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Growth & Strategy

Hiring Trends 2027: What 1,000+ Hiring Professionals Expect Next Year

Hiring trends for 2027 from Criteria's survey of 1,027 hiring professionals: harder hiring, AI candidate fraud, entry-level shifts and Gen Z readiness.

ByTalent Signal News Editorial

Oct 7, 2026

More than half of hiring professionals say hiring got harder in 2026, according to Criteria's 2026-2027 Hiring Benchmark Report, a survey of 1,027 U.S. hiring professionals released Oct. 6. Many are losing faith in the resume as candidates use AI to polish or misrepresent their experience. Employers are also leaning on AI themselves, with 56% now using it somewhere in hiring, and more than a third think it may be reducing their need for entry-level workers. For 2027, their top priorities are upskilling current employees and making hiring more efficient.

Hiring got harder again this year, and the people responsible for it are heading into 2027 with more uncertainty about what a strong candidate looks like. In Criteria's 2026-2027 Hiring Benchmark Report, 52% of hiring professionals said hiring is more challenging than it was a year ago, compared with 12% who said it has become easier. Mid-sized companies and the tech and retail industries reported the most strain.

Most of those employers still plan to add people. Nearly two-thirds expect their organizations to grow headcount over the next year, according to the company's announcement, and 55% named finding high-quality candidates with the right skills as their single biggest challenge.

"The pace of change in hiring right now is unlike anything we've seen before," said Josh Millet, Criteria's co-founder and CEO. "AI is reshaping both sides of the talent equation simultaneously, and hiring professionals are navigating that in real time."

The report, now in its ninth year, is the largest edition Criteria has published. It covers hiring difficulty, AI use by candidates and employers, entry-level hiring, Gen Z's readiness for work and employers' plans for 2027.

The hiring trends shaping 2027

Hiring has been getting steadily harder

Criteria's benchmark has tracked the same question for several years, and the share of hiring professionals calling the job harder has crept up each time, from 48% in the 2024-2025 report to 49% in the 2025-2026 edition and 52% this year. Earlier editions drew on smaller samples that included Australia and Canada, while this year's survey covers U.S. hiring professionals only, so the year-over-year comparison is directional.

The wider labor market helps explain the frustration. U.S. employers added just 29,000 jobs in September and the unemployment rate held at 4.2%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Hiring across the economy has been sluggish at about 5.2 million hires a month, per the latest JOLTS release. Employers have plenty of applicants in that kind of market, and the harder task is figuring out which of them can actually do the job.

Candidates' AI use is eroding trust in the resume

About 4 in 10 hiring professionals in the survey said they are struggling with candidates who use AI to misrepresent themselves, and more than a third said they can't reliably detect it. Nearly a quarter said they no longer trust the resume as a reliable signal of a candidate's ability, a shift that has made the resume the least-trusted part of the file for many recruiters.

Gartner predicts that by 2028, one in four candidate profiles worldwide will be fake, and the FBI has warned employers about applicants using face-swapping technology in video interviews. As Talent Signal News has reported, a convincing fake candidate now takes about 70 minutes to build.

"What this year's data makes clear is that traditional talent signals are becoming increasingly difficult to trust, the skills gap is widening, and the organizations that find better ways to assess talent will be the ones that build stronger, more capable teams," Millet said. Melissa McCann-Tilton, Criteria's president and chief revenue officer, has made a similar point about the resume. "That signal is a piece of paper, and it was never as reliable as we treated it," she wrote. "AI hasn't caused that problem."

Employer AI adoption has nearly doubled

Fifty-six percent of hiring professionals now use AI somewhere in their hiring process, up from 32% in last year's report, though this year's question was worded more broadly. Tech leads all industries at 87%. Screening is the most common use at 46%, followed by assessments and interview scheduling at 35% each.

Most respondents are hopeful about where this is going. Seventy-one percent said they are optimistic about AI's role in hiring, and most believe it can improve decisions and deliver a strong return on investment. At the same time, 53% believe AI will eliminate more jobs than it creates. Chris Daden, Criteria's chief technology and AI officer, has argued for keeping people in charge of the final call. "AI should not make a complete hiring decision," he wrote in September.

AI may be thinning out entry-level roles

Thirty-seven percent of hiring professionals said AI may be reducing their need for entry-level hires, and in tech that figure rises to 65%. Organizations that already use AI in hiring were more than twice as likely as non-users to say their entry-level needs have dropped.

Government data shows a similar pattern. Two U.S. Census Bureau working papers, reported by Fortune in September, found that early-career employment in the most AI-exposed industries fell 12% in the ten quarters after ChatGPT's release. Recent college graduates had an unemployment rate of about 5.6% in the second quarter of 2026, well above the overall rate, and 42% were working in jobs that typically don't require a degree, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Other numbers cut the other way. The National Association of Colleges and Employers projected in April that employers would hire 5.6% more graduates from the Class of 2026, after two weak years. Talent Signal News has also covered research finding that the heaviest AI adopters are still hiring, with entry-level roles growing fastest among them. How AI affects early-career hiring appears to depend heavily on the employer.

Employers doubt Gen Z is ready for work

Only 16% of employers in the survey think Gen Z is well prepared for the workplace. Half called the generation somewhat ready, and a third said it is not ready at all. Gen Z respondents were even harder on themselves, with just 22% saying their generation is prepared. Employer confidence has improved from last year, when only 8% of hiring professionals described Gen Z as fully prepared.

Four in five hiring professionals see a mismatch between the skills new graduates have and the skills employers need. Work ethic tops the list of gaps at 67%, well ahead of communication, professionalism, and technical or digital skills.

What employers are prioritizing for 2027

Asked about their goals for next year, hiring professionals put upskilling current employees and increasing hiring efficiency in a tie for first place. Reducing turnover came next, followed by reducing costs and improving the candidate experience.

The order has shifted since last year's report, when reducing turnover ranked first at 41%, just ahead of hiring efficiency at 40% and upskilling at 37%. Upskilling's rise is consistent with the rest of the findings. For employers who doubt new graduates' readiness and suspect AI is changing which entry-level roles they need, developing the people already on staff becomes a more reliable way to close skills gaps.

The focus on efficiency comes from a related pressure. Teams that are hiring with lean budgets and struggling to trust resumes need ways to identify capable candidates quickly. Criteria has long pointed to structured methods as part of the answer, and Millet has noted that "structured interviewing is two times more predictive than unstructured interviewing, but it's always been pretty hard for companies to execute well."

For hiring leaders setting 2027 budgets, the findings raise practical questions about how much weight the resume should still carry in early screening and which entry-level roles will change as AI takes on routine work. They also make a case for looking inside the organization first, since a growing share of next year's talent needs may be met by training people who are already on the payroll.

FAQ

What are the biggest hiring trends for 2027?

Criteria's 2026-2027 Hiring Benchmark Report found that hiring is getting harder and that candidates' use of AI is undermining trust in the resume. Employers are adopting AI quickly in their own hiring, and many believe it is shrinking the need for entry-level workers. Their top priorities for 2027 are upskilling current employees and increasing hiring efficiency.

Is hiring getting harder in 2026?

Yes, for most employers. In Criteria's survey of 1,027 U.S. hiring professionals, 52% said hiring is more challenging than it was a year ago and 12% said it is easier. Mid-sized companies and the tech and retail industries reported the most difficulty, and 55% said finding high-quality candidates with the right skills is their biggest challenge.

How many companies use AI in hiring?

Fifty-six percent of hiring professionals in Criteria's 2026 survey use AI in at least part of the hiring process, including 87% in the tech industry. The most common uses are candidate screening (46%), assessments (35%) and interview scheduling (35%).

Is AI reducing entry-level jobs?

Thirty-seven percent of hiring professionals told Criteria that AI may be reducing their need for entry-level hires, rising to 65% in tech. Organizations that use AI in hiring were more than twice as likely to report a drop in entry-level need. Census Bureau research has also found declines in early-career employment in the industries most exposed to AI.

How prepared is Gen Z for the workplace?

Only 16% of employers in Criteria's survey consider Gen Z well prepared for work, and just 22% of Gen Z respondents said the same about their own generation. Four in five hiring professionals see a skills mismatch in new graduates, with work ethic the most common gap at 67%.

About the report

Criteria's 2026-2027 Hiring Benchmark Report is based on a survey of 1,027 U.S.-based hiring professionals across a range of industries, company sizes and roles, along with responses from Gen Z workers. It is the ninth edition of the annual report. The full report is available from Criteria.