The acceptance rate for online job applicants has dropped so low that, in some cases, it now trails getting accepted to Harvard.

Take payroll management company Deel, which employs 7,000 people and got 1.3 million job applications last year. After using AI to initially screen applicants, it hired only 2,900 people, or about 0.2% of applicants, the company told Semafor. This year it expects applications to nearly double.

The use of AI by companies to whittle down the applicant pool has been broadly criticized, but the figures — often not publicly available — reveal just how difficult it is for applicants to stand out. Especially new grads, who are struggling to land jobs.

Deel economist Lauren Taylor said she “would not recommend using AI from the job seeker side.” The wisdom is as old as time: focusing on fewer applications and aggressively networking in real life are more likely to yield results than hundreds of generic or automated applications.