Derek HermanNovember 21, 2019
Topics: Candidate Experience

The State of Candidate Experience: 2020 Benchmarks Report is Here!

Every talent leader wants to deliver a phenomenal candidate experience. But are companies delivering?


To help answer that question, we recently released The State of Candidate Experience: 2020 Benchmarks, which sheds light on the candidate experiences of the Fortune 500. In this fourth annual report, you’ll learn the biggest successes and challenges throughout the digital candidate journey, as well as:

  • Fortune 500 company rankings and industry breakouts
  • Candidate experience trends
  • Recommendations to meet talent expectations

Access the Report


About the Report & Methodology

With the national unemployment rate at a low of 3.6%, candidates are driving the market. This has created an ultra-competitive talent landscape where organizations are searching for best-fit candidates from the same talent pool, regardless of industry. To stand out against the competition and attract quality job seekers, a hyper-personalized candidate experience is essential.


The State of Candidate Experience: 2020 Benchmarks report was created to provide insight into the current state of the candidate experience across Fortune 500 companies. To help illuminate the most important elements in candidate experiences and where companies can improve, we audited career sites of the Fortune 500 in three areas: Attraction, Engagement, and Conversion. The analysis was conducted within the aforementioned areas, and analyzed whether artificial intelligence (AI) was utilized to increase efficiency.


While this research highlights areas that need improvement across the Fortune 500 digital candidate journeys, it is also meant to inspire all companies to boost talent acquisition by strengthening the candidate experience.


What’s New in 2020?
In addition to exposing the current state of candidate experience, the report also evaluates how AI technology is incorporated on career sites. With 37% of organizations implementing AI, the goal was to analyze the extent to which talent acquisition utilizes this form of automation.

For this edition of the report, we also:

  • Weighted personalization scores on a more granular level. Tailoring the candidate experience is no longer an option; it’s a necessity for career sites today.
  • Measured chatbots within the engagement category. Businesses have increased adoption of chatbots on their career sites, engaging and converting job seekers 24/7.
  • Audited the career site of the highest revenue-generating subsidiary. This helped organizations that have a parent holding company, but lack their own career site.


Report Key Findings

Across the board, companies scored the lowest in utilizing AI, delivering job recommendations, and offering a chatbot. Conversely, companies scored the highest in fast web page load time, responsive site design, and maintaining up-to-date job postings on job boards.

  • 97% do not deliver hyper-personalized candidate experiences
  • 94% do not include a chatbot
  • 92% do not deliver recommended jobs based on candidate profiles
  • 90% do not offer a social login option for candidates to browse relevant jobs
  • 86% do not have semantic search capabilities


Each digital component within Attraction, Engagement, and Conversion was scored and ranked on a scale: Phenomenal, Acceptable, Unsatisfactory, and Poor. Based on this scale, the research also found that despite the industry focus on AI, 97% of the Fortune 500 scored poorly when it comes to implementing this technology on company career sites.


Experience: The New Talent Currency

As the gap widens between job seekers’ expectations and what companies are delivering—a trend that exists across all industries—immediate action must be taken. Every company is competing for the same talent pool. Providing an unmatched candidate experience is the key to gaining a competitive advantage and building a quality talent pipeline. In the candidate’s eyes, the experiences of one company will be directly measured against another.


To implement meaningful change, organizations need to understand experience is the new talent currency. While an engaging career site will help guide candidates to the right job, it is only the first step.


Empower your talent acquisition team to build the best candidate experience—get your copy of the report now!


Download The State of Candidate Experience: 2020 Benchmarks

Derek Herman

Derek leads the Marketing Communications initiatives at Phenom People. He engages with Phenom customers to spotlight their stories in the media.

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