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With Early Careers applications surging by 20% last year—and even more expected—are you ready to compete for top talent in 2025/26?
If you are involved in Early Careers recruitment, you‘ve probably just taken breath after reviewing your most recent campaign and you are now gearing up to compete for the influx of new talent entering the market. There was a 20% increase in application numbers across the Early Careers programmes we supported in the 2024/25 campaign year. With forecasts suggesting application numbers will increase at an even greater rate in 2025/26, it has never been more important to get your candidate selection processes right.
The relentless nature of Early Careers recruitment means organisations don’t always have the time or headspace to identify/make the changes they need to make each year. If you feel your planning and preparation time has been squeezed, here are four key recommendations to take on board before your application window swings open again.
1. Assess future potential
At a time of such unprecedented change in how and where work is done, are you confident you are still assessing the behaviours that genuinely predict potential and performance? It’s critical that time is spent understanding what high potential looks like in 2025/26 and that this definition is future-proofed, factoring in the changes your leaders predict are coming in your industry.
2. Trust data, not assumptions
I have heard strong assertions made throughout the year such as “candidates hate video interviews” and “rapid adoption of Gen AI means situational judgement item can no longer be used” with no clear evidence supporting these assertions. This has resulted in organisations making big decisions which are doing more harm than good. For example, organisations are taking out the video interview and not replacing it with a method of, at scale, assessing communication prior to their final selection stage. As a result, they are putting a far higher proportion of ill-suited candidates through to their most resource-intensive stages, using up precious time of senior managers who are supporting the process, and eroding confidence. Across our 2024/25 data, we found that video interviews have no impact on candidate attrition rates and can improve candidate experience*. If you are making significant changes and you want to validate the evidence-based backing it up, please feel free to speak to Amberjack. We have access to subject matter experts, significant data sets and benchmarked comparison data to help ensure your decision-making is evidence-based.
3. Avoid complacency – even in a busy market
On average, application numbers are going up. This creates a risk that organisations become complacent in how they manage their candidates. Given this, it’s important to note that this increase is nuanced. Some “smaller” campaigns (defined arbitrarily as those that receive fewer than 1,000 applications) are, in fact, finding that numbers are decreasing. This could be because early career talent is looking for the perceived stability offered by larger recruiters. The key message is: Don’t let complacency creep in just because it currently feels like more of a recruiters market.
4. Introduce artificial intelligence (AI) with care and confidence
Mark Dawkins’s thought provoking Linkedin post got us at Amberjack thinking more deeply about how we introduce AI safely for our clients: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/madawkins_recfest-2025-should-be-renamed-aifest-as-activity-7349372320886493187-Si76?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAG0ffUBu-s31CEodeCgnQFfScYuAr3nIOM. As we look to introduce new AI methods into our processes in the 2025/26 campaign year, we are doing so in a controlled way ensuring quality, accuracy, fairness, and legality. At a time where there is something of an “AI arms race”, are you applying the same rigour in how you introduce AI, or are you opening up organisational risk?
Final thoughts
As we head into a new campaign year there is a lot to be excited as significant opportunities open up. Please do take time out and find the space to think through what needs to change for the upcoming year to ensure as an industry we are selecting candidates in the fairest, most accurate and most supportive ways.
*For more discussion on this and an analysis of other commonly held assumptions regarding early careers recruitment, see here Key Insights on Early Careers Assessment 2024/25 | Amberjack
