Time is recruiting’s enemy. The longer the process takes from pre-application to those actually getting and accepting offers, the greater the candidate’s frustration. Especially when it takes longer to be dispositioned (rejected). Not only candidate frustration, but the recruiters involved can be just as frustrated when hiring managers are indecisive.
Hourly hiring is usually more transactional and faster than professional hiring, but with the significant increases in unqualified job applicants many employers across industries are seeing, including those that participated in our CandE Benchmark Research, it’s slowing the early stages down significantly.
Artificial intelligence (AI) in recruiting technologies has the potential to assist, but many employers tell us they avoid using the matching and ranking features at the start of the ATS (Applicant Tracking System) funnel. Their concerns revolve around maintaining compliance with OFCCP (Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs) regulations and the fear of overlooking qualified candidates. As a result, they choose to manually review as many applications as possible across various job types. However, with high application volumes, this manual method inevitably slows down the process, leading to delays in advancing candidates to the screening and interview stages.
This year, in our benchmark research, 40% more hourly candidates said their current job search took 6+ months compared to 2023, and 50% more professional candidates said it took 6+ months.
Reviewing the data tables below shows strong correlations between time spent job searching, lower referral scores, and higher candidate resentment rates. Resentment is the percentage of candidates unwilling to engage a business and its brand due to a poor candidate experience.
How Long Candidates Were Researching and Applying for Jobs in 2024
Also, as time goes on, more candidates are rejected, and fewer are hired. That may or may not mean that there were more or fewer qualified candidates to eventually get the offers, but it might align with those TA teams hanging onto candidates longer “just in case” hiring managers change their minds.
Another thing to note is that this year, 25% of hourly candidates were searching for 8 weeks to 6+ months. But for professional candidates, 55% more are taking 8 weeks to 6+ months to search for a job. Plus, their referral NPS plummets further, and their resentment rate increases even more than hourly.
Again, time is recruiting’s enemy. Time and indecision. It may not be as impactful as high-volume hourly hiring with higher churn rates, but it certainly can be for competitive professional roles, even if it does take longer to fill specific roles. Whether AI recruiting automation is used to match and rank qualified candidates, or humans are still doing it, dispositioning those not qualified in a consistent and timely cadence while spending more time (and faster time) screening and interviewing, making offers to and hiring candidates, is where the greatest outcomes are and where the greatest candidate experience return is.