The Recruitment Power Shift:
How Candidates are Powering the Economy

Today the power has shifted from the employer to the candidate, as employers find themselves losing top performers, and candidates with specialized skills are in high demand — and even harder to find. This study will help hiring managers and recruitment professionals get a behind-the-scenes look at candidates’ job search process as well as other employers’ hiring process to empower them with the insights necessary to gain a competitive recruitment edge.

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Candidate-Powered Economy

5,013 Candidates surveyed in the U.S. 2,002 Hiring managers in the U.S.

The New Candidate-Powered Economy

Amid the backdrop of a strengthening U.S. economy and slowly downward-trending unemployment rate, the power has been shifting from the employer back to the candidate.

3 in 4 full-time employed workers are open to or actively looking for new job opportunities.

On average, job seekers use 18 different sources when searching for a job — a steady increase from previous years and reinforcing the idea of the consumer candidate.

Today’s candidates are much more selective in terms of where they apply, as evidenced by the array of online resources they use to evaluate potential employers. They do their due diligence — much like they would do their homework if they were buying a house or a car — before ever deciding whether to take that next step and apply. Your organization won’t even appear on their radar if you haven’t built a strong presence on these channels.

Candidate Process

The Candidate Process:
The 4 Phases of the Job Search

How do candidates go about conducting their research? They go through four key phases along the journey of finding a new job.

What the Numbers Say

Make selections in this graphic to learn specifically about the candidate process from start to finish.

Research Category

  • Country
  • Gender
  • Generation
  • Employment Status
  • Education
  • Job Level
  • US Region
  • Industry
  • Job Type
  • Ethnicity
  • Salary

Research Subcategory

Results

Phase 1: Orientation

use Google search

use a job board

Phase 2: Consideration

use a career site

use social media

Phase 3: Action

consider employers to be responsive

Phase 4: Engagement

Would compromise on salary for a good experience

Select Subcategory

Select Research Category

Results

use Google search

use a job board

use a career site

use social media

consider employers to be responsive

would compromise on salary for a good experience

Pressured-Employer Economy

The Pressured-Employer Economy

Employers may have enjoyed the upper hand in the hiring process during the recession, as millions of highly skilled workers found themselves out of jobs. As a result, many candidates wound up with lower-than-average salary offers for highly skilled jobs. Now, the employment landscape has shifted since the economy began its rebound.

More than half of employers admit that over the past five years it has grown increasingly difficult to find qualified candidates.

54%

Half of all employers say it’s hard to find candidates with the appropriate skills for the positions they are hiring for.

50%

The vast majority of employers admit that making a bad hire is far more costly than leaving a position open.

73%

Hint: Data Matters!

Data and analytics are crucial to determining what is — and what isn't — working when it comes to workforce planning and recruitment.

Did you know?

Intuitive Data and Analytics

CareerBuilder’s comprehensive workforce data and analytics solutions enable you to find where the candidates are and how much to pay them — in just a few clicks; build an effective, long-term workforce planning strategy; and compare your supply of candidates to the rest of the market for more informed sourcing decisions.

The Hiring Process

The Hiring Process — Unveiled

Have you ever wondered what other companies’ hiring processes are like? We surveyed more than 2,000 hiring managers to give you an idea of what your peers are doing.

When asked if employers prefer an active or passive candidate (who most employers define as an employed individual who’s open to a new job opportunity):

51% say they prefer active candidate

51%

41% say they don’t have a preference.

41%

When a position opens up:

72% of employers say they first look at interal resources - including ATS, talent community/network, referrals — before posting a job.

73%

28% of emplyers directly post open positions externally.

54%

Could they be more efficient though?
Absolutely:

Nearly three-quarters of employers say it takes them more than 30 minutes to post a job to all the places they source candidates,

78%

while 42% say it takes them more than an hour.

42%

Is that time well spent? Despite taking time to post in all of these places, the majority say they don’t even don't even source code where an applicant comes from.

56%

This is an example of working harder and not necessarily smarter. By being more strategic about where they post depending on the ROI they get, employers could cut this time down while seeing better results.

Did you know?

Recruiter Efficiency

Engaging candidates takes time and effort that clients do not often have, so we at CareerBuilder build our software tools to help clients do in just a few clicks what used to take hours to do manually. Because recruiter efficiency saves you time and money — and who doesn’t want to add time back in their day?

The Interview Process

When it comes to interviewing candidates, communication is still an area that could use improvement.

58% of employers say they don't communicate to applicats how long the application or interview process will take.

58%

When it comes to the actual interview:

The majority of employers say less than half of candidates make it past an initial screening and are offered a phone or in-person interview.

73%

67% of employers say less than half of candidates make it through the initial screening or phone interview but are eliminated after a bad in-person interview.

67%

On average, employers conduct 3 phone interviews and 3 in-person interviews for an open position.

When it comes to the post-interview process:

Nearly half say it takes between 1—2 days after the final interview to extend an offer to a candidate.

45%

However, it takes some more than 3 days to do so.

38%

On average, employers say about 18% of candidates reject the initial offer and negotiate for a better one.

18%

The High Cost of a Bad Impression

For every 9 applications that a job seeker submits, he or she only gets called in on average for 2 interviews. Even worse, they say that only 40% of their applications ever receive a response.

The perception out there is that employers simply aren’t responsive during the hiring process. And the data backs it up. Only 14% of candidates feel companies have been responsive to them.

Employers agree that they aren’t as responsive as they could be. More than half of companies say they respond to less than half of the candidates that apply. Why?

32% say they don’t think they need to respond to everyone.

32%

29% say there are too many candidates to respond to.

29%

18% say they don’t have enough time.

18%

10% say it’s company policy not to respond.

10%

Only 27% of candidates say an employer gave them an explanation of why they didn’t get a job after interviewing.

The unfortunate reality is that employers often underestimate how much of an impact a poor candidate experience can have.

69% of job seekers say they are less likely to buy from a company they had a bad experience with during the interview process.

69%

65% of job seekers say they are less likely to buy from a company who they didn’t hear back from after an interview.

65%

58% of job seekers say they are less likely to buy from a company they didn't hear back from after submitting an application.

58%

45% of job seekers say they are less likely to buy from a company they received a low offer letter from.

45%

On the other end of the spectrum, making a positive impression can do wonders for a brand’s consumer image.

69% of job seekers say they are more likely to buy from a company who treated them with respect during the application process.

69%

67% of job seekers say they are more likely to buy from a company that provided consistent updates throughout the application process.

67%

Did you know?

, Candidate Experience

Providing a great candidate experience also means recognizing that today's job seekers use multiple job search sources. That’s why CareerBuilder has built a digital platform to give our clients' jobs more exposure from any type of device — from desktop to mobile.

Recommendations

Tips Based on Real Data

CareerBuilder knows candidates better than anyone else. We’ve been studying candidate behavior in-depth each year so we can bring you the latest data and insights to help you get the right job in front of the right people at the right time.

Here are a few key tips to keep in mind.

As the power has shifted from the employer to the candidate in this age of talent, you need to update and adapt your recruitment strategy so it’s effective in this new era. To do so, you need to have the data and analytics in place to recruit smarter instead of working harder. You need to learn to improve recruiter efficiency so that you’re automating your grunt work and instead focusing on your strategic recruitment needs. And you need to understand candidate behavior to provide a stellar candidate experience to anyone who comes in contact with your brand.

2015 Careerbuilder All Rights Reserved

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH INAVERO, CAREERBUILDER SURVEYED 5,013 WORKERS, AGES 18 AND OVER, AND 2,002 HIRING DECISION MAKERS, BETWEEN FEBRUARY 3, 2015 AND FEBRUARY 18, 2015 IN THE UNITED STATES, 500 WORKERS IN CANADA, 503 WORKERS IN THE UK, 504 WORKERS IN GERMANY AND 505 WORKERS IN FRANCE IN AN EFFORT TO UNDERSTAND THE FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE CANDIDATES' JOB SEARCH BEHAVIOR.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW “THE MYTH OF THE PASSIVE JOB-SEEKER” STUDY CLICK HERE TO VIEW “THE RISE OF THE CONSUMER CANDIDATE” STUDY