With the speed at which the job market evolves, recruiters often feel pressured to fill roles quickly. Yet, when they received hundreds of applications, weeding out top talent takes time.
We found that 73% of recruiters say screening many irrelevant applications is slowing down the hiring process. Recruiters also spend over 2 days per vacancy on manual tasks, costing businesses €18.2K per year*.
Our latest research dives into the ins and outs of hiring, uncovering the inefficiencies slowing down recruiters and causing candidates to drop off. In this article, we’ll share tips to cut hiring time and increase efficiency in the hiring process.
Get started by downloading our pre-screening questions to help you identify top talent quickly.
*Disclaimer: Manual tasks take 17.7 hours per vacancy, assuming 4 hires are made per month, this comes up to 850 hours/year. Costing 850 x €21.47/hour (Avg. recruiter salary €40K per annum) = €18,228.91. Note: This is only an indicator of hidden costs in everyday recruiting and not an exact cost analysis.
Recruiters spend 3.6 hours per vacancy screening CVs
According to our research, recruiters are tasked with hiring for 4 roles each month and receive 20 applications per role.
It takes 3.6 hours per vacancy to filter out irrelevant applications and find the best candidates to move forward with.
As screening applications is a manual task for most, 73% of recruiters say it’s one of the top causes of a slow hiring process.
Improve application quality
Better application quality and relevancy mean less time spent on screening. Use structured pre-screening questions and matching logic to filter out irrelevant applications, especially for high-volume roles.
Provide a salary range
Make sure your job ads are clear and share salary and benefit information, if your company policy allows, to set expectations from the start.
Looking at the top tasks that slow down recruiters, we can divide tasks into two categories: manual tasks and managing stakeholders.
While recruiters spend valuable time aligning with stakeholders on their requirements and feedback after interviews, manual work such as scheduling, entering post-interview notes, and data entry takes up too much time.
Manual tasks cost recruiters over two days’ worth of work per vacancy
The average time spent on manual tasks per vacancy is 17.7 hours over two working days. Considering 4 hires are made per month, that’s €18.2K per year per recruiter on average recruiters’ salary.
So, over half of recruiters say manual tasks take too much time. That time can be spent on crucial candidate engagement and sourcing activities.
Especially as out the 29% of candidates who have dropped out of the hiring process, 1 in 5 (21%) said the communication was unclear or slow.
Use automation to reduce manual workload
Automate documentation, feedback input, and scheduling support to reduce the manual workload post-interview – areas often cited as time drains.
Most recruiters are using AI to improve efficiency
Positively, 70% of recruiters are using AI in some capacity to improve hiring efficiency.
AI is already cutting hiring time when it comes to creating job ads, reviewing applications, and data entry.
Recruiters who use AAI can spend time on vetting candidates, engaging with them through the process, sourcing candidates, and aligning with stakeholders.
The remaining 30% who don’t use AI give the following reasons:
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I’m not familiar with what AI tools are available (28%)
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I don’t trust AI to make accurate or fair decisions (32%)
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I believe human judgement is better than AI (28%)
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Our current systems don’t support AI integration (19%)
Considering concerns about bias and legal limitations. AI use must always be balanced with human decision-making.
Invest in AI tools
AI can save ample time where it works best – in completing manual hiring tasks with human oversight (such as writing job descriptions, taking interview notes, summarising feedback, and personalising communications with candidates).
36% of recruiters say their company has too many interview stages
According to recruiters, interviews are another time drain in the hiring process.
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30% of SMEs and 36% of large businesses say lengthy interviews slow down hiring.
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1 in 4 (25%) of large businesses and 1 in 5 SMEs say too many interview rounds are wasting time.
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Recruiters in SMEs recommend 2 rounds max, with this number going up to 3 for large businesses.
Recruiters are also hampered by follow-up to job interviews (26%), no clearly defined process (23%), unclear distribution of roles between recruiters and departments (21%), poor availability of stakeholders (20%), and gathering feedback from hiring managers (19%).
28% of candidates dropped out of the hiring process
When the hiring process takes too long and there is miscommunication or misaligned expectations along the way, it causes candidates to drop out. This worsens inefficiency as qualified candidates are lost even at the final stages of hiring.
Top reasons candidates dropped off:
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I received a better offer (32%)
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The role didn’t meet my expectations (24%)
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The process took too long (22%)
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Communication was unclear or slow (21%)
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The compensation or benefits didn’t meet my expectations (17%)
A clear job description and establishing expectations in the first screening call can remove any question marks and engage candidates. Keeping candidates in the loop and a quick hiring process retains them.
When asked what would keep them in the process, candidates said; more transparency about salary (37%), more transparency about the role requirements (29%), faster feedback (29%), clear expectations for the process (29%), shorter overall process (26%), less interview stages (24%), more personal communication (24%).
52% of candidates also say application status trackers would be beneficial.
Maintain consistent communication
Set up clear response timelines and automated follow-ups within ATS platforms to support tighter feedback loops mitigate delays, as candidates may drop off due to lengthy processes and delays in communication.
About the study
We asked 465 recruiters and 824 candidates in Ireland where they struggled to remain efficient in the hiring process.
The recruiter survey and the candidate survey were both done online between the 25th of June and the 3rd of July 2025.
The candidate survey is representative of the Irish workforce in terms of age and gender.
