98% of Top Companies in Australia and New Zealand Fall Short in Applying AI and Automation for Job Seekers, According to Phenom Benchmarks Report

SYDNEY, February 10, 2026 — Phenom, the leader in applied AI that helps organisations hire faster, develop better, and retain longer, released its inaugural Australia and New Zealand Edition of its 10th annual State of Candidate Experience: 2026 Benchmarks Report. The report revealed most fall short of delivering the intelligent, personalised, and engaging journeys candidates increasingly expect.

Within the region, the candidate experience has become a critical competitive differentiator for business success. Persistent skills shortages, evolving migration patterns, and fierce competition for talent are pushing organisations to rethink how they attract, engage, and hire candidates. Today’s candidates, whether high-demand specialists or early career applicants, expect streamlined, personalised experiences throughout the hiring process. A poor candidate experience doesn’t just turn away top talent; it directly undermines recruiter productivity by increasing time-to-fill, driving up cost-per-hire, and forcing talent acquisition teams to do more with less.

Companies Fail to Personalise the Candidate Journey

To highlight what’s working and where organisations are falling short, Phenom audited the candidate experiences of the 50 largest publicly traded companies in Australia and New Zealand, focusing on candidate attraction, engagement, conversion, and workflow efficiency. This includes evaluating how AI and automation enhance the candidate experience through faster application processing, timely post-application communications, and responsive engagement that keeps candidates informed and connected throughout their journey.

The report revealed extensive opportunities for organisations to enhance personalisation throughout the candidate journey:

• 98% do not capture candidate preferences (role, skills, location, experience)

• 86% do not provide personalised job recommendations based upon a saved candidate profile

• 80% do not have a chatbot that can handle high-volume candidate interactions 

• 76% do not allow job seekers to save jobs or searches

• 2% send candidates an application satisfaction survey to collect their feedback

• 0% communicate application status to the candidate after the initial email confirming submission of an application

Strongest Candidate Journey Areas

The report highlighted a few key areas where companies are doing well:

• 96% offer a mobile-optimised job application experience

• 80% display video content showcasing employee stories that feature company culture, including day-in-the-life examples

• 36% provide a strong content experience for candidates that includes information about their company, job benefits, and interview tips

• 12% have navigation specifically set up for the candidate journey, providing one seamless experience between content, search, and apply

The Role of Agentic AI in Candidate Journeys

AI agents built to meet specific business, persona and industry needs will continue to transform talent attraction and engagement strategies. Experience Agents designed for the candidate journey transform how job seekers find and apply for the right work, and Persona Agents augment how talent acquisition teams attract and engage best-fit talent to:

• Accelerate hiring, filling specialised and high-volume roles with personalised and automated candidate engagement

• Slash talent acquisition workloads in half by increasing efficiency and growth through automation and intelligence

• Streamline employer branding, with generative AI and no-code design tools that make creating branded and personalised content effortless and engaging

• Enhance how HR teams work with AI to meet or exceed hiring goals
  

Business-Critical Guidance for Candidate Journey Improvements

Phenom provides recommendations for organisations seeking to improve how they attract, engage and convert talent with AI and automation, including:

• Deliver industry and job-specific personalisation. Generic career sites create friction and waste valuable time for candidates looking to learn about jobs and submit applications. Personalise the candidate experience by serving hyper-relevant content and work opportunities based on context, including the candidate’s preferences and experience. This ultimately accelerates discovery and conversion while demonstrating an organisation's commitment to creating a phenomenal candidate journey.
  

• Adopt a skills-forward hiring approach. Today’s savvy candidates explore career opportunities through the lens of transferable skills, not rigid job titles or narrow industry paths. To meet these expectations, organizations must reimagine hiring experiences that allow talent to instantly connect with relevant roles based on their individual capabilities and potential. When job discovery and descriptions clearly surface the skills and competencies that drive success, candidates gain clarity, confidence, and a stronger sense of fit; while employers unlock broader, more diverse talent pools and improve engagement.
  

• Invest in AI to power intelligent, always-on candidate experiences. Extend talent acquisition teams with autonomous AI agents that actively guide job seekers across the entire journey: from personalized job discovery to application completion and onboarding readiness. Unlike traditional chatbots, agents reason across context, intent, and data to proactively recommend relevant opportunities, answer nuanced questions, adapt in real time, and orchestrate next steps such as screening, scheduling, and follow-ups. The result is a more human, responsive experience that removes friction for candidates while accelerating engagement and conversion at scale.

“The candidate journey has reached a crossroads, and every organisation needs artificial intelligence and automation to hire best-fit talent faster,” said John Deal, Sr. Director, Product Marketing at Phenom. “With AI, talent acquisition teams can hire with greater precision and engage with candidates in a more personal, meaningful way at scale. Our latest report shows that when technology works seamlessly behind the scenes, both recruiters and candidates thrive. That’s the future of talent experience.”

Download the full Australia-New Zealand Edition of its 10th annual State of Candidate Experience: 2026 Benchmarks Report here.

Organisations not featured in the report can request their own complimentary career site audit here.

About Phenom

Phenom is an applied AI company with the only AI infrastructure built specifically for HR. Powered by Engines that harmonize data, Ontologies that guide every decision, X AI that hyper-personalizes experiences, Agents that work alongside teams, Phenom’s platform uses industry and business context to automate workflows, eliminate busywork, and enhance every experience while remaining compliant. Driven by a purpose to help a billion people find the right work, no other company is as dedicated to helping organizations hire faster, develop better and retain longer.

Phenom has earned accolades including: Inc. 5000’s fastest-growing companies (6 consecutive years), Deloitte Technology's Fast 500 (5 years), 11 Brandon Hall ‘Excellence in Technology’ awards including Gold for ‘Best Advance in Generative AI for Business Impact,’ Business Intelligence Group’s Artificial Intelligence Excellence Awards (3 consecutive years), The Cloud Awards 2025/2024, The A.I. Awards 2024, and a regional Timmy Award for launching and optimizing HelpOneBillion.com (2020).

Headquartered in Greater Philadelphia, Phenom also has offices in India, Israel, the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom.

For more information, please visit www.phenom.com. Connect with Phenom on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.