Fair Chance Hiring 101 for Employers
July 24, 2025
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This post was originally published in May 2022 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.
Let’s be honest: Talent acquisition in 2025 has become a quest for gold. Just like everything else in the post-pandemic era, hiring processes have changed due to rising workforce trends, new technologies, labor market tightness, and other economic conditions. With new demands from both clients and job seekers, both in-house and external recruiters are facing a brand-new set of recruitment pitfalls.
As you battle with more and more companies to get your hands on the most skilled candidates in the labor market, being prepared to have a more effective and unhindered hiring process can be the difference between fulfilling your staffing needs and seeing the game-changing talent go with one of your competitors.
Even if you could find another candidate, don’t underestimate the butterfly effect that missing the right talent for your open positions can have on your business, from forcing you to shift into a short-term approach to leading you to out-of-budget expenses and poor hiring decisions.
Truth be told, considering the most common recruitment pitfalls and anticipating the right solution goes beyond finding the right match —it’s also a strategy to prepare your hiring team for potential obstacles and give them a head start in their recruiting efforts.
Since we know first-hand how exhausting hiring and retaining top talent is, it’s highly recommended that you keep an eye on these seven recruitment challenges and their respective solutions:
This is the never-ending recruitment challenge. It doesn’t matter how modern your recruitment process is or the extension of your reach —especially in industries that are facing larger talent shortages due to skill gaps caused by rising technologies; you’ll always find eager candidates available to fill an open position, but who may lack the experience or abilities to perform the role.
According to data from Gartner, nearly 83% of HR managers stated that they’re struggling to find enough talent with the required skills for their openings. Using skills-based hiring strategies, tailoring job descriptions with in-depth job specifications, partnering with educational institutions, and sourcing untapped talent pools are just a few strategies you can try to overcome the challenge of attracting and hiring qualified candidates.
This is a key selling point for job seekers, especially if you’re looking to attract more high-performing, skilled candidates. To clarify the importance of overcoming this recruitment challenge, picture this scenario: you’re getting a much-needed and long-overdue vacation. So, you start looking for a nice hotel with superb accommodations. The first places that come to mind are those with a strong online presence and positive feedback from travelers.
The same happens with top talent on a job search. Prospective employees will do extensive research before taking a job; they might even compare companies with their competitors. Therefore, building strong employer branding can be the difference between securing a high performer or losing out on the right match to your competition. The best part is that you can increase your virtual presence by sharing positive reviews, testimonials, and endorsements from current and former clients, as well as contributing valuable insight from your industry.
The economic landscape has limited recruitment budgets significantly, turning it into a major challenge for recruiters this year. Whether it’s restraining your budget for tools or job boards or dealing with headcount limitations, these obstacles could harm your hiring efficiency if you fail to have a workaround to deal with any budget issue.
Adapt and evolve will be the motto to overcome this challenge. Assessing your current resources and using them effectively to streamline your hiring process are just a few actions to take to avoid unnecessary costs and still be proficient at attracting talent. If your budget allows it, you could even rearrange and use your resources to automate repetitive tasks that ultimately lead to a shorter time-to-hire.
Speaking about hiring times, this is a tricky challenge in recruitment. Hiring is expensive for companies; on one hand, a long process means investing more time and resources. On the other hand, rushing to fill a position could lead clients to a bad hire.
The estimated length of a recruitment process in the U.S. is 23.8 days on average.
Glassdoor
Another aspect to consider about this challenge is the expectation about recruitment time, which is 23.8 days on average for a hiring process in the U.S.
This means that applicants are more likely to drop out of the recruitment process if it’s taking too long or, even worse, end up going with one of your competitors. If you’re finding yourself missing talent often, maybe your hiring timeline needs a few tweaks. Landing top talent requires you to be quick, optimize your procedures to have only the stages you really need, communicate effectively, but most importantly, if you have a strong candidate, don’t hesitate to get them in front of a hiring manager!
Remember the hotel analogy? A candidate’s experience is where good or bad reviews are born. If you think the only opinions that matter are the ones from successful placements, well…think again. Nowadays, rejected candidates have countless options to share their experience during recruitment processes. So the way you treat those you’re serving will affect your reputation.
While this is an important problem associated with recruitment and talent sourcing, there are a lot of recruiters who don’t picture this as a challenge on the map, and ironically, the solution for this one is pretty simple. Be thoughtful about how you reject job seekers. Don’t just send them an email notifying them they didn’t get the job— or worse, not reach out to them at all to inform them of their status in the hiring process; instead, give them a phone call where you can provide feedback, be empathic and respectful, and encourage them to stay interested in trying out future job openings.
However, a good candidate experience goes beyond keeping up a positive company reputation; even with potential hires, offering a top-notch experience by providing regular updates and feedback, clear application instructions, and a smooth process overall can balance the candidate decision in your favor.
Although we’re far away from the pandemic shutdown that forced the entire labor market to turn remote, hybrid work policies remain the norm across many industries. While remote work remains one of the most attractive perks for job seekers, it also presents a challenge for recruiters as attracting, hiring, and retaining a cross-cultural workforce located around the world and with different time zones is complex enough.
Half of the solution for this challenge is to have the right recruitment and collaboration tools to ease communication during the hiring process and throughout the business’s daily operations. On top of this, hybrid work policies must be fair, transparent, and practical to make them more compelling for candidates and guarantee their effectiveness in a daily operation.
State-of-the-art technologies are another factor that influences the way talent acquisition is done. Artificial Intelligence is reshaping recruitment for good, and every year, there are new features or applications that continue making noise and putting recruiters on the ropes as they try to keep up with new innovative tools.
Although more advanced tools unlock growth potential, they also force HR professionals and recruiters to stay ahead of the curve. Considering budget restraints, adaptation timelines, tech friendliness, and a potential loss of human touch due to automation, implementing AI for hiring and recruiting can turn out to be quite a challenge.
However, there’s no big enough risk when it comes to progress. Automation, hiring and recruitment analytics, resume and candidate screening tools, and Gen AI will significantly improve your results as long as you invest in ongoing training. Staying involved throughout the process, especially during interviews and when assessing a candidate’s skill set is also helpful when implementing new tools and resources.
Even though the title says seven, it’s worth adding an extra for the after-hiring stage. Although as a recruiter you may believe that your job ends when the candidate receives an offer letter or gets hired, being involved throughout the employee’s onboarding process and their first weeks or months on the job will mitigate second thoughts and regrets from the worker.
As an employer, you can reduce turnover by offering personalized employee development programs and mentorships that are, of course, paired with salary growth based on performance along with a compelling benefits package. On top of this, having a constructive company culture, clear communication, and effective feedback loops will also make or break your employee engagement and ultimately your turnover rate.
If you are an in-house recruiter or employer struggling to overcome these recruitment challenges or land the talent you need for your projects, remember you can get assistance from one of our expert recruiters to maximize your resources and talent acquisition efforts. The best part? No upfront fees required.
Find below some frequently asked questions about some of the main challenges in recruitment.
If your team struggles with slow hiring processes, low offer acceptance rates, frequent ghosting, or roles that remain unfilled for weeks, you’re likely facing one or more of the recruitment challenges exposed above.
Recruitment pitfalls like deficient job postings, poor candidate screening, or delayed communication can lead to mis-hires, damaged employer branding, and lost revenue opportunities. The longer a key role stays vacant, the more pressure it places on your current staff and talent acquisition strategy.
Outsourcing makes sense when internal teams are stretched thin, lack niche industry expertise, or need to scale hiring fast. It’s also ideal for hard-to-fill roles or when you’re expanding into new markets and need reliable talent pipelines quickly.
Look for an agency with deep industry specialization, a proven placement track record, and a clear understanding of your company culture. Transparency, speed, and the ability to source both active and passive candidates are also key indicators of a high-impact partner.
Start with hiring for cultural fit, setting clear expectations during interviews, and improving the onboarding experience. Maintain early engagement through mentorship, feedback loops, and realistic job previews—these can dramatically reduce short-term attrition.
Nowadays, candidates expect fast responses, clear communication, and a personalized experience. Long, unstructured processes can turn off top talent, while clear timelines and respect for their time can set your brand apart.
Bad hires can cost up to 30% of the employee’s annual salary or even more, aside from productivity losses, disengagement, and harming your company culture. You can avoid this by refining your screening process, aligning hiring teams, and working with expert recruiters who understand your needs.
For more help overcoming recruitment challenges, check out these articles:
Contributed by Luis Arellano
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