97% of Top 100 European Companies Fall Short in Applying AI and Automation for Job Seekers

Artificial IntelligenceAutomationHR Technology

By Business Wire On Jun 12, 2025

Phenom’s 4th Annual Study Reveals Leading Companies are Insufficiently Leveraging AI and Automation to Deliver Tailored Candidate Journeys

Phenom, an applied AI company specialising in human resources, released its fourth annual European Edition of its ninth annual State of Candidate Experience: 2025 Benchmarks Report. Based on an analysis and ranking of the top 100 European companies’ candidate experiences, the report revealed most organisations are not investing in optimising their career sites with AI and automation. As a result, many are failing to deliver hyper-personalised experiences that effectively attract, engage and convert job seekers throughout the talent journey.

Today’s candidates in Europe not only seek alignment with an organisation’s relevant roles and purpose, but also a career site experience that is intuitive, multilingual, and consumer-grade to ensure they apply. This comes as European institutions continue to push for smarter, more inclusive labour markets through initiatives like the EU Pact for Skills and national digital transition strategies. Leading employers must adopt personalised recruitment journeys, omnichannel approaches, compliant automation, and stronger employer branding to compete in today’s diverse talent market.

Companies Fail to Personalise the Candidate Journey

The European Edition of the State of Candidate Experience: 2025 Benchmarks Report revealed extensive opportunities for companies to enhance personalisation throughout the candidate journey:

97% scored poorly in their use of AI and automation to hyper-pesonalise career sites
97% did not suggest related job openings based on current job title and skills
96% did not have a chatbot on the career site that provides job recommendations
94% did not detect the candidate’s location and suggest relevant jobs nearby
93% did not show recently viewed jobs
69% did not use a passwordless job cart/favorites function for job seekers to save job searches
59% did not feature relevant, quality content that conveys the employer brand
51% did not clearly articulate the employer value proposition on the career site

Strongest Candidate Journey Areas

The report highlighted a few key areas where Europe’s top companies continue to improve, including technical website performance and job descriptions:

95% have well-written job descriptions with at least three clear responsibilities and three qualifications outlined
95% provide an easy mobile apply process with the ability to upload a resume and cover letter
84% had content in multiple languages tailored to specific locations
60% increase in type-ahead search on all career site pages
45% increase in search providing relevant suggestions based on keywords

“There’s a clear divide between organisations experimenting with AI and those truly harnessing its power to accelerate talent acquisition processes and transform candidate engagement,” said John Harrington, Sr. Director, Product Marketing, Phenom.

Business-Critical Guidance for Candidate Journey Improvements

Phenom’s European Edition of its 2025 State of Candidate Experience report includes recommendations for organisations seeking to improve how they attract, engage and convert talent with AI and automation.

Deliver industry and job-specific personalisation. Generic career sites create friction and waste valuable time for candidates looking to learn about jobs and submit applications. Personalise the candidate experience by serving up hyper-relevant content and work opportunities based on context including the candidate’s preferences and experience. This ultimately accelerates discovery and conversion while demonstrating your organisation’s commitment to creating a phenomenal candidate journey.
Build a skills-forward career site. Savvy candidates navigate career opportunities based on transferable skills rather than rigid job titles or industry boundaries. Organisations must reimagine their career sites, where talent can instantly connect with relevant opportunities based on their individual capabilities, and where job descriptions prominently showcase the skills and competencies that drive success.
Invest in conversational AI and automation. Extend your talent acquisition team’s capabilities 24/7 with advanced conversational AI that provides instant support throughout the entire candidate journey — from initial job discovery to onboarding as a new hire. These AI-powered chatbots should seamlessly handle questions, recommend relevant jobs, conduct preliminary screening, and even support the application and interview scheduling process.
Design for multilingual and multicultural engagement. Leading companies dynamically adapt content and interactions to reflect regional languages and norms — improving engagement and conversion across borders. Hiring strategies must consider country-specific dynamics — from strict data compliance in Germany to candidate experience expectations in the Nordics — which require tailored localisation to drive relevance and results across borders. This also includes building accessibility into AI interactions and language, ensuring candidate experiences accommodate diverse needs such as neurodiverse and multilingual talent.

The Role of Agentic AI in Candidate Journeys

AI Agents built to meet the specific industry, role, and business needs of every organisation will continue to transform talent attraction and engagement strategies. Experience Agents designed for the candidate journey to existing HR teams to further enhance hiring efficiencies — ultimately transforming how candidates find and apply for the right job, and Persona Agents to augment how talent acquisition teams attract and engage best-fit talent:

Accelerates hiring, filling specialised and high-volume roles with personalised and automated candidate engagement
Slashes talent acquisition workloads in half by increasing efficiency and growth through automation and intelligence
Streamlines content management, with generative AI and no-code design tools that makes creating branded and personalised content effortless and engaging easy
Enhances how HR teams work with AI to meet or exceed hiring goals

“There is a clear divide between European organisations experimenting with AI and those truly harnessing its power to accelerate talent acquisition processes and transform candidate engagement through hyper-personalisation,” said John Harrington, Sr. Director, Product Marketing at Phenom. “This shift from transactional to relationship-based recruiting, while maintaining GDPR compliance and ethical AI practices, separates industry leaders from the pack, enabling them to build diverse talent communities that convert across the region’s varied cultural landscapes.”

Phenom’s AI, Generative AI and AI agents empower organisations to hire and onboard faster, develop better and retain longer through augmented work — while ensuring responsible AI adoption and utilisation. Phenom’s award-winning AI technology innovations fuel productivity and efficiency for recruiters, talent marketers, talent leaders, hiring managers, HR and HRIT.

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