Despite growing pressure to build inclusive, tech-driven labour markets, most top European companies are failing to deliver a personalised and efficient hiring experience, according to Phenom’s 2025 European State of Candidate Experience report. The study, which assessed the career sites of 100 leading organisations, revealed that 97% score poorly in using AI and automation to personalise job seeker engagement, a critical gap in attracting and converting top talent in a skills-first economy.
Key findings highlight that:
- 96% lack chatbots for job recommendations
- 94% don’t use location-based job suggestions
- 93% fail to show recently viewed roles
- 59% do not feature strong employer branding content
- 51% lack a clear employer value proposition
While companies are improving mobile application processes, multilingual content, and job descriptions, the absence of AI-driven features hinders candidate alignment, discovery, and application conversion.
Phenom urges employers to adopt AI agents, conversational tools, and skill-matching engines to move from transactional to relationship-based recruitment. As European initiatives like the EU Pact for Skills call for smarter hiring ecosystems, HR leaders are being urged to reimagine the candidate journey as a competitive differentiator, not just a compliance requirement.
“There’s a clear divide between those experimenting with AI and those truly harnessing it to transform hiring,” said John Harrington, Sr. Director at Phenom, emphasising the need for personalised, GDPR-compliant experiences that scale with automation while meeting the expectations of today’s workforce.