European 100 Study Reveals: Despite Year-over-Year Improvements, Tremendous Opportunity to Enhance Hiring with AI, Automation and Experience Remains
Phenom released the second annual European Edition of its State of Candidate Experience Report, revealing significant improvement in the use of AI over one year and shining a spotlight on enormous opportunities for companies to enhance job seekers’ experiences through intelligence and automation.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230601005156/en/
‘State of Candidate Experience: 2023 Benchmarks Report — European Edition’ reveals, despite year-over-year improvements, tremendous opportunity to enhance hiring with AI, automation and experience remains. The second annual report provides recommendations, including small steps for making big impacts. (Photo: Business Wire)
Phenom audited the top 100 European companies of the Global 500 list in three key areas of the talent journey: attraction, engagement and conversion, as well as the use of AI. By viewing their strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for improvement, HR leaders, talent acquisition teams and hiring managers can gain valuable insights and best practices to improve the candidate experience, grow quality talent pools faster and hire more efficiently.
The 2023 audit of European 100 career sites reveals improvement year-over-year to deliver hyper-personalized experiences and job matching that strengthen candidate attraction, engagement and conversion, including a:
- 525% increase in presenting job recommendations based on browsing history
- 67% increase in using a recruitment chatbot
- 64% increase in showing job recommendations based on geographic location
- 60% increase in displaying recently viewed jobs
Although organizations are increasingly adopting AI-powered technology to improve experiences, 94% scored poorly in their use of AI, indicating there is still a significant gap between the solutions available and what companies have implemented. According to the 2023 audit:
- 90% did not use a recruitment chatbot
- 83% did not display recently viewed jobs
- 82% did not share job recommendations based on geographic location
- 75% did not present job recommendations based on browsing history
“Enhancing the candidate experience is a critical step in attracting the right qualified talent in this highly competitive market,” said Mahe Bayireddi, CEO and co-founder of Phenom. “Providing phenomenal, personalized experiences for job seekers is only possible through intelligence and automation.”
The ROI of Intelligence, Automation and Experience
Although retaining employees has become a primary goal for European companies, proactively improving the candidate experience remains an imperative. Organisations are struggling to fill open positions amidst economic challenges including an energy crisis, inflation and an ultra-competitive talent market.
To outpace competitors, employers must embrace cutting-edge practices and AI technology for hiring, developing and retaining talent. Intelligence, automation and experience are essential to overcoming today’s biggest talent acquisition and retention challenges, including simplifying the job search process and maintaining an attractive, unique employer brand. Hyper-personalized career sites, conversational chatbots, automated screening and scheduling, and content that showcases a company’s culture all enrich the candidate experience, helping them find the right job faster and apply.
Savvy organisations that are leveraging AI-powered technology and automation through the Phenom Intelligent Talent Experience platform are attracting more best-fit job seekers, growing talent communities and increasing completed applications, and the results speak for themselves:
- A major telecommunications company increased career site traffic by 220% and increased completed applications by 700% with intelligent tools that provided a more personalized experience for candidates
- A large health care organisation achieved a 10% increase in nursing hires by expediting communication with candidates through a conversational chatbot and SMS messages
- A leading financial institution added 8X more candidates to their talent community by creating a dynamic, hyper-personalized career site and targeting recruitment marketing efforts
- A popular restaurant chain registered over 12,000 candidates through their career site and talent email campaigns in less than a month — resulting in more than 2,000 same-day offers to candidates and 1,300+ same-week hires
Actions Organisations Can Take to Accelerate Hiring
To improve the candidate experience, Phenom’s European Edition of its State of Candidate Experience Report prescribes a series of actions organisations can take — from creating strong employer brand content to implementing intelligent technology on its career site:
- Personalize the candidate experience through AI and automation. Candidates today expect the online job search to be similar to purchasing consumer goods, where relevant information is delivered based on their interests. If this process isn’t intuitive and simple, they are more likely to drop off a career site. With AI and automation on a career site, personalized jobs and content automatically displayed for candidates based on their resume, experience, skills, and geographic location.
- Showcase a strong employer brand through content. When deciding if a job is the right fit for them, candidates spend a significant amount of time researching a company. If your digital brand doesn’t meet their expectations, they may not feel a strong connection and apply to an open role. Content on a career site (videos, pictures, blogs, etc.) that conveys information such as your company’s mission and purpose, overall workplace culture, employee quotes and stories, internal events and employee resource groups all paint a picture of what it’s like to work there.
- Embrace cutting-edge technology. In addition to AI and automation, organizations must be quick to adopt work-altering innovations, such as: generative AI — which enables organisations to reach previously unattainable levels of productivity and fill roles faster by automatically creating content, surfacing actionable intelligence, and eliminating time-consuming tasks; interview intelligence, which brings transparency to hiring teams through recordings, transcriptions, key takeaway, and analysis to move the process forward faster; and candidate hub, a one-stop-shop that helps candidates understand where they are in the hiring process and prepare for next steps.
With Phenom, candidates find and choose the right job faster, employees develop their skills and evolve, recruiters become wildly productive, managers build stronger-performing teams, HR aligns employee development with company goals, and HRIS easily integrates existing HR tech to create a holistic infrastructure.
To read the full State of Candidate Experience: 2023 Benchmarks Report — European Edition and company rankings, download here.
About Phenom
Phenom has a purpose of helping a billion people find the right job. Through AI-powered talent experiences, employers are using Phenom to hire employees faster, develop them to their full potential, and retain them longer. The Phenom Intelligent Talent Experience platform seamlessly connects candidates, employees, recruiters, hiring managers, HR and HRIS — empowering over 500 diverse and global enterprises with innovative products including Phenom Career Site, Chatbot, CMS, CRM, AI Scheduling, Video Assessments, Campaigns, University Recruiting, Talent Marketplace, Career Pathing, Gigs, Mentoring, and Referrals.
Phenom has earned accolades including: Inc. 5000’s fastest-growing companies (3 consecutive years), Deloitte Technology's Fast 500 (4 consecutive years), five Brandon Hall ‘Excellence in Technology’ awards including Gold for ‘Best Advance in AI for Business Impact,’ Business Intelligence Group's Artificial Intelligence Excellence Awards (3 consecutive years), and a regional Timmy Award for launching and optimizing HelpOneBillion.com (2020).
Headquartered in Greater Philadelphia, Phenom also has offices in India, Israel, the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom.
For more information, please visit www.phenom.com. Connect with Phenom on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230601005156/en/
Contact information
Media:
Jennifer Lyons
Director, Global Communications
267-379-5066
jennifer.lyons@phenompeople.com
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
TOURISE Reframes Tourism Sector as Global Powerhouse on a Path to $16 Trillion During Davos24.1.2026 01:22:00 EET | Press release
TOURISE advanced tourism’s role as a vital sector connecting industries, economies, and regions to address shared global challenges at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260123950180/en/ His Excellency Ahmed Al‑Khateeb, Minister of Tourism of Saudi Arabia and Chairman of TOURISE, convenes executives from Trip.com, Visa, TikTok, PayPal, Salesforce, Forbes, Avolta, ByteDance, and more at Davos 2026 Often overlooked as a siloed industry, TOURISE pressed the importance of tourism being recognized as a strategic sector, contributing one in every $10 to global GDP and uplifting every industry it touches. His Excellency Ahmed Al Khateeb, Minister of Tourism of Saudi Arabia and Chairman of TOURISE said alliances and collaboration across sectors will see tourism continue to rise. “Tourism is more than a lifestyle sector, it functions as a strategic economic system. TOURISE
Zycus Named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Source-to-Pay Suites23.1.2026 21:00:00 EET | Press release
Zycus, a global provider in Source-to-Pay (S2P) technology, today announced that it has been recognized as a Leaderin the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Source-to-Pay Suites. We believe the report points to Zycus’ continued investment in Merlin Intake to streamline user experience and Agentic AI to support workflows such as tail-spend management via autonomous negotiation. This aligns with Zycus’ “Intake to Outcomes” (I2O) belief: simplify how work enters procurement, orchestrate execution with Agentic AI, and deliver outcomes with the right governance and control. “Being recognized as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Source-to-Pay Suites reflects our long-term commitment to innovation, customer outcomes, and responsible AI,” said Aatish Dedhia, Founder & CEO of Zycus. “Merlin Agentic AI is designed to move beyond task automation towards end-to-end outcome-based autonomous workflows, contextual decision-making helping procurement teams operate with greater speed, intellige
Bureau Veritas to Acquire a Leading Sustainability Specialist for Consumer Products in Italy23.1.2026 19:13:00 EET | Press release
Bureau Veritas, a global leader in Testing, Inspection, and Certification services (TIC), announces the acquisition of SPIN360, a leading Italian consulting firm specialized in sustainable innovation and development across primary premium fashion and luxury brands. This acquisition aligns with Bureau Veritas’ LEAP | 28 strategy to create new strongholds in the Consumer Product Services (CPS) industry, and to accelerate its growth in key markets such as Italy. The transaction will deliver on value creation opportunities, by combining SPIN360's proprietary Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools and data-driven advisory services with Bureau Veritas' certification and supply chain auditing expertise. It will also help position Bureau Veritas as a global center of excellence for premium fashion and luxury. Created in 2009 and based in Milan, SPIN360 provides technical advisory services covering LCA, life cycle costing, environmental product declarations, carbon footprint, supply chain engagement
HCLTech to Acquire Singapore-based Finergic to Boost Digital Transformation Offerings for Wealth Management Industry23.1.2026 18:55:00 EET | Press release
HCLTech, a leading global technology company, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Finergic Solutions Pte Ltd, a boutique wealth consulting firm headquartered in Singapore. The transaction is expected to close by April 30, 2026. Founded in 2019, Finergic focuses on core banking and wealth management transformation and has a strong, well-established global presence. The addition of Finergic’s niche capabilities, combined with the scale of HCLTech, is expected to unlock stronger synergies and enhance service delivery across the financial services and wealth management industry. HCLTech brings 25+ years of global experience in serving leading financial institutions. By integrating Finergic’s specialized transformation strategy, consulting and wealth-architecture capabilities, HCLTech will accelerate the delivery of next-generation, platform-enabled wealth management solutions anchored by advanced AI-native workflows. These capabilities will complement HCLTe
Saudi Arabia to Host World Economic Forum Global Collaboration and Growth Meeting: Building Common Ground and Reviving Growth on 22-23 April 202623.1.2026 17:29:00 EET | Press release
Saudi Arabia will host the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Collaboration and Growth Meeting: Building Common Ground and Reviving Growth in Jeddah on 22-23 April 2026, it was announced on the closing day of the 56th Annual Meeting of the Forum in Davos, Switzerland. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260123725881/en/ HE Faisal F. Alibrahim, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Economy and Planning, announces that the Kingdom will host the World Economic Forum Global Collaboration and Growth Meeting in Jeddah in April 2026 (Photo: AETOSWire) His Excellency Faisal F. Alibrahim, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Economy and Planning today confirmed the details for the regular high-level WEF meeting, which was announced at the 2025 WEF Annual Meeting. Calling for pragmatism and collaboration against a backdrop of geopolitical fragmentation, HE Alibrahim said “stability can’t be quickly built, and it can’t be bought”. “Stability need
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom
