Automation

The gap sits after the apply button

August 2026

5 min read

In 2026, platform vendor Phenom audited 219 employers across eight industries on the automation of their hiring process. On attracting, engaging, and converting candidates, employers average 62% of the attainable maximum. On qualification after the apply click, the same employers average 21%, a gap of 41 percentage points. 94% do not schedule an interview at the point of application. 99% do not use video interviews inline. Less than 1% have a fully orchestrated qualification process. For frontline roles, 85% sit in the lowest automation tier. For knowledge worker roles the figure is 93%. No industry scores above 30%. The data comes from a platform vendor measuring against its own product categories, and that caveat applies to every use of the figures.

More time scheduling than assessing

August 2026

5 min read

A 2026 survey of more than a hundred organisations by Aptitude Research shows that 35% of recruiter time goes to interview coordination, 25% to screening, and 24% to candidate communication. Of the 219 employers Phenom audited, 94% do not offer automated interview scheduling at the point of application. 6% do. 1% deploy a voice screening agent. 57% of surveyed organisations already use some form of automation agent, but adoption clusters at the front of the process, not at the coordination steps that consume the largest share of hours.

Quality beats speed as top hiring problem

August 2026

5 min read

A 2026 survey of more than a hundred organisations by Aptitude Research shows that 54% name quality as the biggest hiring challenge. 45% name speed and 39% name cost. Among employers that rate their automation as effective, 42% report higher quality of hire. But 61% of the 219 audited employers apply the same automation to frontline and knowledge worker roles, with no distinction by profile type. 64% measure automation usage well, but only 60% do so consistently across role types. The shift from speed to quality changes what a client expects from an agency.

One in four clerks is gone

September 2026

10 min read

The Netherlands employed 215,000 administrative clerks in 2025 against 283,000 in 2013, a fall of 24.0% over a period in which the employed labour force grew 16.6%. Secretarial staff went from 64,000 to 35,000, down 45.3%. Administrative personnel as a whole fell from 829,000 to 801,000 and its share of all jobs from 9.8% to 8.1%. At the top of the same occupational class the opposite happened: business and administration specialists went from 357,000 to 707,000, a doubling, with accountants, management consultants, policy advisers, and HR specialists each growing around 100%. New vacancies for administrative personnel fell from 158,200 in 2022 to 114,500 in 2025, 27.6% fewer, against 8.6% fewer for all occupations. Those still in clerical work are old: 31.0% are 55 or over, against 23.3% of all workers. That makes a shrinking occupation a hiring problem for years to come.