Dive Brief:
- Employers are increasingly wary when it comes to vetting job candidates, with 19.2% saying encountering fake or fraudulent applicants was the top online recruiting challenge, and 23.6% saying they received at least one fake job applicant in the past year, according to iHire’s 2026 State of Online Recruiting report.
- Meanwhile, job seekers are also cautious, with 39.3% reporting that fake, fraudulent or “ghost” jobs were their main job search problem. And 4 in 10 job applicants said they had to confront a fake or scam job in the past year.
- The survey found that 68.8% of employers conduct either all or most of their hiring through job boards and recruiting platforms, a percentage that hasn’t really changed since 2024. However, 42.8% of applicants said they were frustrated because it was sometimes difficult to determine whether a job or company listed on an employment site was real.
Dive Insight:
The trust gap between employers and job applicants is straining the hiring process and causing “concerns on both sides of the hiring equation,” according to iHire, which surveyed more than 1,000 job seekers and more than 300 employers across the U.S. for its eighth annual report.
The biggest overall challenge for employers for the fourth straight year was receiving too many applications from unqualified candidates, a problem cited by 55.7% of respondents and followed by “ghosting or unresponsive candidates,” which was cited by 51.6%.
However, candidates also cited ghosting and unresponsiveness, with 57.5% of applicants saying that one of their biggest frustrations was applying for a position and not hearing back. Trust also came into play in other ways, with 60.7% of applicants reporting that they would not apply for a job that didn’t list salary information and 70.4% saying they visited a company’s website before applying.
The trust gap may have been exacerbated in part because so much of the application process is conducted without human intervention. Nearly 40% of employers said their reliance on job platforms grew over the past year, and 33% said they expected to rely even more on these platforms next year.
“Our research shows that trust, transparency, and human connection matter more than ever in recruiting,” Steve Flook, president and CEO of iHire, said in a statement. “Employers are receiving unqualified and sometimes fraudulent applicants, and job seekers are questioning whether opportunities are legitimate and if they’ll hear back after applying. Moving forward, companies that blend the human touch with technology, promote a strong employer brand, and provide a positive candidate experience will be best positioned to find the right talent.”
That may explain why the use of artificial intelligence in recruiting is beginning to plateau, according to the report, which found that 24% of employers currently use AI in their hiring process, compared with close to 26% who reported using AI in 2025 and nearly 15% who said that in 2024.
Applicants say they are increasingly unhappy with employers’ use of AI, with 44% saying they negatively viewed employers who used AI in the hiring process, and only 21.8% saying it reflected well.
Amid this trust deficit, 43% of hiring managers recently reported that it’s now taking longer to fill open positions than it did two years ago, according to a survey released in August from Express Employment Professionals-Harris Poll. Just over a quarter of HR managers said it takes at least four weeks to fill a role. Nonetheless, HR professionals also said that an average of 21% of open roles were being closed without being filled, and more than 1 in 4 hiring managers said 27% of their available positions “go unfilled entirely.”