After all the celebratory accolades this year for those companies with above-average candidate experience ratings in our annual CandE Benchmark Research Program (i.e., the CandE Winners), the candidate resentment realities for most employers around the world persist.
Global unemployment rates in most industrialized countries may remain relatively low, but several challenges persist. Application volumes are increasing across various job types, and it’s taking longer for candidates to secure full-time employment. For lean talent acquisition teams, often working with under-optimized and underutilized recruiting technologies, ensuring a positive and fair hiring process feels like an endless uphill battle.
Pre-pandemic, we were measuring candidate experience in nothing but a global growth market. For the most part, the sentiment ratings were consistently positive and negative with little fluctuation. But then all bets were off after 2020, with lots of hiring market volatility since. Each year we talk about the fact that candidates only want to be hired, and yet, most won’t for any given job they’re interested in. That’s more true today than it was in 2019.
No matter what the hiring market looks like, two sentiment skews in our candidate experience benchmark research each year (and we’d argue in the world at large). There’s a positive skew for those who accept job offers, even if the road to employment is bumpy. Then, there are negative skews for everyone else, even if they felt like their experience was positive and fair, which ultimately is where employers should attempt to land with most candidates.
Unfortunately, candidate resentment is higher than ever in our benchmark research. Resentment means candidates who are no longer willing to engage with a business and a brand based on a negative candidate experience—no longer willing to apply again, refer others, be a brand advocate, and/or make purchases.
For most companies, whether B2C or B2B, this can impact candidates’ willingness to refer others and/or be brand advocates, which ultimately could impact the business, the brand, and the ensuing revenue. Employers depend on referrals, and on average, 20%- 40% of their hires can come from referrals.
However, it is possible to experience a positive or negative direct revenue impact for consumer-based businesses (and indirectly in referrals for B2B companies). For the unfortunate majority of candidates who have negative experiences and who choose to be a customer no longer, we have a candidate resentment calculator on our website that calculates the potential revenue loss for a business.
If you don’t know your resentment rate, it’s set by default at the current average global resentment rate of 14%. Our calculator is also based on consumer research showing that nearly 50% of customers who have one bad experience will take their business elsewhere.
We will look at three scenarios below of how negative candidate experience feedback potentially impacts business revenue using our resentment calculator. Keep in mind that these are simplified examples due to the complexity of consumer markets by industry, but the revenue-impact estimates are still quite significant.
First, we’ll look at the consumer technology industry. Technology overall has the highest resentment rate globally in our benchmark research – in North America in 2024, it’s at 25%. Meaning that 25% of technology candidates told us that they would never do business with those employers they had applied to again.
So, as an example, when we plug in 10,000 annual hires, 100 applicants per hire, and an $800 annual customer value (think consumer devices like phones, pads, etc. – based on Deloitte research) with a 25% candidate resentment rate, then the potential total revenue loss is $122 million.
Yes, 122 million dollars.
Next, we’ll look at the finance & insurance industry. This industry has the second highest candidate resentment rate globally in our benchmark research – in North America in 2024, it’s at 20%.
So, when we plug in 10,000 annual hires, 100 applicants per hire, and a $450 annual customer value (think banking—based on customer lifetime value research) with a 20% candidate resentment rate, the potential total revenue loss is nearly $55 million.
Yes, nearly 55 million dollars.
Lastly, we’ll look at the healthcare industry. Healthcare is an interesting one because for consumers, it’s a choice / not a choice, depending on whether it’s an emergency or an elective procedure. In our benchmark research, this industry has an average candidate resentment rate overall globally—in North America in 2024, it’s at 14%.
So, when we plug in 10,000 annual hires, 100 applicants per hire, and a $445 annual customer value (think elective procedures—based on healthcare elective procedure research) with a 14% candidate resentment rate, the potential total revenue loss is over $38 million.
Yes, over 38 million dollars.
This calculator isn’t just for B2C companies, either. Many B2B companies have also used it internally to explain why they need to improve recruiting, hiring, and candidate experience to sustain and improve their referrals. The loss of revenue impact due to fewer referrals is harder to quantify, yes, but the calculator can help start those conversations. Not everyone puts their money where their mouth is, but many frustrated candidates still just might.
Candidate experience is in a precarious place currently. It’s been harder to find full-time work, and inconsistent communication and feedback loops abound. Employers are facing an uphill battle as well: too many unqualified candidates and not quite enough team resources or optimized technology to scale reviewing and screening candidates.
Again, for most job candidates, any employer says no to, and their candidate experience ratings will always skew negative. The question then becomes – do they feel their experience was still positive and fair. The fairness aspect in particular is highly subjective, but when the following are invested in from pre-application to onboarding (both for external and internal candidate experience), then each year our benchmark research underscores those employers with above average candidate experience ratings.
There are no true guarantees in work and life. Still, after 13 years of research, we know the above differentiators deliver a higher rate of return for employers than they’d otherwise have with the status quo – from referrals to revenue. We’re writing up our 2024 ERE CandE Benchmark Research and will release it by early 2025.
