Many employers attribute recruiting challenges to talent shortages, but a new analysis from Cadient suggests the problem may lie closer to home. After assessing more than 1,300 employers across multiple industries, the HR technology company found that weaknesses in career sites, applicant tracking systems (ATS), and application workflows are creating friction that discourages qualified candidates before recruiters have a chance to engage them.

Recruitment challenges are often framed as a shortage of qualified talent, but new research from Cadient argues that hiring infrastructure—not candidate availability—may be the bigger obstacle for many organizations.

The company analyzed 1,386 employers across 12 industries using its newly launched HiringScorecard.ai platform, evaluating publicly available hiring experiences to identify where organizations lose prospective candidates during the recruitment process.

The findings suggest that while many employers successfully attract job seekers, they struggle to convert that interest into completed applications and hires because of inefficient hiring systems and digital friction.

To help organizations benchmark their recruitment experience, Cadient has launched HiringScorecard.ai, a free online assessment tool that evaluates hiring funnels without requiring access to internal HR systems or applicant data.

Hiring demand remains strong—but conversion is weak

Cadient’s analysis evaluated employers across five areas of the hiring journey:

• Career Page
• Applicant Tracking System (ATS)
• Hiring Volume
• Employer Brand
• Application Flow

The assessment examined publicly available information including career websites, job postings, application workflows, employer review platforms, and company-published materials.

Across more than 1,500 hiring assessments, the company achieved a 93.9% audit success rate, generating hiring scorecards in approximately 90 seconds for each organization.

One of the study’s most notable findings was the disconnect between hiring demand and hiring infrastructure.

While Hiring Volume consistently ranked among the strongest-performing categories—typically scoring between 7 and 9 out of 10—Career Pages, ATS implementations, and Application Flows routinely scored between 2 and 5, indicating significant barriers during the application process.

According to Cadient, these weaknesses create what it describes as “candidate leakage”—the loss of qualified applicants who abandon the hiring process before recruiters ever evaluate their applications.

Manual processes continue to slow recruiting

The research also highlights broader operational issues affecting enterprise recruiting.

Approximately 75% of the employers analyzed appeared to rely on manual or largely unstructured candidate screening processes.

Around 70% exhibited indicators associated with elevated employee turnover or early-stage attrition, while 65% appeared vulnerable to losing candidates to competitors with faster and more efficient hiring processes.

The findings were particularly relevant in staffing and healthcare, which together represented nearly 80% of the organizations included in the analysis. Both sectors continue to experience high hiring volumes, workforce shortages, and ongoing recruitment pressure.

Bill Mastin, Chief Executive Officer of Cadient, said the study challenges conventional assumptions about recruitment bottlenecks.

Rather than focusing solely on generating more applicants, organizations should evaluate whether existing hiring systems are preventing interested candidates from completing the recruitment process.

Candidate experience becomes a competitive advantage

The report reflects a growing emphasis on candidate experience as a measurable business outcome.

Modern recruitment increasingly depends on digital experiences that are intuitive, mobile-friendly, and efficient. Lengthy applications, outdated applicant tracking systems, repetitive data entry, and slow communication can all contribute to candidate abandonment.

As labor markets become more competitive, organizations are investing in technologies designed to simplify hiring while improving recruiter productivity.

Leading HR technology providers including Workday, Oracle, SAP SuccessFactors, UKG, Microsoft, and LinkedIn continue expanding AI-powered recruiting capabilities, incorporating automated candidate matching, conversational assistants, interview scheduling, and recruitment analytics into their platforms.

At the same time, organizations are placing greater emphasis on measuring conversion rates throughout the hiring funnel rather than focusing exclusively on applicant volume.

Benchmarking recruitment without system integration

Unlike traditional recruitment consulting engagements, HiringScorecard.ai evaluates hiring experiences using only publicly available information.

The platform reviews career pages, job listings, employer branding signals, application workflows, and other external recruitment assets to generate a standardized hiring assessment without requiring integrations with HR systems or applicant tracking platforms.

This approach enables organizations to benchmark their external hiring experience quickly while identifying opportunities to improve candidate conversion, recruiter efficiency, and overall hiring effectiveness.

The platform is available free of charge and does not require registration or software implementation.

Cadient also plans to publish ongoing benchmark insights generated through the platform, providing employers with broader visibility into evolving recruitment practices across industries.

Market implications

The launch reflects a broader shift within talent acquisition toward data-driven optimization of the hiring journey.

According to Gartner, organizations are increasingly prioritizing candidate experience, recruitment automation, and AI-powered talent acquisition as strategic differentiators in competitive labor markets. Meanwhile, LinkedIn’s workforce research has consistently shown that slow hiring processes increase the likelihood that qualified candidates accept competing offers.

As enterprise hiring becomes more digital, recruitment leaders are focusing not only on attracting applicants but also on eliminating friction that prevents qualified talent from progressing through the hiring process.

Cadient’s findings suggest that improving career sites, applicant tracking systems, and application workflows may deliver measurable recruitment gains without requiring organizations to expand sourcing efforts.

For HR technology leaders, the study reinforces a growing reality: hiring success increasingly depends on the effectiveness of the digital candidate experience as much as the availability of talent.

Market Landscape

Digital recruitment is increasingly shifting from applicant generation to hiring funnel optimization.

• Gartner identifies candidate experience, AI-powered recruitment, and hiring automation as strategic priorities for enterprise talent acquisition.
• HR technology platforms are expanding capabilities in conversational AI, recruitment analytics, workflow automation, and skills-based hiring.
• Employers are investing in recruitment analytics that measure application completion, hiring conversion, and recruiter productivity rather than applicant volume alone.
• Healthcare, staffing, retail, and frontline industries continue to experience elevated hiring pressure, driving demand for more efficient recruiting workflows.

Top Insights

• Cadient analyzed 1,386 employers and found that career pages, applicant tracking systems, and application workflows remain the weakest links in many hiring funnels.
• The company launched HiringScorecard.ai, a free assessment platform that evaluates recruitment experiences using publicly available hiring information without requiring HR system integrations.
• Approximately 75% of employers analyzed appeared to rely on manual candidate screening processes, contributing to recruitment inefficiencies and candidate abandonment.
• Staffing and healthcare organizations accounted for nearly 80% of the employers studied, reflecting ongoing hiring challenges across high-volume workforce sectors.
• The findings suggest that improving candidate experience and reducing application friction may increase hiring success without expanding sourcing efforts.

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