I am a software engineering fellow working at CERN, I see the internals. If I want to stay here longer I have to apply for another contract. I applied online 3 times to get a staff position. Stages differ, it could be an online test, screen interview or coding exercise with limited time (2 days to deliver solution). I never made to the final stage. Most of the processes were set up to support one/two candidates, originating from the section or group. I can accept that as a fact, the person working in a similar environment has the natural handicap. What I can't accept is when I apply using smart recruiters portal, my application hangs there for 3 weeks, nobody bothers even to open it (you get an automatic notification if that happens) - it has "new" status and suddenly one day you get the info you were not pre-selected for the next step. Nobody even opened the application. Is the process of recruitment at CERN set up to the point that the recruitment team does not bother to open applications?