By now, we’ve all seen, read, or heard about the humongous impact artificial intelligence has made across recruitment.
LinkedIn is full of recruitment folks with countless opinions on the topic - the favorite one being “AI is here to take over your role”.
We understand the skepticism around AI. But not every opinion should be given more attention than it's due.
Especially when it’s not backed by real-world facts, aka statistics, reports, and anything that can be used to prove a point.
And that’s precisely what this article is about.
We pulled together the latest hiring statistics from across the industry and real recruiters we’ve talked to through Quil (who are saving 8+ hours every week using AI).
The article has zero opinions and only fact-based information.
You’ll find facts around:
But before that, let’s look into why recruiting agencies, employers, and companies should utilize AI in their hiring process.
TL;DR:
1. AI makes hiring methods more competitive.
2. AI helps save time, become more efficient, and increase personalization.
3. Your top candidates are already using AI; there’s no reason why you shouldn’t.
Candidates are using AI for various reasons - improving their resumes, trying to stand out, etc.
However, it’s the candidates who are using AI to gain an unfair advantage that are the real problem.
Thus, depending entirely on AI for screening candidates, interviewing them, or anything is not a smart move. The following statistics help paint a picture of what AI is doing around the recruitment industry.
Starting with the very first step of the recruitment process: candidate engagement and screening.
A good overall candidate experience translates to better applications, quality applications, and a stellar employer brand.
Even if you get a handful of bad applicants, there’s always a huge pool of great talent waiting for you - if you’re great yourself.
The following statistics are a reflection of what AI is doing in this particular sector and candidate expectations.
1. Poor communication is why almost half (47%) of the candidates withdraw their application.
2. On average, candidates wait for 1-2 months for the next steps after they have applied.
3. 35% of the candidates quit a job application because they’re asked to write a long presentation.
4. An interviewer’s stiff or unreadable attitude leads to 46% of the candidates quitting the recruitment process.
5. 48% of recruitment managers/employers are improving the candidate experience as a priority to improve the quality of hires.
6. Only 11% of hiring agencies/companies invested in improving their recruitment processes last year.
7. 24% of the employers don’t use any AI at all (yikes).
8. 95% of HR folks think AI helps with candidate applications.
The Interview is when the candidate and the interviewer get to assess each other. Thus, the way you treat a potential candidate has a significant impact on your candidate pipeline. Plus, it has long-term effects on your employer brand.
However, with AI, all of that changes.
Recruiters spend less time scribbling notes. And more time with the candidate.
Backed by these facts:
9. Recruiting agencies save 8+ hours every week using AI. (Based on personal feedback from recruiters using Quil.)
10. AI recruiting tools can help reduce time-to-hire by 70% - 80%.
AI adoption in hiring is continuously growing. Regularly. Here’s the data to back up this claim:
11. 53% of the folks in talent acquisition already utilize AI. That’s a huge number - and it’s not declining any time soon.
12. In fact, this number is expected to grow - 7 in 10 companies will use AI in their hiring process by the end of 2025.
This shows that the recruitment industry is gearing up for the AI flip faster than ever. And if you’re an agency recruiter not using AI, you’re definitely falling behind. More stats to prove it:
13. 64% of recruiters use AI to review candidate assessments.
14. A major chunk of recruiters, about 82%, use AI to review/screen resumes.
15. 50% of the companies use AI in the initial stage to reject candidates.
16. 42% of recruiters refer to job recommendations as their top AI usage.
A single hire can cost up to a whopping $17,000 - which is a huge, huge amount - especially if you make the wrong hire.
Even if it’s the right hire, there’s a huge chance that the candidate was already inside your database.
Let’s look at how data and AI both have an impact on your recruitment strategy.
17. 75% of recruiters use some sort of recruitment software, but 40% say they don’t have enough candidate pipeline or lack the time to use those insights. That’s mainly because of a lack of tools and not enough AI.
18. 99% of all Fortune 500 companies use an ATS.
19. 94% of recruiters shared that they have had a positive experience when using an ATS (plus, it improved their candidates’ experience).
20. 70% of recruiters say that automation in recruitment helps with more productivity.
21. 68% of recruiters prefer to invest in better technology (like an awesome AI recruiting assistant - Quil 😉)
22. 79% of recruiters directly integrate their ATS with automation tools/AI (which is a reason why Quil has over 30+ integrations with different ATS platforms).
Recruiting is an inherently stressful role - the endless interviews, keeping the candidate pipeline full of qualified folks, the notes, keeping the ATS updated, and a ton of other things always keep recruiters on their feet.
23. 54% of recruiters found their jobs to be more stressful in 2024 (compared to 53% in 2023). Let’s see what recruiters feel like next year.
24. 64% of recruiters expect to increase their investments in AI/technology to reduce admin overload.
25. 84% of recruiters use analytics, but 87% are still stuck using spreadsheets (and thinking AI will take over their job). Which leads to admin overload.
26. In 2024, 48% of recruiters reported increased stress due to not finding enough qualified candidates. Whereas 12% reported stress due to a lack of internal mobility.
27. 28% reported increased stress due to a lack of AI-powered recruiting tools (of course, they haven’t been exposed to Quil yet 🙂).
28. And 39% reported less stress just because their companies decided to invest in AI recruiting tech!
29. Sadly, 24% of recruiters mentioned concerns over mental health and burnout.
Faster submittals mean more interviews, more offers, and more placements. And the stats prove it.
Because: more teams aare leaning towards automating parts of the recruitment process - like interview scheduling, taking notes during interviews (using Quil), and updating all that information automatically to an ATS system.
30. The average time to fill a role dropped from 48 days in 2023 to 41 days in 2024, and in 2025, the number of days is predicted to keep on dropping.
31. The retail industry had the lowest time to hire in 2024 (38 days) - a major drop from 47 days in 2023.
32. The media industry had the longest hiring time, averaging 56 days to make a hiring decision.
DEI - diversity, equity, and inclusion - are the pillars for a strong employer brand.
If you’re not inclusive or open to different backgrounds, you’re not a company that’ll survive or go big in the long run.
And because AI is void of all this “biasness,” it puts you at an advantage.
You get to use this superpower to create some incredible job descriptions, screen through every candidate who applies, and make a decision purely based on a candidate’s skills and relevancy for the role.
And AI recruiting assistants like Quil make this job a lot easier. The notetaker supports 15+ languages. And our awesome product team keeps on adding more!
Some facts:
33. About 61% of folks say their company has policies to make sure they stay fair when hiring or making promotions.
34. 52% of employees report going through training to ensure they know what DEI entails at the workplace.
35. About 29% of workers prefer working at a company that is accessible for people with physical disabilities.
And since 40% of people of color still report facing workplace bias, it’s about time AI helps things change.
The current evolving landscape can seem a bit overwhelming. And at times, we’d like for things to stop so we can keep up.
However, even though AI receives a lot of mixed feelings, one thing’s for sure: it’s here to stay. And there’s nothing any one of us can do about it. Except for embracing it.
With that said, here are a few AI recruitment trends that we spotted that look promising:
AI isn’t replacing recruiters. It’s redefining their workflow.
36. According to a 2025 survey by McKinsey & Company, nearly 94% of employees and 99% of C-suite executives report having some knowledge of AI tools. And 69% of these companies started investing in gen AI tools a year ago.
37. According to Gartner, 76% of companies expect to implement more AI tech in the next 12 months.
38. 93% of Fortune 500 CHROs invest heavily in AI tools and tech to improve their hiring workflows.
And it’s just the start of yet another exciting phase in the recruitment industry.
If there’s one theme across these numbers, it’s this: consistency wins.
Paying attention to every LinkedIn post or an old recruiter who says AI will take over your job. Or that it’s the worst thing you can use for your job won’t do you any good.
Using AI doesn’t just mean you’re using it for the sake of making speedier, but you do it for better candidate experience, less admin work, and less stress.
All of which recruiting agencies desperately need.
And we know this because we’ve seen and heard from 100s of recruiters who vouch for using AI in their hiring process.
With tools like Quil doing the admin in the background, recruiters are finally free to do what they do best:
Talk to people. Build trust. Place great talent.
And until we have some new stats to share with you folks, you guys can tune into our other blogs or our awesome podcast episodes, where Ryan and Josh walk you through different changes in this particular industry.
Or even better: book a demo to see how Quil can help you have 8+ hours/week (it’s free for a week!).
