My daughter has just had an email about a secretarial job - she has been short listed from 2,000 applicants... she was recently shortlisted for another job from 800 applicants - we all thought that was bad enough but it seems not - surely it can't get an worse - or can it?
The most I ever had from a recruitment campaign was around 500 applications in the days before applying by email became the 'norm'. This was from a single advert in the Sunday Times for a management post in about 1991.
It doesn't help either parties to have such big numbers applying.
The answer (from a recruiter's point of view) is to ensure a very tight list of essential requirements that applicants must have to try and dissuade those without such requirements from applying.