Overcoming Challenges in Recruitment: What's actually working for internal hiring teams

The 2025 UK Candidate Attraction Report from Access Group company Eploy, highlights some interesting challenges in today's recruitment market:

• 60% of HR teams now say candidate experience is their top priority – a significant shift towards candidate-centric recruitment 
• 53% are still finding it difficult to source candidates, though this has improved from 68% in 2023
• 33% expect to hire more people this year, but only 14% are receiving increased budgets to do so 
• 60% of organisations report receiving more applications than ever before 

This creates an interesting paradox: more applications arriving, yet finding the right people remains challenging. Understanding why this happens – and what can be done about it – is key to building more effective recruitment strategies.

Our latest webinar Recruitment reality in the UK: Recruitment Under Pressure explores this in more detail.

It's worth considering what's happening on the other side of the recruitment process. Recent research from Robert Walters found that 28% of candidates are applying for more than 20 positions simultaneously (Robert Walters, via People Management, November 2025). Many are using AI tools to speed up their applications, which partly explains why volume is up but relevance can feel lower.

Chris Eldridge, CEO of Robert Walters UK and Ireland, notes that AI-driven platforms and single-click application features are making applications faster but often less personalised (People Management, November 2025). For HR teams, this means developing better ways to identify genuinely interested, well-matched candidates from larger application pools.

Jim Moore, employee relations expert at Hamilton Nash, suggests that organisations need to create more nimble hiring processes with clear job definitions, faster decision-making, and a commitment to developing people rather than endlessly searching for the finished article (People Management, November 2025).

"Candidates are really researching businesses before they even go into talent pools. They want to know what the culture's like, what their employees think of working there, what the green policies are. It's a lot more like matchmaking now. The younger generation are really hot on that value alignment – does this organisation fit what I'm looking for?"

Zoe Wilson, Do the Best Work of Your Life webinar series

Watch the full discussion: Attracting the Best Talent, part of our Do the Best Work of Your Life series. 

1. Creating a Candidate Experience That Stands Out

Candidate experience has moved from 'nice to have' to business-critical. Research suggests that candidates who have a negative recruitment experience share that feedback with others. In an era of social media and employer review sites, every interaction counts.

Drop-out rates during recruitment processes average around 30%. That's nearly a third of candidates abandoning applications before completion – often due to lengthy forms, poor communication, or unclear timelines.

Organisations seeing improvements are focusing on practical changes: mobile-friendly applications that can be completed in under 10 minutes, clear communication about timelines (even when there are delays), and maintaining human touchpoints throughout the process. Some are also rethinking how they treat unsuccessful candidates – recognising that today's rejected applicant could be tomorrow's perfect hire, or indeed a future customer.

"Candidates need speed and accuracy. They're often applying for multiple jobs, and if you lose contact with them, they can forget they've even applied to your business. So constant engagement – how's the process progressing, what time scales are you working to – is critical. Even if you're rejected, having a reason why and a suggestion that you might be right for another role creates a positive experience, because you might be a future successful hire."

Zoe Wilson, Attracting the Best Talent, Do the Best Work of Your Life webinar series

2. Improving Quality of Hire Despite Higher Application Volumes

This is one of the most common frustrations we hear about: applications are up, but quality of hire metrics aren't improving. The Eploy research offers some useful insights here.

Employee referrals consistently deliver the highest quality candidates, though volumes tend to be lower. Job boards like Indeed (used by 93% of organisations) provide volume but often with quality challenges. LinkedIn (used by 86% of organisations) tends to deliver stronger results across both quality and quantity metrics (Eploy, 2025 UK Candidate Attraction Report).

The real opportunity lies in tracking which sources deliver candidates who stay, perform well, and progress – not just those who accept offers. This longer-term view of recruitment success can help optimise channel investment over time.

"You see huge volumes in certain sectors for certain roles. Being able to deal with them appropriately and sift out all of the really good talent – especially when these days not everybody has got the historic experience of the role you're recruiting for – is tough. It might be that you're just looking for the skills rather than the past experience, and being able to draw those skills out of people's CVs, albeit in different guises and formats, is quite hard to do as a human."

Zoe Wilson, Attracting the Best Talent, Do the Best Work of Your Life webinar series

These volume challenges are particularly acute in certain industries. If you're hiring in manufacturing, where skills shortages and high turnover create specific pressures, we've explored how manufacturing HR teams are tackling recruitment challenges in more detail. 

Developing Internal Talent Pipelines

Many organisations are also looking inward. The Eploy research shows that 80% are now prioritising upskilling existing employees, while 46% are actively encouraging internal mobility (Eploy, 2025 UK Candidate Attraction Report). Rather than competing for the same external talent pool, these organisations are building the skills they need from within.

Robert Walters describes this as 'skills fluidity' – the ability to shift or expand capabilities in response to evolving demands. Their research found that 51% of UK professionals believe this approach will drive hiring habits over the coming decades (Robert Walters, via People Management, November 2025).

3. Working Effectively Within Budget Constraints

Budget pressure is a reality for most HR and recruitment teams. With 32% of organisations facing budget cuts while hiring expectations remain steady or increase (Eploy, 2025 UK Candidate Attraction Report), finding efficiencies becomes essential.

Limited budgets affects everything from the size of HR and talent teams to the benefits packages organisations can offer, and their ability to invest in recruitment technology. Building a business case with data about competitor packages and potential ROI from technology investment can help make the case for additional resources.

HR leaders making progress in this area tend to be rethinking their approach fundamentally rather than trimming around the edges. This might mean investing more in referral programmes (which deliver the best quality candidates), building talent pools proactively rather than reactively, or implementing technology that genuinely reduces administrative burden.

For organisations with fluctuating workforce needs, building flexible talent pools is particularly important. Our guide to hiring seasonal workers in the UK covers practical approaches to scaling your workforce up and down efficiently without compromising on quality.

4. Getting More from Recruitment Technology

There's a lot of conversation around AI in recruitment, but many HR teams have had mixed experiences with technology implementations.

The organisations getting value from their recruitment technology tend to focus on a few key areas:

• Screening that understands context: Technology that helps identify suitable candidates earlier in the process, rather than simply processing high volumes faster
• AI and automation that removes genuine busywork: As the team at PKF Francis Clark found, "We've been able to automate a number of previously manual tasks, everything from sending out notifications to handling approvals. It's made a real difference." (PKF Francis Clark Access PeopleXD customer testimonial)
• Analytics that support action: Real-time visibility into where candidates are in the process and where bottlenecks occur, rather than retrospective reports

"AI doesn't have to sleep, it doesn't wake up having had a bad day. There are thousands of applications that come in, and the AI doesn't care that it's drowning in admin. You can give it really simple instructions, and because it understands natural language, it can extract and compare in record time. It can take what you're looking for, compare it to hundreds of CVs at the same time, and give you that shortlist almost in a nanosecond."

Oli Quayle, Attracting the Best Talent, Do the Best Work of Your Life webinar series

5. Connecting Systems for a Smoother Hiring Journey

One of the less visible challenges in recruitment is the impact of disconnected systems. When recruitment, HR, and onboarding systems don't communicate effectively, valuable time gets lost to manual data entry, errors creep in, and new starters can have a disjointed experience.

Research indicates that around 22% of staff turnover happens within the first 45 days of employment (Talent Insight). Poor onboarding experiences – often rooted in disconnected systems – can contribute to this early attrition. Onboarding isn't complete after the first day; it should continue until employees are fully embedded.

Looking at organisations that are successfully navigating these challenges, several common themes emerge:

Unified processes: Bringing recruitment activity from requisition through to onboarding into a single view. This improves visibility and helps identify issues before they become significant problems.

Technology that supports rather than replaces human judgement: The goal isn't to automate decision-making away, but to ensure that human expertise gets applied where it matters most, supported by good data rather than buried in administrative tasks.

Focus on outcomes, not just activity: Tracking what actually matters – quality of hire, time to productivity, retention – rather than simply measuring recruitment volume.

Built-in flexibility: Different roles and different sites often need different approaches. Systems that can adapt to these needs without requiring IT involvement for every change tend to deliver better results.

A good starting point is an honest assessment of your current recruitment approach. Where are the main frustrations? What's the real cost – not just the budget allocation, but the time invested and opportunities that may be being missed? Which metrics would actually help you understand what's working?

Practical next steps:

• Map your current recruitment process end-to-end, from job requisition to day-one onboarding
• Identify where candidates are dropping out and how long each stage is taking
• Track which sources deliver people who stay beyond 12 months, not just those who accept offers
• Look for quick wins: communication improvements, automated status updates, clearer timelines for candidates
• Build your business case around outcomes (time to fill, cost per hire, first-year retention) rather than features

If you're looking to review your end-to-end process, our breakdown of the key hiring process steps can help you identify where improvements will have the biggest impact.

When presenting proposals for recruitment investment, focusing on metrics that resonate with business leaders can be helpful:

• Time to hire improvements – faster processes mean less risk of losing preferred candidates to competitors
• Agency spend reductions – when internal processes work effectively, reliance on external recruitment support often decreases
• Quality of hire tracking – demonstrating which recruitment sources deliver employees who stay, perform, and progress
• Manager time savings – when hiring managers can focus on evaluation rather than administration, decision quality tends to improve

Building a case for improvement around outcomes rather than features tends to be more effective. Senior leaders are typically more interested in having the right people in place to deliver business objectives than in the technical details of recruitment systems.

The challenges in hiring aren't going away, but organisations that approach them thoughtfully are finding ways to improve their recruitment outcomes:

• Candidate experience has become a competitive differentiator – investing here can improve both application quality and acceptance rates
• Higher application volumes don't automatically mean better candidates – focusing on quality over quantity often delivers better results
• Budget constraints can drive positive change – they encourage focus on what genuinely works
• Connected systems reduce hidden costs – in time, errors, and early turnover
• Internal talent development is becoming increasingly important – building skills from within can be more sustainable than competing for external talent

For a more comprehensive look at strengthening your overall approach, our guide to improving recruitment and selection covers best practices for hiring teams looking to make lasting improvements.

The challenges in hiring aren't going away, but organisations that approach them thoughtfully are finding ways to improve their recruitment outcomes:

• Candidate experience has become a competitive differentiator – investing here can improve both application quality and acceptance rates
• Higher application volumes don't automatically mean better candidates – focusing on quality over quantity often delivers better results
• Budget constraints can drive positive change – they encourage focus on what genuinely works
• Connected systems reduce hidden costs – in time, errors, and early turnover
• Internal talent development is becoming increasingly important – building skills from within can be more sustainable than competing for external talent

For a deeper exploration of these themes, our webinar Recruitment Under Pressure: Turn Market Challenges Into Hiring Advantages includes practical examples, market insights, and demonstrations of how organisations are transforming their approach to talent acquisition.

Access PeopleXD Evo brings together talent acquisition, HR, and payroll in one integrated platform. It's helped organisations across the UK and Ireland reduce time to hire, improve candidate quality, and give their HR teams more time for strategic priorities. Take a look at a demo of our recruitment solutions in action.