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In recruitment, it seems, it’s either feast or famine.
After enduring years of there being a paucity of good quality applicants to choose between – with job seekers well and truly able to call the shots – employers now find themselves at the other end of the extreme: facing what can only be described as an almost unending flood of applicants every time they advertise a new role.
According to data by StandOut CV, the average vacancy now attracts between 47-280 applications (with some as high as 500). Overall there has been a 286% year-on-year increase in applications per job.
But not only does this make life harder for employers to separate the wheat from the chaff, there’s another issue it’s causing – one which many argue needs to be urgently addressed – the very real reality that most candidates will fail to receive any feedback whatsoever about how their application has actually gone.
“I’ve never seen the level of ‘ghosting’ applicants are getting be quite this bad,” sums up Georgina Badine, founder of Invicta Vita – the employability-ready consultancy. “But worse than this, I’m starting to hear stories about companies who are now using the excuse of having ‘too many’ applications as a reason not to give feedback at all, even when they haven’t actually had many applications.”
Applicants want feedback
To an extent, job-hunters are the cause of the very problem they are complaining about.
They are, by their own actions, deluging employers, able to hit various ‘apply now’ buttons in seconds, and using AI to scattergun to more employers than ever before. But then they moan that they don’t get a personal response – precisely because employers can’t cope with the numbers of applications they’re getting.
“CVs have never been easier to send out,” agrees Samantha Price, Talent Solutions Director at Morson. “To a large extent, I don’t think investment in most employers’ applicant tracking systems has kept pace with the ease with which people can apply for roles now. The problem it creates, however, is that this lack of feedback now represents real reputational risk for brands. Employers are going to be called-out online for seemingly not taking applicants seriously.”
Investment in applicant tracking systems has not kept pace with the ease with which people can apply for roles now.
Research suggests a whopping 70% of candidates say receiving a clear reason why they weren’t selected for an interview would leave them with a more positive impression of that company. According to 2024 research (from The Candidate Experience Benchmark Report), 48% of rejected candidates already felt unhappy with the feedback they received, while only 33% rated it positively – a sentiment that is not likely to have improved.
But this then prompts two serious questions. Firstly, in the face of rising CV numbers, is it actually reasonable for candidates to actually expect such detailed feedback in the first place; and what can employers realistically do to try and ameliorate against these raised expectations?
Reasonable vs Unreasonable
“To a degree, I don’t think the expectation for personalised feedback is reasonable when set against the rising numbers of applications,” argues Gill Mahon, Chief People and Places Officer, at Totalmobile. “It’s not operationally viable.” At the same time though, she says “this doesn’t remove the need for a good candidate experience.”
According to her colleague, and Head of HR, Claire Hughes, “the level of feedback applicants get should reflect the level of work they’ve put in to the recruitment process in the first place.” She adds: “Candidates simply hitting an ‘apply now’ button should get an automated response. We feel it’s when candidates have gone through some more levels of selection that more detailed personal feedback should be given.” She continues: “These are people employers potentially need to keep warm, to keep them interested in case other opportunities may arise later down the line.” She adds: “We actually try to stay in touch with some candidates, specifically for this reason.”
On the flipside though, and despite acknowledging that some HR heads will think it ‘is’ unreasonable to offer feedback right at the start of the hiring process, there are a growing number of commentators who argue that because applicants ‘do’ seek feedback, this is reason enough to try and come up with solutions to meet this expectation.
One such person is Barb Hyman, CEO of Sapia.ai – which has developed chat-based AI interviews where candidates will receive individualised feedback. Through such technology, Hyman argues that that even at scale, hiring can feel structured, fair and genuinely human.
“What we’ve been observing over the years, is a sense of employees feeling powerless in the recruitment process,” says Hyman, who was herself, as former head of HR (at Boston Consulting Group), and says trust needs re-introducing into the recruitment process once more.
I don’t think the expectation for personalised feedback is reasonable when set against the rising numbers of applications.
She says: “Studies are proving that AI can be the fairest way to hire, and while we can’t give everyone a job, through our technology we can at least end the application process better by giving candidates an assessment of where they fit against certain required skill – for instance that they have been assessed as not being in the top percentile for critical thinking, or not right based on how certain questions were answered.” She continues: “At the end, the feedback tells candidates what we’ve learned about them, and here’s a coaching tip to help them for looking for other roles in the future.”
While some might see this as fighting AI with AI, Hyman says candidates do genuinely accept this feedback when given it (the interviews get a 92% completion rate, and 80-90% say the coaching tips were acceptable to them). Moreover, she argues just the intent, and being seen to provide some form of feedback is often enough to satisfy candidates. Clients already signed up to it include Qantas, BT, and Joe & The Juice. “People feel in control, this is the direction things are going in,” she says.
