A new industry report from Employ Inc., leveraging real hiring data from more than 6,600 organizations using Jobvite, Lever and JazzHR offers a detailed snapshot of recruiting performance and benchmarks as companies prepare for a year of continued labor market evolution. The 2026 Employ Hiring Benchmarks Report, titled “Redefining What Good Looks Like,” provides talent acquisition teams with actionable insights into key performance metrics across the hiring lifecycle, from candidate engagement to onboarding outcomes.
The research looks at key hiring stages for organizations of all sizes. This includes small businesses, mid-market employers, and large enterprises. It covers industries such as retail, hospitality, manufacturing, software, and business services. The goal is to help HR leaders see how their talent acquisition processes compare. It also aims to find areas of friction and adjust strategies to attract talent more effectively in a complex landscape.
Key Findings: Shifting Recruiting Dynamics
Several trends emerged from the findings:
Engagement rates for candidates have gone down, from 1.2% in 2024 to 0.8% in 2025, indicating that the conventional methods for attracting candidates are probably waning and that new approaches need to be employed to reach candidates.
The speed of hiring is also increasing in some areas as the time to the initial screening has improved from 8.3 to 7.2 days on a year-over-year basis, indicating recruiters’ interest in acting quickly to attract the best talents.
The time to fill roles improved, which can be construed as a positive efficiency benchmark, although the time to hire marginally increased.
While candidate experience is still mixed, average scores are low at under 3 on a 5-point scale: it is apparent that most companies have yet to provide an easy, candidate-centric recruitment experience.
Early retention improved dramatically, with first-year turnover falling from 23.7% to 12.1%, pointing to stronger onboarding practices in many firms.
Impact on the HR Industry
To HR professionals, this report comes at a time of immense change in terms of recruitment structure and expectations. HR departments are dealing with increased levels of complexity when it comes to sourcing candidates and facing more competition for quality candidates and faster recruitment expectations. Based on some recent analysis of the current state of the labor market, there is a doubling of candidates per vacancy since 2022, and many hiring managers find it more difficult to source candidates with appropriate skills.
To counter such challenges, HR leaders are promoting the use of AI and data-driven tools to streamline the screen process and enable candidates to be approached in a personalized manner. According to industry reports, 93% of recruiters have plans to raise their use of AI tools this year, especially to pre-screen and improve conversations with candidates.
However, technology alone cannot address the underlying pain points in the talent market when it comes to candidate experience, employer brand, and recruitment creativity. decreasing levels of engagement suggest that not many companies are approaching the promotion of their open positions or engaging with their applicants effectively.
Broader Business Implications
For organizations, such metrics emphasize that recruiting performance has a direct link to organizational outcomes, ranging from productivity to innovation enablement. Speed and quality in recruiting processes benefit in attracting and retaining scarce talent resources and lowering talent acquisition costs and associated risks for initiatives aimed at growth.
With the growing competition for talent, those companies who keep a track of the recruitment process as compared to the industry standards, as well as keep innovating, will have a better chance of recruiting the talent they need for 2026.
