Why am I so drained from making every candidate feel valued?

You sit across from strangers all day and perform steadiness. You soften the no. You carry their hope for a few minutes so they don't have to carry it alone. No one writes this on the calendar. No one pays you for it by name. You call it being good at your job, then wonder why you feel hollow by five. This is not a feeling to swallow. It is a fact to examine. You chose work that rewards this skill. That does not mean a team gets to use it for free forever. If no one names the labor, no one has to pay for it, share it, or even notice it. Here is what is within your power: what you say about it, what you ask for, how you split it with the others doing the same work beside you. What is not within your power: whether the organization decides to count it on its own. Start where you can actually move something.