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Nightmare on career street: application abandonment

Application abandonment is a big scary thing, but you can turn it around by taking a look at your entire talent intake process.

Published October 2024 and will take about 6 minutes to read

In the spirit of Halloween, let’s unmask some truly frightening facts about the modern hiring process that keep talent acquisition leaders up at night. While these statistics might send shivers down your spine, there’s hope beyond the horror – and we’ll show you how to turn these recruitment nightmares into sweet dreams.

The Application Abandonment Horror Show

Picture this: Your perfect candidate lands on your job posting. They’re qualified, excited, and ready to apply. But then, the horror begins.

Recent studies show that average application completion rates when there are 1-25 questions hover around a bone-chilling 10.6%. Even more terrifying? When applications include 50 or more questions, that rate plummets to a mere 5.7%.

That’s like inviting candidates to a haunted house where 95% of them run out screaming before reaching the end.

Breaking the Curse of Application Abandonment

Here’s the silver lining – this nightmare is completely preventable. The secret lies in treating your application process more like modern e-commerce and less like a maze of endless questions. Here’s how:

  1. Progressive Profiling: Instead of demanding every detail upfront, start with the essentials. Name, email, resume – that’s your foot in the door. You can gather additional information after establishing initial interest, just like how e-commerce sites don’t ask for your life story before letting you browse their products.
  2. Mobile-First Design: Over 60% of job seekers start their search on mobile devices, yet many application processes still feel like they were designed for desktop computers from the 90s. A responsive, mobile-friendly application process can be the difference between candidates completing their application or ghosting you forever.
  3. Save & Return: Life happens. Sometimes candidates need to step away mid-application. Offering a save and return feature – similar to an e-commerce shopping cart – keeps the door open for candidates to complete their application when they have more time.

Think of it this way: Every additional question in your application process is like adding another locked door in your haunted house. Some candidates will power through, but most will search for an easier exit. By streamlining your process and focusing on essential information first, you can transform your application abandonment rates from horrifying to heroic.

The Ghost Town of Passive Talent

Here’s a shocking revelation: only 30% of potential candidates are actively job hunting. That means 70% of your ideal candidates are lurking in the shadows as passive job seekers.

But here’s the twist – over half of these passive candidates are open to new opportunities. By focusing solely on active job seekers, you’re essentially ignoring the largest pool of talent hiding in plain sight.

Website Visitors Vanishing Into Thin Air

Remember those classic horror movies where people mysteriously disappear without a trace? That’s exactly what’s happening on your career site right now. You’ve invested considerable resources driving qualified candidates to your website, but without proper conversion strategies, they’re ghosting you faster than teenagers fleeing a haunted house.

Think about it like e-commerce – would Amazon let you browse their entire catalog without trying to capture your interest for future purchases? Of course not. Yet many employers watch potential candidates slip through their fingers daily, missing opportunities to nurture relationships with passive talent who might not be ready for a full application but would welcome job alerts or company updates.

From Nightmare to Sweet Dreams

There’s light at the end of this dark tunnel. By streamlining the application process and implementing smart conversion strategies, companies are seeing completion rates soar above 50%. The key is treating candidate conversion like modern e-commerce – making it easy, intuitive, and adaptable to different levels of commitment.

Want to keep reading about how to transform your recruitment process from a house of horrors into a candidate conversion machine? We’ll share actionable strategies in part two of this series. Until then, sleep tight, and don’t let the bad application processes bite.


Now that we’ve explored the haunting statistics of application abandonment, let’s dig up the solutions that can help you resurrect your recruitment process. Here’s your guide to transforming those frightening metrics into fascinating results.

Step 1: Exorcising the Application Process

Remember those terrifying completion rates we mentioned? Here’s how to banish them:

  • Break your application into bite-sized chunks
  • Show progress so candidates know exactly how much more they need to complete
  • Only ask for information you’ll actually use in the initial screening phase
  • Auto-fill capabilities using resume parsing or profile info (because nobody likes typing the same information twice)

Step 2: Awakening Your Passive Talent Strategy

With 70% of potential candidates lurking in the shadows as passive job seekers, it’s time to shine some light on your talent attraction strategy:

  • Deploy targeted display ads that reach candidates where they already spend time online
  • Use AI-powered job marketing to match your opportunities with the right audience
  • Create compelling, benefit-focused ad content that makes passive candidates stop scrolling
  • Establish multiple touchpoints across search, social, and display networks (because like any good horror movie, timing is everything)

Step 3: Capturing Website Visitors Before They Vanish

Transform your career site from a ghost town into a talent community hub:

  • Implement smart pop-ups that offer job alerts with minimal friction (just email and job interests)
  • Use retargeting to keep your brand in front of candidates who’ve shown interest
  • Create compelling content that gives passive candidates a reason to stay connected
  • Offer multiple engagement options beyond just applying (like joining talent communities or following company updates)

The Secret Ingredient: Automation & AI

Like any good potion, the magic happens when you combine all these elements with the right catalyst. Modern AI and automation can:

  • Generate compelling job ads that highlight what candidates care about most
  • Target the right audience segments across multiple channels
  • Automatically engage interested candidates with relevant opportunities
  • Track and optimize your entire talent marketing funnel

Adding a little magic to your mix

Here’s perhaps the least scary part: you don’t have to abandon your current recruitment channels entirely. Instead, think of this as adding new weapons to your talent acquisition arsenal. Just as smart zombie hunters don’t rely on a single weapon, smart recruiters don’t put all their eggs in the job board basket.

Ready to transform your recruitment process from a horror show into a success story? The first step is acknowledging that the traditional “post and pray” method is dead (or at least undead). The future belongs to those who embrace a full-funnel talent marketing approach that treats candidates like customers and leverages technology to create meaningful connections.

Remember: in the war for talent, the real horror story isn’t about the candidates who ghost you – it’s about the ones you never get to meet because your recruitment process scared them away first.

 

I'm pretty sure Larry lives under my bed and commutes to the closet every Halloween to write a blog about talent marketing. Now that's spooky.