Algorithms Cull Prospects in Slow U.S. Jobs Recovery

One morning last month, a group of job seekers gathered in a cool basement meeting room under a Washington condominium to hear a talk and share stories.

The mid-career professionals included an intelligence analyst, an engineer and a woman who had run her own legal practice. They were frustrated with their inability to breach a nameless, faceless online-search process that seemed insensitive to their accomplishments and impossibly discriminating.