Candidate Quality and Preparedness

Four in five hiring managers agree that most students are not prepared to enter the workforce out of high school (84%), and that current high school graduates are less prepared to enter the workforce when compared to previous generations (80%). A majority across all demographics shares these sentiments.

In addition, around half (52%) agree that they don’t consider employees for open positions that don’t have all of the skills they are looking for and that their company spends too much time on training and upskilling new employees (47%).

However, during in-depth interviews, hiring managers we spoke with acknowledge that their companies have an important role to play in skill building, especially when it comes to tailoring the skills of their workers to the particular needs of the company.

Although half of these hiring managers say it’s easy to find candidates to fill open positions, few say it’s easy to find the right candidates with the combination of skills and experience they’re looking for.

Around half of the surveyed hiring managers report that it is easy to find candidates in their area (51%), those open to working in an office/onsite (50%), and can find enough to fill open positions (49%).

However, just two in five say it’s easy to find candidates with the skills (38%) or experience they need (37%). Similarly to attitudes on perceived preparedness of employees entering the workforce, less than 20% say it is very easy to find candidates with these criteria.

By generation, Gen Zers/Millennial managers are significantly more likely than their counterparts to say that finding candidates is easy.

By sector, services struggle the most in finding candidate open to working onsite. Hiring managers in services (37%) are significantly less likely than those in retail (57%), manufacturing (56%), and professional services (49%) to say that it is easy to find candidates open to working in an office or onsite.