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In early careers recruitment, candidate experience has always mattered. But in a market shaped by record application volumes, widespread AI adoption, and a generation of candidates who are digitally fluent but deeply uncertain, it has never mattered more.
The organisations that will attract, convert, and retain the best early talent in the years ahead are not necessarily those with the biggest budgets or the most sophisticated technology. They are those who understand how candidates feel, what they need at each stage of the process, and how to deliver a human experience, even at scale.
In a recent Amberjack webinar, we brought together Cassie Sissons, our Chief Operating Officer, alongside Natalia Swieca, Early Careers Lead at Virgin Media O2, and Rachel Hollinger, Early Careers Manager at Scottish Power, to discuss exactly this. What follows is a distillation of that conversation: the data, the practical approaches, and the lessons from two organisations that have invested seriously in candidate experience and are seeing measurable results.
The Candidate Mindset in 2026
To evolve the candidate experience effectively, it helps to understand the mindset candidates are bringing into the process.
Today’s early talent candidates are not approaching recruitment as confident career planners. They are behaving more like risk-averse consumers, hedging their bets in a market that, from their perspective, feels uncertain and competitive. Students are applying to 20, 30, sometimes many more roles before securing an opportunity. Application volumes remain at record levels, with the ISE Student Recruitment Survey 2025 reporting an average of 140 applications per graduate vacancy.
In that environment, candidates feel the weight of uncertainty at every stage. Nearly 70% of candidates believe they have been ghosted if they do not hear back within a week. 60% will abandon an application they consider too long or complex. Where candidates do not receive feedback, they feel discouraged, yet 70% of those who do receive even basic feedback go on to view that employer positively, regardless of the outcome.
The emerging candidate mindset is one of high effort, low confidence, and genuine scepticism about how technology is being used on them. Candidates are using AI extensively themselves to draft applications, prepare for assessments, and research employers, but their feelings about employers using AI are quite different. According to Gartner research, only 26% of candidates trust AI to evaluate them fairly, and 46% feel uncomfortable with employers using AI in hiring. Their core concerns are bias, lack of transparency, and feeling judged by a machine rather than a person.
This is not an argument against technology. It is an argument for being deliberate about where and how it is used and for ensuring that human connection is prioritised at the moments that matter most.
Where Human Connection Matters Most
Candidates are not uniformly opposed to automation. In fact, they accept and expect it in certain parts of the process. Chatbots and FAQ functionality, SMS updates, and automated application confirmations are largely tolerated and understood. These feel familiar and consistent with how they interact with brands in their everyday lives.
The picture shifts significantly when it comes to interviews and verbal communication. Candidates consistently identify AI-driven interactions at these points as the least candidate-friendly element of a process. More than 80% of candidates say they want to communicate with a human throughout the recruitment process. And when it comes to telephone and in-person conversations, moments of genuine two-way engagement, the expectation for human interaction is effectively non-negotiable.
The implication for early careers teams is clear: automation has a legitimate and valuable role to play in the less visible and less emotionally significant parts of the process for candidates. The efficiency gains this creates should then be reinvested into the touchpoints that candidates care about most, the moments where human connection, empathy, and genuine interaction can make a real and lasting impression.
How Virgin Media O2 and Scottish Power Are Getting This Right
Both Natalia and Rachel have built approaches that reflect this logic in practice, using technology where it adds value, and protecting the human moments that genuinely differentiate their employer brands.
Virgin Media O2 has been deliberate about identifying which touchpoints in the end-to-end candidate journey are most likely to make a meaningful difference if handled by a human. Telephone interviews, reintroduced in place of video interviews, have consistently generated positive candidate feedback, particularly for apprentice cohorts, where confidence with video technology is lower, and the conversational format is more reassuring. One-to-one coaching calls ahead of assessment centres, delivered by a human directly with each candidate, consistently achieve the highest NPS scores across the entire process. They level the playing field, put candidates at ease, and build a genuine sense of connection with the organisation before the most high-stakes part of the journey begins.
Natalia’s team also ensures that human interaction is deployed whenever a candidate situation becomes complex, a reasonable adjustment request, a change in circumstances, or a sensitive conversation that automation simply cannot handle well. In those moments, picking up the phone is not just good candidate experience. It reflects the organisation’s values directly.
Even small details make a difference. Emails sent from the mailbox carry a real name underneath, so candidates know there is a person at the other end. It costs nothing, but it shifts the tone of the interaction meaningfully.
Scottish Power takes a similarly considered approach, with a strong emphasis on building brand trust before the formal process begins. Rachel’s team attends events and invites students into their offices ahead of applications going live, creating genuine engagement with the organisation before automation takes over. Within the assessment platform itself, videos featuring real Scottish Power employees, including current graduates and apprentices, explain the process in their own words. Candidates are not hearing from a faceless corporate voice. They are hearing from people who went through the same experience not long ago.
Post-COVID, Scottish Power also returned to 100% in-person assessment centres, a decision driven by a conviction that face-to-face interaction builds the kind of genuine connection that reduces reneges and increases brand loyalty. Rachel’s team invites five or six current graduates or apprentices to each assessment centre, briefed to have honest conversations about what it is really like to work there, the good and the less good. The philosophy is straightforward: if candidates self-select out because the reality does not match their expectations, that is a better outcome for everyone than bringing in someone who is not genuinely committed.
The results speak clearly. Scottish Power’s renege rate has fallen from approximately 28% in 2022 to around 8% in the most recent campaign. That improvement directly reflects the sustained investment in human connection throughout the candidate journey, from initial engagement through to pre-boarding.
Authenticity as a Competitive Differentiator
One of the most consistent themes across both organisations is the importance of authenticity and the ability of candidates to tell when it is missing.
Natalia’s point is worth emphasising: candidates only truly form their opinion of an organisation once they have interacted with people throughout the process. Attraction materials can articulate culture and values, but they cannot replicate the experience of speaking to someone who works there, asking honest questions, and getting honest answers. This is why Virgin Media O2 ensures candidates have meaningful opportunities to engage with real employees, ambassadors, assessors, hiring managers, and members of existing graduate and apprentice cohorts at every appropriate stage.
The communication standard that both organisations describe is one of transparency at every point: clear timelines, honest feedback, and straightforward information about what the role actually involves. Natalia’s team is explicit about the realities of roles like field technician, what the day-to-day looks like, what will be expected, and what challenges candidates should anticipate. This is not a deterrent. It shows respect for the candidate’s ability to make an informed decision and significantly reduces misalignment further down the line.
Rachel highlights a further dimension of authenticity that is often overlooked: internal stakeholder management. Ensuring that messaging about programmes and opportunities is consistent across a complex, geographically dispersed organisation requires deliberate effort. Scottish Power’s social media strategy has been reshaped to lead with authentic employee stories, graduates climbing poles in the rain, apprentices in PPE, real people in real roles, rather than polished corporate content. This has been both a reputational and a recruitment asset.
Measuring What Matters
Both organisations rigorously measure candidate experience and treat it as something to be continuously improved rather than periodically reviewed.
NPS scores are collected at every stage of the process, not just at the end. For Virgin Media O2, this has enabled real-time intervention when scores begin to drop. Natalia describes one campaign in which their NPS opened at a negative figure; a rapid intervention flipped it to over 60 by the end of the cycle. That kind of agility is only possible when measurement is ongoing, and the team is empowered to act on what it finds.
Beyond NPS, both teams track renege and withdrawal rates, monitor D&I overlays to identify whether particular groups are dropping out at disproportionate rates, and run withdrawal surveys to understand the reasons behind attrition. Scottish Power runs annual focus groups with new starters to gather deeper qualitative insight, a resource investment that consistently proves its value when shaping the following year’s approach.
The discipline of continuous improvement, grounded in data, is what allows both teams to remain relevant and effective as the market changes around them.
Practical Takeaways for Your Programme
For early careers teams thinking about how to evolve their own candidate experience, the conversation pointed to a clear set of principles.
1. Audit your end-to-end candidate journey.Â
Identify which touchpoints carry the most emotional weight for candidates, and prioritise human interaction at those moments. Use the efficiency gains from automation to fund and resource the moments that matter.
2. Set clear expectations from the outset.Â
Candidates who understand what the process involves, what the role genuinely looks like, and what they can expect at each stage are better placed to self-select appropriately and are more likely to remain committed if they do progress.
3. Build your people into the process.Â
Current graduates, apprentices, and employees are your most credible advocates. Bring them into assessment centres, onto social channels, and into candidate communications. Their voices carry more weight than any corporate content.
4. Measure experience at every stage, not just at the end.Â
Real-time NPS data enables identifying and addressing problems during a live campaign rather than learning from them retrospectively.
5. Invest in pre-boarding.Â
The period between offer acceptance and start date is where reneges are won or lost. A structured, human-led pre-boarding journey that keeps candidates engaged and informed is one of the most high-impact investments an early careers team can make.
6. Be transparent, even when it is uncomfortable.Â
Whether that is salary and progression information, honest feedback after rejection, or clear communication about the realities of a role, candidates consistently reward transparency, even when the answer is not what they hoped to hear.
Final Thoughts
The organisations that are consistently delivering the best candidate experience are not necessarily the ones with the most sophisticated technology or the largest teams. They are the ones who have been deliberate about what human connection looks like in their process and have built their approach around the moments that genuinely matter to candidates.
In a market where AI has made it easier than ever to apply at volume, and where candidates are increasingly sceptical about how technology is being used on them, the human elements of the candidate journey have become a genuine competitive differentiator. Getting them right does not just improve NPS scores. It drives conversion, reduces reneges, protects diversity outcomes, and builds the kind of employer brand that makes top early talent want to work for you and stay.
If you would like to explore how to evolve the candidate experience across your early careers programme, we would love to hear from you. Get in touch today and let’s discuss what the right approach looks like for your organisation.
Watch the Full Webinar
This blog is based on our summer webinar series session, Evolving Candidate Experience: From Automation to Authentic Connection, hosted by Cassie Sissons, Head of Client Services at Amberjack, joined by Natalia Swieca, Early Careers Lead at Virgin Media O2, and Rachel Hollinger, Early Careers Manager at Scottish Power.
If you would like to hear the full discussion, including the live Q&A, client perspectives on in-person assessment centres, and practical advice on identifying genuinely interested candidates, you can watch the recording in full below.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. Why is candidate experience more important than ever in early careers recruitment?Â
Application volumes are at record highs, which means candidates have more choices and more reasons to disengage. In this environment, the quality of the experience you provide is one of the most powerful differentiators available to you, influencing not just whether candidates complete your process, but whether they accept offers, show up on day one, and become advocates for your organisation. Poor candidate experience has a direct commercial impact through increased reneges, higher re-recruitment costs, and damage to the employer brand.
2. How do we balance automation with human connection in a high-volume process?Â
The key is to identify which touchpoints carry the most emotional weight for candidates and to protect human interaction at those moments. Automation is highly effective for administrative tasks, FAQ responses, and application confirmations, the parts of the process that candidates tolerate and expect. The efficiency gains this creates should be reinvested in the moments that matter most: coaching calls, honest conversations, real-time query handling, and any situation involving complexity or sensitivity.
3. How can we bring authenticity into the candidate experience without a large team or budget?
Some of the most impactful changes cost very little. Signing emails with a real name, featuring employee-generated content on social channels, briefing existing graduates and apprentices to have honest conversations at assessment centres, and ensuring candidate communications are written in your genuine organisational voice are all low-cost, high-impact interventions. Authenticity is primarily a matter of intent and consistency, not budget.
4. Why are in-person assessment centres making a comeback?Â
Organisations are increasingly finding that in-person assessment centres create a level of candidate engagement and organisational connection that virtual formats struggle to replicate. Candidates get a genuine feel for the organisation, its people, and its culture. Employers get a more rounded and reliable picture of each candidate. And the experience of meeting real people and seeing real workplaces is one of the strongest drivers of offer acceptance and reduced reneges — as Scottish Power’s experience demonstrates.
5. How should we measure candidate experience across a campaign?Â
NPS scores collected at every stage, not just the end, are the most effective real-time measure. When paired with withdrawal data, renege rates, D&I overlays at each stage, and periodic focus groups with new starters, this provides a comprehensive picture of where the process is working well and where it needs attention. The most important shift is treating measurement as continuous rather than retrospective; the ability to intervene mid-campaign can make a significant difference to final outcomes.
6. What is the most effective way to reduce reneges after offer acceptance?Â
A structured pre-boarding journey that maintains regular, meaningful contact between offer acceptance and start date is the single most impactful lever. This should combine digital touchpoints, content, development resources, and team introductions, with human interaction, including check-in calls and access to a named contact for questions. Scottish Power’s experience shows that sustained investment in this phase can reduce renege rates dramatically, from 28% to 8% over a three-year period.
