Dive Brief:
- Since 2021, applications per hire have tripled and open roles now receive an average of more than 300 applications, which has intensified workloads for HR and recruiting teams, according to May 7 research from recruiting platform Ashby.
- Despite an increased workload, there’s been a rebound in recruiter productivity. Following a decline between 2022 and 2023, “hires per recruiter have recovered to roughly seven hires per quarter,” per the report, which added that the improvement suggests hiring teams are adapting to the additional volume.
- Hiring timelines have also leveled out, with time to first fill now at about 8 weeks for business roles and about 10 weeks for technical roles. This suggests “a return to more predictable hiring cycles,” per the report, although scheduling coordination is still “one of the largest sources of delay.”
Dive Insight:
The research analyzed more than 100 million applications and 200,000 jobs over the past five years, and concluded that the overall hiring process has become significantly more complex for recruiting teams.
“Most hiring metrics, like time to fill or time to hire, are outputs of a much larger system,” Kevin Connolly, head of data at Ashby, said in a statement. “What we’re seeing is that high-performing teams aren’t winning in any single dimension. They are building processes that hold up under volume, complexity, and scrutiny across every stage.”
Meanwhile, the “surge” in applications has made it significantly more difficult for candidates to get interviews, per the report. Candidates are approximately 50% less likely to make it to the interview stage now than they were five years ago, but “offer conversion rates have surpassed 2021 levels.” That means the funnel is more selective, and hiring teams are spending less time interviewing “low-signal candidates.”
“We often think about hiring performance in terms of speed,” Max Butler, recruiting operations consultant at Ashby, said in a statement. “But consistency and process discipline are just as important. They’re what allow teams to operate effectively at this level of volume.”
The Ashby report comes amid corporate pressure to meet hiring goals. Recruiting software company GoodTime said in January that 90% of U.S. companies reported missing their hiring goals, and 1 in 3 reporting missed those goals by a wide margin.
Research indicates hiring teams may be losing applicants to artificial intelligence processes originally designed to streamline their systems. A recent report from hiring platform Greenhouse found that 38% of U.S. candidates said they have already withdrawn from a hiring process because it included an AI interview, while 57% said AI policy disclosures should be legally mandated.