I usually don’t make predictions, but I’m making one now: candidate experience will be in a free fall in 2025.
Not to rock bottom, but definitely a free fall. Really? This coming from the CandE candidate experience evangelist research team? What does that mean? Well, to be fair, there are still many employers with recruiting teams that prioritize timely and consistent communication and feedback loops for their external and internal candidates. We’re grateful to have worked with many of those year after year in our CandE Benchmark Research Program.
But even these employers have a shorter tenure than what you’d think (see below). Candidate resentment – the percentage of candidates across job types and demographics who said they would never apply again, refer others, be a brand advocate, or a customer – hit the highest levels we’ve ever seen in the 13 years of our research in 2024. It’s true that the only happy candidates are those who get hired, but sadly, we predict the overall recruiting experience for the majority of candidates who don’t get hired will get worse.
Much worse. Here’s why:
Layoffs, Firings, Fewer Jobs, and More Applicants. Layoffs continue in the technology and will continue across industries if employers adhere to their return-to-office policies this year. When combined with the sheer volume of layoffs and firings from the United States Federal Government currently happening, the job market will be flooded with job candidates. Job growth is dimming in the U.S., unemployment will increase further, and the ratio of job candidates to open positions will tip over into fewer jobs per candidate territory. Job growth is dimming and/or dimmed in the UK, APAC, Latin America, and other regions and countries around the world. Employers will most likely see a continued increase in the number of applicants they receive frustrated with the recruiting process.
Too Many Applicants. Because of the continued influx of job applicants for too many employers across industries, those who may have potential and partially qualified for jobs will be buried under the rubble of too many unqualified candidates. Full stop. Even with matching, ranking, and filtering functionality available in today’s mainstream ATS’s, many companies are hesitant to utilize them, much less optimize them, due to compliance fears and the fact that it takes team members to work with the vendors to train and optimize the tech. Not to mention the thinning of recruiting teams everywhere the past few years that impacts the ability to screen job applicants efficiently and effectively.
Can’t Find Qualified Candidates. I wrote recently about the biggest lie in recruiting: The fact that we can’t find people we need to hire. You may have heard this before from peers, colleagues, even your executive leadership and CEO’s. You may have even felt this way when trying to fill hard-to-fill and/or highly competitive roles. But it’s not true. The challenge is recruiting and hiring the people that we can actually find. A big thank you to TA leader and friend Jim D’Amico who prompted this discussion and ensuing article.
In fact, I’ll go a step further in that the real challenge is recruiting and hiring people who have the skills and experience, and those who have potential for the roles you’re hiring for. Which may be the case depending on the role, the markets you’re in, whether it’s onsite or remote work, and more. Some reminders for us all as TA leaders and recruiting professionals on doing the harder work of recruiting and hiring include investing in: Employer Brand, Candidate Experience, Competitive Compensation and Benefits, Career Growth Opportunities, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).
Dismantling DEI. Like many well-intentioned business initiatives, there have been backlash problems with how some companies have pursued DEI, and different perspectives on how to improve on them. Plus, there has been an increase over the past few years in our candidate comment sentiment of candidates complaining about ageism and racism. Unfortunately, the continued backlash against DEI programs, diversity recruiting, and what ultimately benefits employers when focused on inclusion has most likely contributed to the lower candidate experience ratings we’re seeing, especially as more employers publicly announce they’re doing away with their DEI initiatives. Despite these headlines and those stating that “DEI is dead,” 80% of organizations remain dedicated to their DEI efforts, with another 10% intensifying their focus, according to Seramount (a company that provides DEI consulting services).
Job Searches Take Longer. Labor data has shown that job searches take longer and this adds to candidate frustration and resentment. Our own data shows that on average across multiple demographics and job types, it’s taking 30%+ longer (and it’s higher for professional, management, and senior leadership candidates). Based on everything outlined above, this will only elongate in 2025, causing greater candidate frustration and resentment.
Automation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and AI Agents. Candidates have always railed against automation, especially when they’re rejected soon after they’ve applied. Timely dispositions for unqualified candidates at the point of application (and at any stage) has always been a recommended CandE best practice (check out any of our research reports). And no matter how positive of a candidate experience an employer delivers, once a candidate is rejected, their perception of fairness and their rating sentiment skews negative. Always.
This is an uphill battle for employers of any hiring volume, and even though we see positive bumps in sentiment when AI and automation improves candidate communications, the candidate backlash will get worse because of the sheer volume of candidates looking for jobs. More and more candidates will also utilize AI to help them in the job search, unfortunately increasing the volume of unqualified serial applications received.
We also understand there’s a lot of talk of this being the year of AI agents, and while that may be true, research shows, including our CandE research, that employer AI adoption is still relatively low. Yes, that will change, but AI training optimization will vary and be inconsistent in the near term, negatively impacting candidate, recruiter, and hiring manager experiences.
Only a Fraction of Employers Benchmark Candidate Experience. Over the 13 years we’ve been conducting candidate experience benchmark research, we’ve worked with over 2,000 employers from around the world, but the average tenure of an employer’s participation is only 2.1 years. That doubles when an employer wins a CandE Award due to above average candidate experience ratings. When an employer wins two or more CandE Awards, it jumps to five years of benchmarking. When an employer wins three or more CandEs, it jumps to over seven years.
It’s great to win an award, and because ours is solely based on the candidate experience ratings, it’s high praise for employers in any market. The economic and political volatility of the past few years has made the CandE Award an especially rewarding for employer branding and recruitment marketing.
But when on average only 200 companies per year benchmark their candidate experience, out of the over 350 million employers globally, that’s a miniscule representative group. Even when you reduce that pool to the 20,000 employers with 500 or more employees and enough candidates to be statistically significant in survey research like ours (most employers are less than 500 employees), that’s still only 1% that benchmarks their candidate experience.
There are other programs besides ours that help companies survey and benchmark, but that still won’t change overall participation rate much. There are also more employers doing their own candidate and employee experience surveys, but if they’re not benchmarking in a consistent way by size and industry, there’s nothing to compare against.
Imagine if thousands of employers benchmarked their candidate experience consistently each year. Imagine the value to business leadership, recruiting and hiring teams, and the candidates themselves. Imagine if more employers invested in providing an above average candidate experience each year and reaped the business impact benefits – more referrals, more revenue, and more brand advocacy.
Imagine. We certainly do, and not just because we run the CandE Benchmark Research Program and want the program to grow (of course). It’s because benchmarking helps employers measure and understand their overall candidate experience from pre-application to onboarding across industries and company sizes. It also helps employers understand the perception gaps between how they perceive their candidate experience delivery compared to their candidate responses, and the impact of their recruiting efforts on their business and their brand. Over the years, we’ve seen the positive business impacts that a positive and fair candidate experience brings.
The ultimate outcomes for recruiting and hiring teams are the hires themselves and employee retention. For all the other candidates who don’t get hired, the ultimate outcome is a positive and fair experience.
But this year, they’re not going to get it – candidate experience will be in a free fall.