Your 2026 recruiting strategy checklist

We analyzed 165 million applications, 15 million candidates, and 1.2 million hires across 1,200+ teams to understand what's really happening in recruiting today. The data reveals that top-performing companies are adapting their strategies to this new reality.

This checklist offers practical, actionable steps to help your recruiting team achieve more with less while maintaining quality and preventing burnout.

Here's what the data reveals about the recruiting landscape:

• Recruiters now manage 13.4 open roles at once (up 40% from 2021). 

• Job boards and company career sites generate roughly 90% of all applications but account for a fraction of hires. 

• Sourced candidates are eight times more likely to be hired than inbound applicants. 

• Direct sourcing delivers 11% of hires from just 2.6% of applications — a 4x yield. 

• Referrals convert at 11x the rate of inbound applicants.

• Nearly half (46%) of sourced hires now come from rediscovered candidates — people already in a company's CRM or ATS — up dramatically from 26% in 2021. 

• Interview processes are 33% longer than in 2021, requiring more coordination.

Based on these insights, use this checklist for navigating today's recruiting reality.