Happy Hump Day {{first_name | Toaster}} 🐪 ,

There was a time when a visible tattoo prevented you from consideration for a job. Now, one company swung so far in the other direction that they turned a tattoo into an interview requirement.

When LemonLime recently offered guaranteed job interviews to anyone willing to get their logo tattooed, the internet had a field day. LemonLime’s CEO stated, “We wanted to find people who are just as crazy as we are” and "Being committed to our mission is paramount."

That tells you exactly what was being tested - not technical ability, problem-solving, or communication. They are looking for compliance and a willingness to prove your loyalty before you've even been hired.

What makes the story crazy is that there were enough people who thought it was worth it and actually got the tattoo. The company eventually apologized after being called out for preying on job seekers’ vulnerability, and offered to pay for tattoo removals.

As a recruitment platform, we’re not surprised. Every hiring process directly or indirectly asks candidates the same question: “how bad do you want it?” What will you do to stand out against 500+ applicants? Will you spend your weekend on an unpaid case study? Will you take half a day off work for a fourth interview? Will you create an entire website?

We've normalized asking candidates to invest more and more of their time, energy, and emotional labour, often with no feedback and no guarantee anyone ever looked at their application. Companies may not have created this job market, but some are absolutely taking advantage of it.

Desperation is a terrible hiring strategy. When talent is abundant, it's tempting to raise the bar, but somewhere along the way we've confused commitment with compliance. The successful candidate isn't always the one willing to sacrifice the most. That person could just be the one with the most time, the most financial flexibility, or the least ability to say no.

The irony is that companies spend so much time talking about candidate experience while designing hiring processes that test endurance more than potential. Collectively, it sends a message: Prove you're worth our time before we've shown we're worth yours. Hiring should be rigorous to some degree, but it should also be respectful and set the tone for a strong relationship between the candidate and the organization. Relationships built on one-sided power rarely start on the right foot.

The job market has lost the plot. In a healthier job market, the tattoo would've been a joke, but in this one it felt like a chance. That's the part that should make all of us a little uncomfy.

We see the ways hiring can go wrong - the unnecessary hoops, the power imbalances, and the pressure candidates feel to prove they’re worthy of an opportunity. And not to plug ourselves (even though we are), but this is exactly why we’re building a different kind of talent marketplace at Toast. We believe hiring shouldn’t be built on performative displays of commitment. You can create a free account here to be part of the talent pool. Recruiters will be able to surface your anonymized profile and choose to interview you based on your skills, experience, and potential - no tattoo required.

Team Toast 🥂

The Toast Summit is officially back for our fourth year in Calgary and our early bird sale is on now! Whether you're breaking into tech, leading a team, or looking to meet people who care about creating a better industry, there's a seat for you.

PSA: Liz Plank will be joining us on stage for an exclusive fireside chat and to host our infamous ‘Men in Tech’ panel. 🎉

📍 Platform Calgary
📅 October 1, 2026
⏰ 8:30am - 6:00pm

Alpha testing is underway for Toast Talent Marketplace 🍞

We started as a white-glove recruitment platform that put talented women in front of companies that may not have found them otherwise. It worked, but clients kept asking for something we couldn't deliver through an agency model: direct access to talented women in tech at scale.

So we started building a talent marketplace, not to replace what we'd built, but to accelerate it. 🚀

We’ve onboarding a limited group of organizations we know and love: Garmin, Redbrick, Long View Systems, Klue, ZayZoon, Certn, and PurposeMed.

If you want in, or just want to hear more about what we're building, head here:

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