From the Editor

The recruiting and hiring world is seemingly frozen. Like super-icy tundra frozen. Nobody's quitting. Unemployment's still low. Layoffs continue. Hiring has slowed dramatically. Except for maybe healthcare and hospitality, but still, super-icy tundra.

Early returns for our 2025 Candidate Experience Benchmark Research show that candidate resentment — the percentage of candidates who had a poor recruiting experience with an employer and won't engage that employer again — is currently at 21% — 50% higher than last year.

Real GDP growth in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2025 is -2.8 percent on March 3, down from -1.5 percent on February 28. Thank you tit-for-tat tariffs.

Payrolls rose by 160,000 in February, a slight improvement from the 143,000 increase a month earlier yet softer than during the final months of 2024, according to the median projection of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The unemployment rate is holding at 4%, but we'll have to wait until the BLS numbers this Friday.

According to a new article about "Rapid Reskilling" we're publishing this week by Julia Stiglitz, CEO & Co-Founder, Uplimit: While AI promises to deliver a slew of productivity and innovation gains, the biggest concern is how it will affect jobs in the future, with an estimated 400 million jobs to be eliminated by 2030...41% of employers planning to downsize their workforce as AI increasingly takes over certain tasks.

Blessings to us all to keep weathering all that comes. You're right, Julia: "The future of work belongs to those who can adapt."

This week’s newsletter includes many new recruiting and sourcing articles to help you weather these storms and adapt, a new candidate experience case study, candidate experience research, a new batch of recruiting and hiring news links, free webinars to register for, and a new discount code below (good through March 30th) for our upcoming ERE Recruiting Innovation Summit April 29-30.

Let me know if you’ve got any news to share. Thank you for reading!

—Kevin Grossman, VP of Research & Editorial

Email me: Editor

Featured Article

Rapid Reskilling, At Scale: Why the Future of Work Depends on It

The future of work belongs to those who can adapt.

More Recruiting & Sourcing Articles

Recruiting

Why Most Recruiting Organizations Fail: The Critical Role of Tactical Execution by Jason Pistulka

It’s about making sure that every single person on your team is executing at the highest level—every day.

HR has an important role to play in the Implementation and Governance of AI by Ravi Subramanian

The key is to stay true to your organization's values while embracing the possibilities that AI brings to the table.

6 Essential Skills Needed to Move from Recruiter to Recruiting Leader by Matt Lowney

The transition from recruiter to recruiting leader is a fundamental shift from focusing on filling roles to understanding - and impacting - business processes.

Sourcing

When Working for the Man Means Working for a Machine by Jim Stroud

Are you working for a machine? You could be, without even realizing it.

Sales, Sourcing, Service, and Selection: The 4 Key Skills Recruiters Must Develop by Matt Lowney

There are four core skills recruiters must continue to hone, improve and practice - the 4's: Sales, Sourcing, Service and Selection.

Candidate Experience

2024 Global CandE Research Report explores the candidate experience journey for over 230,000 candidates around the world, from pre-application to onboarding. The latest insights, best practices + more!

What Sets CandE Winners Apart is a special global report that highlights CandE Winner differentiators — those employers that participated in our annual research and have the highest candidate experience ratings overall.

The 2024 Business Impact of Candidate Experience research brief highlights the business impact of candidate experience and is based on the 2024 CandE benchmark research of over 240,000 global candidate responses.

2024 CandE Case Studies will be released weekly and here are the latest:

• CandE Benchmark Research Case Study – Arup

• CandE Benchmark Research Case Study – Delaware North

• CandE Benchmark Research Case Study – Northwell Health

• CandE Benchmark Research Case Study – Room & Board

• CandE Benchmark Research Case Study – Schneider Electric

The 2025 CandE Benchmark Research Program Now Open

The annual CandE Benchmark Research Program helps you and your organization measure and understand your overall candidate experience ratings from pre-application to onboarding.

Employers big and small across industries are encouraged to participate. The CandE Benchmark Research Program will help you identify strengths and weaknesses in your recruiting process and your overall candidate experience with continuous candidate feedback.

Each year the CandE Benchmark Research Program recognizes those participating employers with the highest candidate experience ratings with our coveted CandE Awards.

Register today!

Other Recruiting, Hiring, and Business News

• The Job Market Is Frozen

• The Smart Way to Automating Recruiting

• U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments in Green woman's employment discrimination case

• Youth unemployment surges ahead of Reeves’s National Insurance raid

• What Do Mass Federal Layoffs Mean for the Labor Market?

• Google announces layoffs in its HR, cloud units as part of ongoing cost cuts

• Trump officials start gutting civil rights offices, as part of DOGE’s secret plan

• Meet the 8 Black Fortune 500 CEOs leading companies with over $228 billion in combined revenues

• Ongoing and Worse Than We Thought: The White-Collar Downturn

• AI’s battle of the skills: upskilling vs deskilling

• Gov. Newsom orders California state workers to return to office 4 days a week

• 8 Ways To Evaluate Interview Intelligence And Transform Your Hiring

• US Jobs Report to Offer Clues on Hiring Momentum

• Top 10 Companies Hiring Work-From-Anywhere Remote Jobs In 2025

Upcoming Webinars

Efficiency, Automation, and Engagement: Optimizing Candidate Experience

March 12, 2025 | 3:00 PM EDT | 1 Hour

Streamline your hiring: discover how integrated workflows and AI-driven tools can transform talent acquisition for greater efficiency, compliance, and candidate engagement.

Boolean Unleashed: Smart Search Strategies in the Age of AI

March 18, 2025 | 1:00 PM EDT | 1 Hour

Master the art of blending advanced Boolean techniques with AI tools to streamline your talent sourcing and outpace the competition.

Conferences

ERE Recruiting Innovation Summit — April 29-30, 2025 in Las Vegas, NV

Lucky You! Your Team Gets 20% Off

March is your lucky month! 🍀 The Recruiting Innovation Summit is where top talent leaders, strategists, and innovators come together to redefine the future of hiring. And now, when you bring your team of four (or two or three 🙂), you’ll unlock 20% off your total registration. Yes, that includes both in-person and virtual tickets!

Register here and use coupon code: LUCKYUS

Act Fast! This offer disappears faster than a leprechaun’s gold—secure your team’s spot before March 30th!

We'll see you there!