After a frustrating year of trying to find and place job candidates amid the turbulence of the Great Resignation, recruiters and hiring managers say they are burned out — and some of them point to the over-the-top demands and fickleness of young applicants as a key source of tension.

These job seekers are contributing to a heavy burden: Nearly a third of recruiters said they experience extreme stress on a weekly basis because of their work, according to a December survey by human-resources analytics firm Veris Insights. The research found that 77% of high-ranking recruiters are open to changing jobs, along with 65% of HR professionals — a figure that rose 17 percentage points from September to November last year.