Hiring technology has evolved fast. But for too many candidates, the experience hasn’t.

While technology promises efficiency, automation, and reach, it’s also widened the trust gap between employers and the people they’re trying to hire. Candidates are met with form-based journeys, opaque processes, and radio silence - experiences that feel impersonal, frustrating, and misaligned with how we expect to interact with modern brands.

At inploi, we believe this isn’t a UX problem. It’s a trust problem. And in a hiring landscape shaped by AI and automation, trust is the new employer brand.

In our recent Future of Hiring is Human report, created in collaboration with Resourcing Leaders, we explored this shift in depth. The takeaway? Winning talent in 2025 won’t come from optimising for efficiency alone, it will come from designing hiring experiences that reflect your values, respect your candidates, and humanise the journey.

Candidate experience goes beyond conversion rates, it’s what shapes how people remember you.

Drop-off rates, time-to-hire, cost-per-applicant… all these KPIs are important. But they don’t tell the full story. The hiring journey is made up of moments: the clarity of a job ad, the tone of an automated email, the ability to apply easily on mobile. These moments either build trust or break it. And every broken moment chips away at your employer brand.

When PureGym overhauled their candidate experience with inploi, they didn’t just see a 59% reduction in cost-per-hire. They saw a 65% increase in candidates progressing post-application, because the journey felt better. Clearer. More aligned to the brand their candidates already knew and loved.

Speed isn’t always the answer. Sometimes, smart friction builds better trust.

We talk a lot about making hiring “frictionless.” But some friction is meaningful. It gives people a chance to explore, reflect, and make better choices. In our report, we call this Slow AI: a design principle that encourages moments of thoughtful interaction. A chatbot that helps candidates self-select. Wildcard job suggestions that spark curiosity. These aren’t speed bumps, they’re trust signals.

Great journeys are designed with taste, not just templates.

AI has introduced a wave of homogenised job journeys. Everyone’s site looks the same. Every flow feels the same. And while benchmarks can show you what’s common, they rarely show you what’s compelling.

Designing great candidate experiences requires more than compliance and convenience. It requires intention. Brand alignment. Emotional intelligence. As our co-founder Alex Hanson-Smith puts it: “Strategy is how you move beyond the production possibility frontier. Taste - that’s what builds trust.”

The way you hire says more about your brand than any careers page ever could.

Whether you’re hiring 500 seasonal staff or 50 engineers, the way candidates move through your funnel is the clearest window into your employer brand. Are you empathetic? Transparent? Efficient? Respectful of people’s time and effort?

These are the stories candidates tell after they leave your site. These are the moments they remember, and what they associate with your company long after the interview.

As AI continues to reshape how companies attract and hire talent, one thing remains constant: people want to be seen, understood, and respected. That’s what builds real employer brands. Not logos. Not perks. But experiences that show you care, and deliver on what you promise.

Let’s stop thinking about candidate experience as the polish on top of hiring. It’s the strategy.

Let’s build journeys people trust. Let us show you how.