Cadient has released a new analysis revealing that many employers are struggling to convert interested job seekers into applicants because of weaknesses in their hiring infrastructure. Based on assessments of 1,386 employers across 12 industries, the company found that hiring challenges often stem from inefficient recruitment processes rather than a shortage of available talent. Alongside the findings, Cadient introduced HiringScorecard.ai, a free platform designed to evaluate hiring funnels and identify areas causing candidate drop-off.
Cadient evaluated 1,386 employers across 12 industries using its HiringScorecard.ai assessment platform to better understand how organizations manage high-volume hiring.
The analysis examined publicly available hiring information, including career pages, job postings, application workflows, employer review sites, and company-published materials. Employers were assessed across five key areas of the hiring journey: Career Page, Applicant Tracking System (ATS), Hiring Volume, Employer Brand, and Application Flow.
The company completed more than 1,500 hiring assessments, achieved a 93.9% audit success rate, and generated scorecards in approximately 90 seconds per employer.
According to Cadient, employers generally perform well in generating hiring demand but struggle to convert interested candidates into completed applications.
The study found that Career Page performance, Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), and Application Flow consistently received the lowest scores, while Hiring Volume ranked among the strongest-performing areas.
This suggests many organizations are attracting candidates but creating friction during the application process, preventing qualified applicants from progressing through the hiring funnel.
"The surprising finding wasn't that companies need more candidates. What they're missing is the infrastructure to convert them. We found organizations trying to hire at scale through systems that create friction at the exact moment a candidate is ready to apply." said Bill Mastin, CEO, Cadient.
Cadient's findings indicate that recruitment inefficiencies extend beyond application workflows.
Among the employers analyzed:
The company refers to this challenge as "candidate leakage," where applicants abandon the hiring process before recruiters have an opportunity to evaluate them.
"The surprising finding wasn't that companies need more candidates," said Bill Mastin, CEO of Cadient. "Many already have them. What they're missing is the infrastructure to convert them. Again and again, we found organizations trying to hire at scale through systems that create friction at the exact moment a candidate is ready to apply."
To help organizations evaluate their recruitment processes, Cadient has launched HiringScorecard.ai, a free assessment platform that analyzes hiring funnels using publicly available information.
The platform evaluates Career Pages, ATS performance, Hiring Volume, Employer Brand, and Application Flow, allowing employers to benchmark their hiring experience against competitors without requiring access to internal HR systems.
According to Cadient, the assessment is completed in approximately 90 seconds and requires no registration, subscription, or software integration.
Staffing and healthcare organizations represented nearly 80% of the employers included in the analysis, reflecting sectors with some of the highest hiring volumes and workforce turnover.
Cadient plans to continue publishing benchmark insights through HiringScorecard.ai to help employers improve candidate conversion, recruiter productivity, and overall hiring performance as recruitment demands continue to evolve.
Cadient is the pioneer of the intelligent, high-volume hiring platform. With over 18 years of experience and more than 500 million applications processed, Cadient helps enterprise employers hire faster, reduce turnover, and improve workforce quality across distributed, high-volume environments.
Built on deep recruitment technology expertise, including Cadient's legacy connection to Kronos, now part of UKG, the company combines proven hiring infrastructure with modern AI-powered decisioning to help organizations outsmart hiring chaos and predict workforce success. Cadient serves employers across retail, healthcare, hospitality, logistics, transportation, and franchise operations throughout North America.
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