. The IT job market — in Poland and globally — is entering a phase of brutal efficiency: more automation, more candidates per opening, and far less patience on the employer side.
Below is a picture of what’s changing — and why a “standard” CV increasingly fails to get past even the first screening.
1. The IT Market in 2026: A Recovery Without a Return to the Eldorado
After two lean years, signs of recovery in IT hiring are visible. According to Adecco, the number of IT job postings in Poland at the turn of 2025 and 2026 grew by around 12% year over year — confirming a cautious rebound after the earlier slowdown. At the same time, strong polarization persists: juniors still struggle heavily to find work, while experienced specialists in modern technologies can choose from multiple offers.
Polish market reports also show:
the number of IT job postings in the first half of 2025 increased by 68% year over year (Just Join IT, ITCompare analysis), but…
fewer companies are hiring — in Q2 2025, about 13% fewer companies ran recruitment compared to the year before, which means offers are concentrated in the hands of a smaller group of employers,
salary growth has slowed; companies have more candidates per opening and no longer need to outbid each other as aggressively as during the pandemic.
Add AI pressure to this. Analyses from Rzeczpospolita show that despite the recovery, there’s no return to the 2020–2021 “employee market,” because part of the demand for programmers is being absorbed by AI tools — especially in repetitive or simpler tasks.
In practice, this means:
there are more offers than during the 2023–2024 slump,
but screening is stricter,
and employers can be more selective than before.
A perfect environment for your CV to disappear faster than ever.
2. A Robot Instead of a Recruiter: ATS and AI as Gatekeepers
2.1. The Widespread Automation of Screening
IT recruitment has long moved past manually reviewing every CV. Today, initial screening is performed by ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems) and AI tools — increasingly often in Poland as well.
Globally, around 87–88% of companies use some form of AI in recruitment, most commonly during the initial candidate screening.
Estimates indicate that 75% of CVs never reach human eyes because they are filtered out by ATS for missing keywords, poor formatting, or incompatible structure.
Nearly all Fortune 500 companies use ATS; the ATS market is worth billions and growing quickly thanks to HR automation.
In Poland, providers like eRecruiter or HRappka promote automatic CV sorting, candidate tagging, keyword search, and AI-based document analysis.
Job portals (e.g., Pracuj.pl) also promote integrations with external ATS systems that automatically fetch and classify CVs.
2.2. What Does an ATS Do With Your CV?
ATS doesn’t read your CV like a human. It parses it — breaks it into fields (roles, dates, skills), matches them against job requirements, and looks for specific keywords, experience levels, and technologies.
Typical rejection reasons:
missing key technologies in the CV (even if the candidate knows them),
overly “creative” layouts (columns, graphics, unusual PDF formats) that break parsers,
vague task descriptions (“development and maintenance of applications”) without tools or measurable results,
mismatched experience level (ATS filters often screen out candidates “below X years” or “above Y years”).
And then there’s brutal math. Market data shows:
a single corporate job posting may receive 250+ applications,
only 2–3% of candidates get invited to interviews,
a recruiter spends about 6 seconds on a CV that passed ATS.
These numbers are unlikely to decrease in 2026. If anything — more AI + HR cost pressure will push even more screening onto algorithms.
3. Skills-Based Hiring: A World Where a CV Alone Is Not Enough
More and more companies — including in Poland — are shifting from “lists of experiences” to actual skills and measurable outcomes. This is not a buzzword; it's a measurable trend.
According to TestGorilla’s State of Skills-Based Hiring 2024:
94% of surveyed companies consider skills-based hiring more effective than traditional CV- and diploma-based methods,
around 81% of companies globally have implemented some form of skills-based hiring (tests, tasks, portfolios).
In this model, the CV becomes just one artifact among many. What matters are:
practical tests and technical assessments,
micro-certifications and tool-specific courses,
code repositories (GitHub/GitLab), portfolios, case studies.
In some tech organizations, the classic CV is even being replaced by:
skill-based application forms,
blind evaluations of tasks,
profiles in internal talent databases.
What does this mean for an IT candidate?
Your CV can be correct, polished, and “by the book,” and still lose to someone who has:
shorter or less impressive experience,
but a much stronger portfolio and assessment results.
4. Juniors Under the Greatest Pressure
The most dramatic shift affects entry-level roles. As early as 2023, Polish tech media described the “junior crisis” — hundreds of applicants per opening, long-term unemployment after bootcamps, frustration from sending dozens or even hundreds of CVs with no reply.
By 2025, the situation did not return to anything like the real “eldorado”:
Polish IT job market analyses show that employers complain about a lack of skills, not a lack of CVs — they look for “ideal” candidates that simply don’t exist instead of investing in junior development;
at the same time, tasks typically performed by juniors are being automated (testing, simple integrations, AI-generated code snippets), reducing the number of entry-level roles.
As a result:
junior–mid roles attract large volumes of CVs,
employers screen far more aggressively and rely heavily on ATS/AI,
the “entry threshold” for interviews has risen — working portfolios, open-source contributions, and side projects are increasingly expected.
2026 won’t bring back “we hire whoever we can find.” Instead: a mature, selective market where a weak, template-based junior CV disappears within seconds.
5. CVs Killed by Format, Not Content
The paradox of modern recruitment is harsh: you may have the skills, but the system never learns about them.
ATS reports indicate that over 75% of CVs are never read by a human for purely technical reasons: bad formatting, missing keywords, parsing errors.
Most common “sins” in the eyes of an algorithm:
CVs as images, unusual PDFs, multi-column layouts,
no clearly separated sections (“Experience,” “Skills,” “Education”),
non-standard job titles or tech labels (“full-stack ninja,” “backend guru”),
failure to use keywords from the job posting (e.g., posting says “Python, Django, REST API,” but CV says “web app development” without specifics).
In 2026, automation will be even more unforgiving — not out of malice, but because:
companies have growing CV databases and need structure,
regulatory pressure (e.g., GDPR, AI-related accountability) pushes organizations toward measurable, auditable criteria,
AI is being embedded deeper into HR tools, and adding filters is easier than processing hundreds of CVs manually.
The result?
A CV you spent hours perfecting may be auto-tagged as “rejected” in less than a second — before a recruiter even sees it.
6. The 2026 Reality: What Happens to an Average CV?
A likely scenario for a mid-level developer role in 2026:
The company posts a job. 200–300 CVs come in within days. This volume is already normal in many sectors.
ATS/AI performs the first screening. The system:
rejects non-standard formats,
sorts candidates by keyword/technology match,
may also factor in experience length, industry background, employment continuity.
The recruiter receives 20–40 top-scoring applications. With high application volumes, recruiters simply don’t have time to review everything.
A human scans each CV for 5–10 seconds. Studies show recruiters spend roughly 6 seconds on a CV that passed initial screening. In practice: scanning the latest role, tech stack, location/time zone, language level, and GitHub link.
5–10 people get interview invites. The rest — including many competent candidates — disappear as “rejected.”
In such a world, a CV doesn’t end up in the trash because it’s terrible. It’s enough that it’s:
slightly less relevant,
slightly less optimized for algorithms,
a bit too vague — or too “artistic.”
7. Why 2026 Will Be Worse Than Today
Key forces accelerating the journey of your CV into the bin:
More automated screening. With 80%+ of global companies using AI in recruitment, and the market rapidly expanding.
More candidates per role. Remote work globalizes competition — including in Poland.
IT market polarization. Seniors and AI/Cloud/Security specialists are highly sought after, but juniors and “average” profiles compete for fewer roles — many replaced by automation.
Shift toward skills-based hiring. CVs become just one of many inputs, not a decisive tool.
Growing regulatory and legal pressure around AI. Lawsuits (e.g., against Workday) push companies toward stricter, standardized, filter-heavy processes.
Cost pressure. Economic uncertainty forces companies to automate more HR functions.
All combined, this means that in 2026:
The default outcome for a CV will be: rejected, not: reviewed.
8. What Can You Do to Stop Your CV From Ending Up in the Trash?
The title sounds pessimistic, but you’re not powerless. It simply means the rules changed — drastically.
8.1. Write your CV for both the algorithm and the human
Match job posting keywords (tech, tools, seniority levels) in the Skills and Experience sections.
Use a simple, linear layout — no fancy columns, graphics, or tables that break parsing.
Keep a clear structure: “Professional Experience,” “Skills,” “Education,” “Projects.”
8.2. Your CV is a teaser, not a catalog
Focus on outcomes: “reduced build times by 30%,” “implemented monitoring that cut incidents by X%.”
Add links to repos, demos, case studies — IT recruiters increasingly look for proof of work.
8.3. Build a skills-based profile
Participate in technical tests, hackathons, practical challenges.
Collect micro-certifications (especially in AI, cloud, security).
8.4. Think beyond “I send a CV to job postings”
Seek non-ATS channels: networking, referrals, direct outreach to tech leads.
In many companies, the ATS pipeline is just one channel; strong referrals can bypass the algorithm entirely.
- The Bottom Line: CVs Aren’t Disappearing — They’re Losing Their Monopoly
Your CV won’t vanish in 2026. It will still be needed:
to formally apply through systems,
as a recruiter/hiring manager reference,
for HR procedures.
But it will be only one piece of a larger puzzle.
If you stick with the old logic — “I’ll make a nice PDF, apply to 50 postings, and wait” — then yes, your CV will hit the trash faster than today.
But if you treat your CV as a:
technically correct,
deliberately optimized,
portfolio- and skills-backed document,
you can still break through the increasingly dense ATS and AI filtering network. The market isn’t “punishing” candidates — it’s rewarding those who understand the new rules of the game.