The rules of hiring have been rewritten. A global pandemic, a mass workforce exodus, and a fundamental shift toward digital work have forced HR teams to rethink how they find, attract, and keep talent.
Employee shortages are real, wages are rising, and the candidates across the table from you have more options and higher expectations than ever before.
These forty three statistics show exactly where recruiting stands in 2026 and what it takes to build a team today.
1. 70% of talent professionals agree virtual recruiting will become the standard (LinkedIn)
Even companies that are back in the office full-time or part-time are increasingly using virtual recruiting tactics as part of their hiring process. From social media outreach to virtual screenings, digital recruitment is helping companies save a significant amount of money and time.
However, while the entire hiring process may be fully virtual for entry-level positions, LinkedIn predicts that executive candidates will still experience a hybrid process. Since face-to-face communication improves the detection of non-verbal cues, hiring managers will continue to use video calls and in-person touchpoints to better understand candidates for high-paying positions.
2. 97% of employers value soft skills as much as or more than hard skills (SHRM)
While hard skills are always necessary to complete a job, employers are increasingly realizing that they’re teachable. In 2022, interpersonal skills will become more marketable, particularly in industries like marketing, sales, and human resources. These skills include communication, time management, and collaboration.
This emphasis on soft skills is largely growing because of the societal shift toward remote work. Since it takes extra effort to work as a virtual team, soft skills are essential for building a highly communicative, adaptable team.
3. 80% of CEOs are concerned about the number of digital skills in the workforce (PwC)
The Great Resignation isn’t the only big challenge facing modern recruiters. On top of a general shortage of job seekers, our world is seeing a shortage of tech-savvy workers. As companies grow increasingly connected to the internet, HR professionals may find it difficult to hire workers who are accustomed to remote work or cloud-based technology.
Recruiters can expect a growing need to invest in the upskilling of their existing employees and their job candidates. Whether you’re hiring internally or recruiting new employees, skills development costs may be unavoidable whenever you fill a position.
4. 59% of people leaving their jobs want a company that better fits their values (World Economic Forum)
Company culture must be a core selling point for your business in 2022. Employees are increasingly prioritizing companies that align with their values and help them feel fulfilled. They’re no longer seeking a workplace just to work, but rather one that they’d be proud to represent and integrate into their identities.
While reliable pay and good benefits are important (especially after the COVID-19 recession), work culture will help you stand out above other companies. Plus, when you land quality employees, your culture can encourage them to stay in your organization long-term.
Refining your employer brand — which may include your core values, mission statement, and online reputation as an employer — will help you convince the best talent to accept your job offers and is important to build a hiring strategy.
5. 89% of new hires who fail within 18 months have difficulties integrating into the workplace (Entrepreneur)
On top of marketing your company culture as a benefit for potential candidates, hiring managers must seek candidates who actually fit their culture. Bad hires frequently occur when companies fail to assess cultural fit within their hiring process.
When hiring remotely, consider conducting a culture fit interview on top of your typical screenings, interviews, and skills assessments. Know your top culture fit criteria before you begin to simplify the selection process.
6. 72% of employees would leave or consider leaving their company for a more inclusive one (Deloitte)
Diversity and inclusivity are becoming two of the most common values that candidates hold, in part due to the social justice movements that occurred during the pandemic. Employees want a workplace that everyone can feel comfortable in, and one that values everyone’s opinions equally.
Simply stating that your company values inclusivity is no longer enough. Instead, highlight the diversity and inclusion initiatives that you’re actively taking in your company to create progress. For instance, does your organization require diversity training as part of its onboarding process? Do you conduct regular surveys to assess how inclusive your organization really is?
If you currently have a diverse leadership team, this can be a highly marketable fact for recruiters to share.
7. 68% of employees prefer work-life balance over higher pay (Business Insider)
The COVID-19 pandemic showed many professionals the importance of work-life balance. With children home from school and parents working from home, separating family time from work time became an increasingly difficult feat.
As job seekers increasingly look for workplaces that support their work-life balance, hiring managers may find it effective to highlight company perks like unlimited paid time off, flexible schedules, and remote work stipends for coworking space memberships.
8. 73% of candidates are passive job seekers (HR Cloud)
Just because a person isn’t actively applying for new positions doesn’t mean they won’t be willing to take on a new job. Most job candidates simply aren’t ready to kickstart their job hunt on their own. However, when recruiters directly engage with them on LinkedIn, via email, or at industry conventions, passive job seekers may be motivated to apply.
9. The average cost per hire is $4,700
Hiring a new employee requires careful planning and significant investment. The average cost per hire factors in recruitment efforts, job postings, interviews, and onboarding, and the number rises steeply for specialized or senior roles. A slow application process can lead to productivity losses, while rushed hiring may result in poor job fit and higher turnover. Building structured, efficient hiring funnels is one of the most cost-effective investments an HR team can make. (SHRM)
10. Replacing an employee can cost 50% to 200% of their annual salary
The financial consequences of turnover extend far beyond posting a new job listing. Recruitment, onboarding, lost productivity, and the time managers spend on rehiring all add up quickly. For senior or highly specialized positions, total replacement costs can reach twice the departing employee’s annual salary. Organizations that invest in retention programs consistently see a strong return on that investment. (Gallup)
11. 98.4% of Fortune 500 companies use an applicant tracking system (ATS)
Automated hiring tools have become standard at the highest levels of corporate America. Nearly every major company now filters resumes through an ATS before a human ever sees them, which means candidates must optimize their applications accordingly. For recruiters, ATS platforms dramatically reduce time spent on administrative tasks. Companies using an ATS report up to a 60% reduction in their overall hiring cycle. (LinkedIn data)
12. 86% of businesses using an ATS report a reduction in time-to-hire
Automation isn’t just about cutting costs. It’s also about speed. When recruiters spend less time manually sorting applications, they can focus on higher-value activities like candidate relationships and strategic planning. As competition for top talent intensifies, even a few days’ advantage in time-to-hire can be the difference between landing a great candidate and losing them to a competitor.
13. The average time-to-fill for high-demand roles has risen to 44 days
Open positions in competitive fields like technology, healthcare, and engineering sit vacant far longer than the national average. Each day a critical role goes unfilled represents lost productivity, added burden on existing staff, and potential revenue impact. Companies that invest in proactive talent pipelines and efficient screening processes are best positioned to close these gaps faster.
14. Skills-based hiring increased to 81% in 2024
Employers are shifting away from degree requirements and toward measurable competencies. This is opening doors for candidates who have built their skills outside of traditional four-year programs, while also helping companies find candidates who can actually perform the job rather than simply credentialing their way into it. Degree-dropping is especially prevalent in tech, marketing, and operations roles. (MSH report)
15. 87% of companies are using AI-powered recruiting software
Artificial intelligence has moved from a novelty to a necessity in talent acquisition. From resume screening to interview scheduling to candidate matching, AI now touches nearly every stage of the hiring funnel. Companies using AI-assisted recruiter messaging are 9% more likely to make a quality hire than those who use the feature sparingly. That said, over two-thirds of U.S. adults say they would hesitate to apply for a job if AI plays a major role in the final hiring decision. (MSH report)
16. 96% of US hiring professionals use AI in recruitment
AI adoption in recruiting has reached near-universal levels among hiring professionals, with 94% saying it effectively identifies strong candidates. The most common use cases are job description generation and resume screening. However, widespread adoption hasn’t resolved concerns about bias. A Bloomberg investigation found that widely used AI models displayed racial and gender bias when ranking resumes, underscoring the need for human oversight in any AI-assisted process. (Resume Now via TIME)
17. Use of video interviews has increased by 86% since 2020
Virtual interviewing is no longer a pandemic workaround. It has become a permanent fixture in the hiring process. Video interviews save both recruiters and candidates significant time and cost, and they make it easier to assess candidates across geographies. With platforms continuing to add AI-assisted features like automated scoring and sentiment analysis, video interviews are only becoming more sophisticated. (MSH report)
18. 75% of job seekers say the hiring process affects their decision to accept an offer
Candidate experience is no longer a soft metric. A poorly run hiring process is a concrete reason talented people say no. Slow response times, disorganized interviews, and unclear communication all send signals about what it would be like to actually work at a company. On the flip side, a thoughtful, well-paced process can be a powerful recruiting advantage, even when competing with higher-paying employers. (MSH data)
19. 70% of job seekers use generative AI to research companies and prep for interviews
Candidates are showing up to interviews better prepared than ever, and AI is a big reason why. From drafting cover letters to practicing mock interview answers, generative AI tools have become a central part of the modern job search. By mid-2025, over 40% of candidates reported actively using AI in their job search, up from just 10% expected at the start of 2024. Recruiters should assume candidates have done their AI-assisted homework. (Indeed research)
20. 79% of candidates want transparency when AI is used in hiring
Trust is a growing issue in AI-assisted recruitment. The majority of candidates want to know when an algorithm is evaluating them, and only 26% believe AI can assess them fairly. Only 8% of U.S. job seekers believe AI makes hiring more fair overall. For companies using AI in their hiring process, transparency isn’t just a courtesy. It is quickly becoming an expectation, and in some jurisdictions, a legal requirement. (HireVue research)
21. 69% of employees are more likely to stay three years after a great onboarding experience
Onboarding is often treated as an administrative formality, but the data is clear: it is a retention strategy. Structured onboarding programs lead to 60% higher employee retention, and organizations with effective onboarding improve new hire productivity by over 70%. Despite this, many companies still wrap up onboarding within 90 days. Extending the onboarding period beyond those first three months leads to a measurable 29% improvement in retention. (Glassdoor data)
22. Poor onboarding leads to 20% of turnover within the first 45 days
Bad first impressions are costly. A significant share of new hires decide to leave before they’ve even had a chance to contribute meaningfully. Common culprits include slow IT setup, unclear role expectations, and a lack of manager check-ins in the first few weeks. Given that the cost to replace a new hire who leaves quickly can rival the cost of hiring them in the first place, investing in a structured first-week experience has an obvious ROI. (Digitate report)
23. 60% of HR professionals say recruiting has been harder this year than last
Even as the labor market has cooled from its post-pandemic peak, the challenge of finding qualified talent remains intense. Over three-quarters of organizations have reported difficulty recruiting for full-time positions in the past 12 months, with the top obstacles being a low number of applicants, stiff competition from other employers, and an increase in candidate ghosting. That last trend, where candidates simply stop responding mid-process, has become one of the most frustrating recruiting realities. (SHRM Talent Trends)
24. Job boards account for 60% of all applications
Despite the proliferation of recruiting channels, job boards remain the dominant source of applicant volume. LinkedIn and Glassdoor together lead the field, followed by company career pages and niche industry boards. On the candidate side, 79.5% of workers rely on general job boards in their search, while 54.9% turn to professional networking sites. Recruiters who neglect to maintain a strong presence on major platforms are likely leaving a significant portion of their talent pool untapped. (b2breviews data)
25. Employee referrals generate about 30% of all job applicants
While referrals only account for roughly 7% of completed hires, they represent nearly a third of all applicants and tend to be higher quality leads than those sourced through job boards.
Employees who come in through referrals also tend to onboard faster, perform better, and stay longer. Building a formal employee referral program, complete with incentives and easy submission tools, is one of the highest-ROI moves in a recruiter’s toolkit.
26. 85% of talent acquisition leaders list diversity hiring as a top priority
Diverse teams consistently outperform homogeneous ones on innovation and problem-solving metrics, and the talent acquisition community knows it. However, the organizational commitment to making it a measurable priority has declined for the third consecutive year, with only 22% of companies tracking DEI as a formal KPI in 2024. The gap between stated values and measured outcomes is where most diversity hiring initiatives break down.
27. Employer branding budgets have increased by 107% in the past five years
The competition for talent is as much a marketing challenge as it is an HR one. Companies have more than doubled their investment in employer brand over the past five years, recognizing that how they present themselves to potential candidates, both on their own platforms and across review sites like Glassdoor, has a direct impact on applicant quality and volume. A strong employer brand can reduce cost-per-hire and improve offer acceptance rates significantly.
28. 51% of employees who see a colleague leave within 6 months begin searching for a new job themselves
Turnover is contagious. When one team member departs, especially if the departure is perceived as a defection rather than a promotion, it triggers a ripple effect. This contagion dynamic is particularly dangerous in small teams, where the exit of a single high performer can destabilize morale and trigger a cascade of departures. Proactive stay interviews and transparent conversations about culture and growth are effective early interventions. (Gallup research)
29. 50% of employees who seek new jobs do so because of their manager
The old saying that employees don’t leave companies, they leave managers, has substantial data behind it. Manager quality is consistently the single most predictive factor of employee tenure, outperforming compensation, benefits, and even career development. Organizations that hold managers accountable for retention outcomes, not just output metrics, see meaningfully lower voluntary turnover rates. (Gallup research)
30. 74% of workers say they would stay longer if given better career development
Career growth is consistently a top retention driver, yet most employees feel their companies aren’t delivering on it. Providing clear advancement pathways, access to learning budgets, and internal mobility opportunities signals to employees that the company is invested in their future. Companies that offer upskilling programs retain 58% more employees than those that don’t, making learning and development one of the clearest wins available to HR teams. (Second Talent data)
31. 94% of employees say they would stay longer if their employer invested in their career development
Learning and development is not just a perk. It is one of the most powerful retention levers available. The vast majority of workers, across age groups and industries, report that a visible commitment to their growth would extend their tenure significantly. Yet many companies still treat training as a line item to cut rather than an investment in reducing turnover costs. (CNBC data)
32. 57.8% of job postings on Indeed listed salary information as of late 2024
Salary transparency has grown significantly in recent years, driven partly by new state and local laws requiring pay ranges in job postings and partly by market pressure from candidates who have come to expect it. Up from 52.2% the year prior, the rise in salary transparency is reshaping how candidates filter job opportunities. Postings without salary information risk being deprioritized by job seekers who have plenty of transparent alternatives available to them. (Indeed Hiring Lab)
33. 42.3% of employers hired or promoted from within rather than hiring externally in 2025
Internal mobility is having a moment. In 2024, only 16.9% of employers said they filled positions internally rather than externally. By 2025, that number had surged to 42.3%. Whether driven by cost concerns, a tighter external talent market, or a growing recognition of the value of known quantities, the data suggests that organizations are increasingly looking inward before looking outward. (iHire 2025 Report)
34. 27.8% of employers invested in upskilling or reskilling existing employees in 2025
As the skills gap widens, particularly in technology-adjacent roles, more companies are turning to internal talent development rather than external recruiting to close capability gaps. Reskilling an existing employee costs significantly less than replacing one, and the retention benefits are measurable. With 80% of HR leaders saying they’ve considered redeployment as an alternative to layoffs, building a reskilling infrastructure is becoming a strategic priority. (iHire 2025 Report)
35. 63% of companies reported workforce reductions in 2024, up from 43% the year before
Layoffs surged again in 2024 even as the overall labor market remained relatively stable. Unlike the mass layoffs of 2022, these reductions were more targeted, with a growing share citing skill mismatches and poor performance rather than pure cost-cutting as the rationale. About 30% of HR leaders named releasing employees who don’t have the right skill sets as a motivation for workforce reductions, pointing to a fundamental shift in how companies approach right-sizing. (GoodTime 2025)
36. Only 5% of job seekers who view a posting complete an application
The funnel from job posting to completed application is far leaker than most recruiters realize. Of all the candidates who view a job listing, only a tiny fraction actually apply, which means that writing quality, clarity, and the application experience itself all have an outsized impact on applicant volume. Overly long applications, excessive required fields, and friction in the submission process are among the most common reasons qualified candidates drop off before completing. (b2breviews data)
37. The global talent shortage is projected to reach 85.2 million workers by 2030
The skills gap isn’t a short-term problem. Demographic trends, an aging workforce, and rapid technological change are converging to create a structural talent deficit that will intensify over the coming decade. Companies that build long-term talent pipelines today, whether through university partnerships, apprenticeship programs, or talent community building, will be far better positioned than those relying on reactive hiring when the shortage deepens. (Qureos research)
38. 70% of the workforce will work remotely at least five days a month by end of 2026
Remote and hybrid work is now the structural norm, not a pandemic-era exception. With the majority of the global workforce operating at least partially outside of a traditional office on a regular basis, recruiters who market flexibility as a differentiator are doing the minimum. The more powerful move is demonstrating the infrastructure, culture, and management practices that make remote work genuinely effective, not just possible. (MSH forecast)
39. Predictive analytics in recruiting could reduce turnover by 50%
Data-driven hiring isn’t just about filling roles faster. It’s about filling them better. Companies using predictive analytics to forecast candidate fit and long-term success see dramatically lower turnover among the cohorts they hire using those models. The challenge is that most organizations still track speed and cost metrics while under-investing in quality metrics that predict who actually stays and performs.
40. 56% of employees say workplace culture is a deciding factor in staying with their employer
Culture isn’t just a recruitment marketing talking point. It’s also a retention force. More than half of employees cite workplace culture as a core reason they stay in a role, above compensation packages and career advancement in some surveys. For recruiters, this means that accurately representing culture during the hiring process, rather than overselling it, is essential to reducing early tenure turnover. (Glassdoor data)
41. Companies that extend onboarding beyond 90 days see a 29% improvement in retention
Most onboarding programs wrap up long before a new hire has fully found their footing. Extending structured support, goal-setting, and manager check-ins beyond the first three months allows new employees to build deeper organizational knowledge and social connections, both of which are strong predictors of retention. Given that 54% of voluntary departures happen in the first six months, the case for extended onboarding is compelling. (SHRM data)
42. 87% of HR leaders say improving retention is a critical priority in 2025
Retention has leapfrogged recruiting as the dominant concern among HR professionals. In a market where finding new talent is expensive and time-consuming, keeping the talent you already have has never been more strategically important. Despite this, 47% of organizations still lack formal retention strategies, suggesting a significant gap between recognizing the problem and having a systematic approach to addressing it. (Gartner research)
43. Organizations with comprehensive retention strategies achieve 87% higher retention rates and 67% lower recruitment costs
The business case for investing in retention isn’t abstract. Companies that treat retention as a managed discipline, with formal strategies, regular measurement, and clear accountability, see dramatically better outcomes across both people and financial metrics. The compounding benefit is real: every employee who stays longer reduces the recruiting, onboarding, and lost-productivity costs associated with their eventual replacement. The organizations winning the talent game in 2026 are those treating retention as a continuous operating function, not just a crisis response. (SHRM report)
Targeting passive job seekers is a great way to expand your talent pool during employee shortages in 2026.
Adapt to the new normal of recruiting
Hiring and recruiting are changing, and if you want your company to win the best talent, you need to adapt to the times. These hiring statistics will help you build a hiring strategy that helps you compete with other businesses.
When you redirect your focus toward soft skills and start promoting your company culture, you can gain more candidates than before.
Adapting to virtual recruitment and hiring processes can further help you save money and time, so you can reach more prospective candidates.
