Stock market volatility, slowing economic growth, and inflationary pressures from global trade policies have defined early 2025 in the United States. In the US labor market, slower job growth and increasing unemployment rates have left employers struggling to adapt. In times of uncertainty, hiring teams have the opportunity to streamline hiring with more efficient practices. Benchmark recruiting metrics can help US organizations across all industries see where they fit into the bigger picture and chart a course for improvement.
Recruiting Benchmarks Report
For its landmark Recruiting Benchmarks 2025 Report, SmartRecruiters examined nearly 90 million applications for 1.5 million jobs across 95 countries. This blog post dives into data from job applications in the US.
Here are the top takeaways.
Applicant competition
- US organizations receive 74 applications per opening, on par with the global average of 73 across all industries.
- One in five candidates in the US declines the job offer. With a 9% lower likelihood of accepting the offer compared to residents of other nations, US employers have the opportunity to do a better job identifying and engaging best-fit candidates earlier on in the hiring process. AI-based screening tools and conversational AI can help.
Time to hire
- The US has a low median time to hire at just 35 days. This is 8% faster than the global average.
- US companies that want to speed up hiring even more could consider the use of AI-driven hiring tools; SmartRecruiters’ research found that the time to hire for organizations using AI is typically 26% faster than those that don’t use it.
Recruiter productivity
- US recruiters typically handle 55 hires per month, a whopping 81% more global average of 30.
- Hiring scorecards are successful among US teams that use them; adoption is nearly universal. Teams not using them could potentially speed up hiring and make better decisions with notifications and interview feedback collection in Slack or Teams.
Sources of hire
- US employers are slightly better than their global counterparts at internal hiring, with 9% of hires from the employee base.
- They meet the global average for referrals, at 7%.
- Both internal mobility and employee referral programs can improve retention, create employee goodwill, and prevent the loss of institutional knowledge. Companies using an employee portal have been proven to increase the proportion of hires from referrals and employees to more than 40%.
Recruiting metrics highlights for the United States
Ben Eubanks, Chief Research Officer at Lighthouse Research & Advisory, offered this commentary on hiring in the US.
Hiring in the United States has changed in recent years. More locations are requiring pay transparency on job postings, the shift to hybrid and remote work (then the call back to the office, in some industries), and other changes have created challenges and opportunities for employers looking to hire their next great team member.
It’s possible that hiring in the US has become less relational and more process-oriented. Lighthouse data seems to reflect that, at least in part. When asked about the relationship with the recruiter who brought them into the company, candidates in Europe and Asia Pacific were more likely to say that person makes them feel more connected with the company (66%) compared to those candidates in the US (60%). Or maybe it’s just that US candidates have higher expectations: they are nearly 10% more likely than other global candidates to say they want to know the status of their application instantly on demand, whenever they want it.
Recruiting solutions to today’s challenges
Winston Chat, SmartRecruiters’ new product offering, will enable candidate conversations throughout the hiring funnel. It will reduce the need for transactional conversations so that hiring teams can have more of the conversations that matter and help US recruiters manage already heavy workloads. Additionally, Winston screening, matching, and recruiting companion tools will deliver a seamless hiring process that allows recruiters to deliver even more exceptional results back to their businesses.
Get more recruiting benchmark metrics
Download the full report to get a global overview of hiring benchmarks plus insights on industry-related differences in hiring across healthcare, retail, hospitality, manufacturing, and technology.
