The Decline of Candidate Experience

It’s time we have an honest conversation about something many of us in talent acquisition are seeing—and maybe even contributing to—the steady decline of candidate experience.

I say this with conviction. My intention is not to upset recruiters. As a recruiter actively seeking talent and looking for my own career opportunities, it's important to preface this blog post with acknowledging that I do understand that most of us (recruiters) entered this field because we genuinely care about people or we "fell into it" somehow—both can be true at once as well. Our goals as recruiters should be to build teams, open doors, and shape careers. However, the gap between our intentions and reality is widening with each technological advancement that claims to "replace recruiters" and each leader that prioritises themself over candidate experience. And candidates are the ones facing the majority of the consequences. As well, due to lack of retention and extended periods of time to hire employers are taking the brunt of these same consequence.

Whether you're leading recruiting or working as an individual contributor, it is your responsibility to speak up—using real data—about the damage a poor candidate experience can cause. Demonstrate to leadership how it negatively impacts not only hiring efforts but also the company’s bottom line. Emphasize that this is an urgent issue that demands immediate attention. Reveal what’s truly happening behind the scenes and why continuing in the current manner is unacceptable. If you're a recruiter, regardless of your role, this is your duty! While you may not control how your message is received, you can expose the harsh reality. Like it or not, it will reveal to recruiters exactly where their company stands on the matter—whether they choose to implement changes or ignore the issue entirely.

How a company treats candidates is a clear indicator of how it will treat them as employees. Confusion, chaos, and a lack of human-centered practices will deter top performers and subject matter experts. Period. Even in this challenging 2025 labor market.

Here are some recurring patterns that demand our attention—that demand the entire hiring team's attention:

🚩 Leading Candidates On 🚩

There's a significant difference between keeping candidates engaged (let's acknowledge that candidates are humans, not freshly baked bread) and stringing them along. Promising feedback “by end of week” and then ghosting. Hinting at next steps before achieving alignment internally. Creating the impression that a final interview or an offer is imminent when it's not.

Leading candidates on not only harms your brand, it erodes trust in our profession as a whole. We do not need to erode trust any further with job seekers. Candidates, especially those who have been job seekers for extended periods of time or who are adept at recognizing patterns, will eventually notice what's happening and leave with a negative impression.

People remember how they’re treated—especially when the outcome isn’t what they hoped for.

Don't tell your candidates they did well if you cannot ensure they will advance to the next stage. You're not there to lead people on. You're there to find the right person for the job.

And if your hiring process takes 10 weeks and has 8 stages (as an example), tell your candidates ahead of time. Let them decide if the timeline potentially makes sense for them.

Cartoon comic version of recruitingSHEro holding a lasso in an office. Caption: It's time to audit your processes.

🚩 Avoid Being Vague 🚩

“We’re seeking a better culture fit.”

"This has been a great interview. Someone will contact you to schedule the next step in the process," followed by "We've decided to move forward with other candidates who more closely align with our hiring needs at this time" or “We’re going in a different direction.” or “You were great, but…”

Vague communication is not only unhelpful—it’s detrimental. Candidates are dedicating time, energy, and vulnerability to your process. They deserve clarity. Even a straightforward, “Here’s where your experience didn’t quite align with what we need” is invaluable. Ambiguity leaves people confused and questioning themselves. I know it's few and far between that an employer or TA leaderships allows their recruiting team to give real interview feedback. This tells me the employer doesn't trust their own hiring teams and reruiters can prpvidr 'unboased feedback and likely, that they they know their processes likely are bias AF!

I said what I said.

Because if employers and TA leaders actually trusted their recuitment teams and hiring teams to give unbiased interview feedback, this wouldn't be an issue. (I will unpack interview feedback further in an upcoming blog post. Don't miss it.)

🚩 Misalignment Across the Hiring Team 🚩

We must eliminate any misalignment within the hiring team. Every individual involved in the hiring process must fully understand their role and the role they are evaluating and hiring for. Any lack of clarity can jeopardize the exceptional candidate experience we strive to provide.

Internal misalignment is one of the most preventable issues. Interviewers asking redundant questions, offering conflicting feedback, or being unclear about the role's responsibilities can send mixed signals to candidates.

Candidates notice this disorganization quickly. It suggests that the team is not aligned and unsure of what or who they’re looking for. This isn’t just off-putting; it’s a risk, and top candidates will walk away, especially if they have other opportunities.

🚩 The Information Lag 🚩

In fast-paced hiring environments, information gaps can occur. Interviewers might forget to submit scorecards, decisions can be delayed, and key stakeholders may be unavailable, leading to silence.

Candidates are left waiting, refreshing their inbox, uncertain whether to follow up or move on. While delays can happen, how we communicate during these times is crucial.

It’s acceptable to say, “We’re still finalizing next steps and I don’t have an update yet—but I’ll keep you posted.” Silence breeds doubt. It’s acceptable to explain unexpected delays or admit mistakes. These admissions might slightly sour a relationship, but ignoring the situation is far worse. Don't ghost if you can help it. You can help it by advocating for clear and candidate-centric communication.

A True Blue Collar Candidate Experience Timeline—Put Yourself In The Candidate Seat: ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️

JULY 2025

July 7 - Recruiter reaches out via LinkedIn with a role they think you'd be a fit for

July 7 - Job seeker applies to the job

July 12 - Recruiter requests job seeker's availability to interview

July 12 - Job seeker shares that they have open availability

July 12 - Recruiter emails job seeker with invite and interview details

July 14 - Job seeker completes phone interview with recruiter (65 minutes)

July 15 - Recruiter messages job seeker for availability to interview with hiring manager virtually

July 15 - Job seeker shares they have open availability

July 18 - Job seeker emails recruiter again making sure they received their reply on the 15th

July 21 - Recruiter emails job seeker with invite and interview details

July 24 - Job seeker interviews with Hiring Manager (50 minutes)

July 29 - Job seeker emails recruiter asking for an update on their candidacy

AUGUST 2025

August 5 - Recruiter emails job seeker asking for their availability to interview with the VP of the department and sends a personality profile test to be completed within 24 hours of receipt.

August 5 - Job seeker shares they have open availability

August 6 - Job seeker completes personality profile test (30 minutes)

August 8 - Job seeker emails recruiter to ensure they received their email with availability

August 9 - Recruiter emails job seeker with invite and interview details

August 12 - Job seeker interviews with VP of department (80 minutes) - VP informs job seeker they should expect a final panel interview the following week and the recruiter will be in touch by end of week

August 18 - Job seeker emails recruiter asking about next steps

August 21 - Recruiter emails job seeker for availability to attend a final interview panel (4 hours of interviewing)

August 22 - Job seeker shares they have open availability

August 23 - Recruiter emails job seeker with invite and interview details

August 25 - Job seeker interviews for the final time (4 hours and 19 minutes) and is told the employer will have a final decision by the end of the week

August 29 - Job seeker emails recruiter for an update after waiting the entire day for the decision. Email sent at 7PM

August 29 - Recruiter emails job seeker asking for patience as the answer could take another week

SEPTEMBER 2025

September 5 - Recruiter calls job seeker to inform them they’ve decided not to fill the role at all

The above timeline story doesn’t include the additional (and multiple) negative experiences the candidate faced in the process. Such as blatantly biased interview questions, unprofessional emails from the recruiter, and biased comments during the final interview. There were even a few instances of gaslighting the job seeker when they continued to follow up with the recruiter regarding timeline promises.

The job seeker spent well over 10 hours just interviewing, taking assessments, and preparing for each interview stage. After each stage, they were promised feedback within 24 business hours (except where noted otherwise in timeline above). This company subjected the job seeker to 9 weeks of interviews and sub-par interactions, failed to follow up when and as promised, and ultimately wasted nearly 15 hours of the job seekers time. This was just one candidate; others were likely affected as well. The recruiter mentioned they were told there were four other final candidates. It’s probable that more than five candidates were negatively impacted by this company’s disregard for candidate experience in the process. Additionally, when the job seeker requested their own personality profile test results, they were denied access.

Employers cannot hire every candidate that makes it to the final interview stage. This real life example is to showcase why keeping candidate experience as a recruiter's true North is important. As recruiters and employers we cannot be everything to everyone. What we can do, is ensure we are providing great candidate experience and at a minimum, do what we say we are going to do in the timeframe we say we will. Period.

Job seekers are facing longer hiring cycles and an increase in employers deciding not to hire after these extensive rounds of interviews, take-homes, and assessments. Many employers are exercising caution due to the current U.S. market and economic uncertainties, including tariffs. Tarrifs and the current U.S. administration have negatively impacted the labor market after less than a year in office. This situation echoes 2020, but with a higher cost of living and employers offering lower salaries for the same roles compared to recent years.

It’s challenging for job seekers to stay positive when the odds seem stacked against them. And the most recent U.S. August Jobs Report doesn't give off a sense of hope for the remainder of 2025. The very least recruiters and employers can do is show some basic human respect to job seekers and provide a decent candidate experience to those that apply. While providing candidates world-class experiences is ideal, job seekers aren’t expecting that. Job seekers just want a respectful experience. Nonetheless, to those providing exceptional experiences, I commend you on behalf of all job seekers and people-centric recruiters accross the United States !

✅ Why Does Candidate Experience Matter? ✅

Don’t just take my word for it, listen to other experts and job seeker polls!

Candidate experience isn’t just a feel-good metric—it’s business critical.

• 66% of candidates say a positive experience influences acceptance decisions.

  
  

• Diverse applicants are 25% more likely to be ghosted—weakening DEI pipelines.

  
  

• Organizations that prioritize inclusive hiring show stronger retention, satisfaction, and employer reputation.

 🚩Sometimes Truth Behind Negative Candidate Experience is Poor Leadership  🚩

I acknowledge that recently, I’ve heard stories of skilled recruiters hindered by processes and tools that prevent them from delivering great candidate experiences. Often, these are implemented by individuals no longer with the company and the process never adapted further or by IT departments without recruiting input. I’ve also seen recruitment leadership implement processes without consulting their team. When leadership isn’t focused on people or candidate experience, it’s likely that candidate experience suffers. I need to acknowledge that not every recruiter has full autonomy over their work.

This is a reminder that those managing your applicant tracking system must care about people and candidate experience. They need to anticipate pitfalls in the process and systems to ensure no candidate is left behind. I’ve been in this position, and I’ve learned to maintain my own master sheet of “candidates at play.” I once worked where email templates and forms were preloaded and couldn’t be updated. The templates and forms were embarrasing. This might work if someone who truly cares about people and candidate experience designed the workflows and templates, but what happens when they don't is a disaster.

✅ Let Me Help You Fix This ASAP ✅

What if I told you it’s possible to provide a world-class candidate experience to everyone, regardless of the hiring outcome, and gain brand champions along the way—even from candidates you don’t hire? You can hire someone to assist your team on a project or long-term basis to do the following and more:

✅ Audit your processes: Are you overpromising? Are updates timely? Are you providing specific feedback or hiding behind vagueness? How is your ATS set up, and how does it impact candidates?

✅ Invest in alignment up front: Don’t launch a role until the hiring team is aligned. This saves time, improves consistency, and benefits everyone involved.

✅ Treat candidates like internal stakeholders: Because they are. They’re evaluating you just as much as you’re evaluating them, and their experience matters.

✅ Say the hard thing, kindly: Whether it’s a no, a change, or a delay—clarity beats politeness or being vague every-single-time. You can be respectful and transparent.

We often discuss candidate experience as recruiters. I'm here to remind all of us that actions speak louder than job posts, social media campaigns, branded swag, and empty promises or words.

Let’s commit to doing better—not just because it’s right, but because a broken process hurts everyone: candidates, hiring teams, and your company's bottom line.

I am ready to audit, build, and enhance your team, training them to deliver world-class candidate experiences and implement them effectively for consistent success. Explore the Services tab on my website and contact me. It's the perfect time to make a positive change.