Candidate experience metrics: Elevate recruitment with abandonment rate insights

When it comes to candidate experience metrics, abandonment rate plays an important role. After all, your organisation can’t afford to lose the talent it’s spent time and money to attract.

This makes sense, but few companies prioritise abandonment rate, also known as application drop-off rate and candidate drop-off rate, the way they should. As such, most hiring managers remain oblivious to where, when, and why job seekers abandon their application processes.

In this article on key recruitment metrics, we’ll focus on abandonment rate—first by discussing what it is and then by explaining how to use it to enhance your talent acquisition process.

What is candidate abandonment rate?

Candidate abandonment rate is defined as the number of candidates who are still in the hiring process at the shortlist stage, minus the total number of candidates who landed on your careers page, divided by that total number again.

Abandonment rate is a key metric because it acts as a generalised diagnostic tool that indicates the efficiency of your recruitment process. So, monitoring abandonment rate is pivotal.

Imagine you had 100 visitors on your careers page or job posts, but only 10 made it to your shortlist. That’s a staggering 90% loss of your potential talent pool at various stages.

This leads to a crucial inquiry: How can one gauge the candidate drop-off rate at each phase of the application process? Assuming you had 100 visitors to your careers page, and only 20 completed the primary application form, it implies an 80% candidate drop-off, right at the outset.

This isn’t ideal, but you have a clearer picture. You can now scrutinise the page to identify potential barriers that deter qualified candidates from applying.

Questions to consider might include:

• Is the page too long?
• Does it have too much text?
• Is the “apply” button clearly shown?
• Is the form too long, requiring too much information to fill out?
• Are your perks/EVP attributes clearly displayed?

Without assessing each stage independently, you can’t determine why job seekers drop off.

Alongside the overall abandonment rate, it’s imperative to measure the candidate drop-off rate at each step of your talent acquisition process. The subsequent section can guide your focus.

Using candidate experience data: Where, when, and why do candidates abandon the application process?

Does your hiring team want to create a better hiring process? Then you need to measure candidate experience effectively. That way, you know what you do well and what to improve.

A long application and interview process usually leads to a higher candidate drop-off rate. However, this doesn’t provide actionable insights. To rectify issues, you need precise, localised data to pinpoint and address bottlenecks. That way you can fix them and avoid a poor reputation.

Recent data from an Aptitude Research report on pivotal interviewing trends disclosed that job seekers tend to abandon the process at these stages:

• 22% of candidates drop out at the application stage
• 24% at the screening stage
• 25% at the interview stage
• 18% at the assessment stage
• 9% at the job offer stage

By auditing your recruitment process against these benchmarks, weak areas become evident.

For instance, a multi-step interview might help assess cultural fit. But if it’s cumbersome for candidates and requires coordination among several stakeholders, it might be counterproductive. (Note: you can send candidate surveys to learn if this is the case.)

The interview stage witnesses the highest application drop-off rate, with 25% of candidates opting out. This doesn’t come as a surprise, given the lengthy and often ineffective nature of many interview processes. Aptitude Research indicates that 33% of companies lack confidence in their interviewing capabilities, and 50% believe they’ve lost potential hires due to subpar interviews.

When surveying HR and TA leaders about their primary interviewing challenges, the responses included:

• Our interview process is too long (52%)
• We make candidates go through too many interviews (39%)
• Out interview process is inconsistent (38%)
• We don’t use objective data to drive decisions (32%)
• We have bias in the interview process (21%)

The lack of objective data is a glaring issue. Nearly a third of companies base their interview and application procedures on assumptions rather than concrete data, leading to inefficiencies.

Yet, 68% of companies admitted to not making any enhancements to the candidate experience this year. So, how many are genuinely evaluating their talent acquisition journey to identify shortcomings?

That’s why we emphasise the candidate abandonment rate. It’s a straightforward metric that reflects the vitality of your application process. It’s also easier to measure than other intricate recruitment metrics, like quality-of-hire. As the adage goes, “What gets measured, gets managed.”

Improve the candidate journey

Your company will experience fewer drop offs in the job application stage when you create an excellent candidate journey for potential hires to go on. Sapia.ai was designed for this purpose.

Our Smart Chat Interviewer combines the first four stages of the hiring process: application, screening, interviewing, and assessment. The result? Top talent in as little as 24 hours.

Because it’s a chat-based interview with a smart AI, your team doesn’t need to do anything. Everyone who applies gets an interview, immediately, which maximises your talent pool from the get-go and creates a more positive candidate experience for everyone.

What’s more, our candidate dropout rate is just 15%. That means that 85% of your starting talent pool will stick around. And because we automatically deliver AI-powered candidate feedback, candidates perceive our clients as better employers. As such, they might come back for roles in the future.

Why do our candidates stick around? More than 90% of them love the experience. Learn more.

FAQs about candidate experience metrics

Why is candidate abandonment rate important?

Candidate abandonment rate serves as your hiring process health check. It reveals exactly where qualified candidates exit your recruitment funnel, helping you identify bottlenecks that cost you top talent. By tracking this metric, you can spot inefficiencies before they damage your employer brand and make data-driven improvements that keep more candidates engaged throughout your hiring process.

Which other common candidate experience metrics should I track?

There are other key metrics you can track to learn about recruitment effectiveness. These metrics work together to paint a complete picture of the candidate experience you provide.

• Time to hire: The number of days between posting a job and accepting an offer
• Offer acceptance rate: The percentage of job offers that candidates accept
• Interview-to-offer ratio: How many interviews you conduct to make one job offer
• Candidate net promoter score: How likely candidates are to recommend your company to others
• Candidate satisfaction score: Overall rating of the candidate’s experience with your hiring process
• First-year attrition rate: The percentage of new hires who leave within their first year

How else can I minimise drop off rates and improve my hiring process?

The Sapia.ai platform transforms traditional hiring by combining chat-based interviews that candidates love with AI-powered screening that saves recruiters time. The platform measures skills and competencies through fast, inclusive conversations while providing understandable insights that help you make brilliant hiring decisions. Thanks to powerful automation and personalisation features, Sapia.ai helps companies like yours reduce drop-off rates while building stronger talent pipelines.

(P.S. Sapia’s Ai Smart Chat Interviewer combines the first four stages of your process – application, screening, interviewing, and assessment – together, resulting in an application process that can secure top talent in as little as 24 hours.

Because it’s a chat-based interview with a smart little AI, your team doesn’t need to do anything – everyone who applies gets an interview, immediately. That maximizes your talent pool right from the get-go.

What’s more, our candidate dropout rate is just 15%, on average. That means that 85% of your starting talent pool will stick around.

Why do our candidates stick around? More than 90% of them love the experience. See how we can help you here, today.)

About Author

Laura Belfield

Head of Marketing