An AI Belief Disaster: 70% of Hiring Managers Belief AI to Make Sooner and Higher Hiring Choices, Solely 8% of Job Seekers Name it Truthful
Profession Climbers / nineteenth November 2025
A brand new report by Greenhouse, a number one hiring platform, reveals new ranges of hiring dysfunction. Candidates are hacking AI filters with immediate injections, recruiters are drowning in utility quantity, and firms are posting ghost jobs, eroding belief throughout. The Greenhouse 2025 AI in Hiring Report, which surveyed over 4,100 job seekers, recruiters, and hiring managers throughout the U.S., U.Ok., Eire, and Germany, reveals an escalating AI arms race the place authenticity and belief have turn into the primary casualties.
“Our newest knowledge reveals that neither facet is pleased with the hiring course of proper now,” mentioned Daniel Chait, CEO and co-founder of Greenhouse. “Belief is at an all-time low for each job seekers and recruiters. Candidates are doing no matter they’ll to interrupt via the noise, whereas expertise acquisition groups are drowning in so many purposes they’re in search of methods to kind via what’s actual and what’s not.”
“Sadly, though all sides are simply attempting to do their finest, our survey reveals that the collective result’s worse for everybody,” added Chait. “Jobseekers use AI to use to increasingly jobs, whereas employers use it to filter candidates again out once more. It’s an AI doom loop that’s getting worse, not higher. Our imaginative and prescient is to construct AI for hiring that’s extra human and that helps remedy systemic issues on each side.”
Job Seekers Are Preventing the “AI Doom Loop” with Hacks
Candidate desperation is clear within the U.S., with 69% encountering faux job postings and almost half (49%) submitting extra purposes than a yr in the past; many really feel compelled to recreation the system. Over half (54%) have encountered an AI-led interview. Within the midst of what they see as opaque AI screening they imagine they’ll’t beat, candidates are taking issues into their very own palms. Of the 1,200 U.S. job seekers surveyed, 41% admit to utilizing immediate injections, hidden textual content designed to bypass AI filters, and of those that don’t use this tactic, 52% say they’re contemplating it.
Candidate Fraud Fears Are Escalating
Whereas U.S. job seekers think about the usage of AI as “leveling the enjoying subject,” corporations within the U.S. cite an integrity disaster. Over 9 in each ten (91%) recruiters have noticed candidate deception, and 34% spend as much as half their week filtering spam and junk purposes. Two in each three (65%) hiring managers have caught candidates utilizing AI deceptively, like studying from AI-generated scripts (32%), hiding immediate injections in resumes (22%), or exhibiting up as deepfakes (18%). The fraud fears are escalating: 74% of hiring managers say they’re extra involved about faux credentials, deepfakes, or misrepresented expertise than they had been a yr in the past.
Candidates Lose Religion in Hiring as Bot Bias Issues Develop; Belief Is Collapsing, Particularly for Gen-Z
The numbers inform a stark story. Nearly one in each two (46%) job seekers within the U.S. say their belief in hiring has decreased over the previous yr, with 42% blaming AI straight. AI bias is more and more changing into a priority. Thirty-five % of job seekers within the U.S. assume AI has shifted bias from people to algorithms, and shut to at least one in 5 (18%) say it’s amplified bias by studying from historic patterns. Solely 8% of candidates imagine AI makes hiring extra honest. Amongst U.S. Gen-Z entry-level staff, 62% have misplaced belief.
Recruiters and Hiring Managers Out of Sync
The info reveals that recruiters and hiring managers within the U.S. aren’t on the identical web page. Seven in each ten (70%) hiring managers say AI helps them make sooner and higher hiring choices with fewer recruiter sources. Recruiters are extra ambivalent. Whereas one in each two (50%) say AI has improved hiring general, primarily by saving time on screening and scheduling, 25% admit they’re not assured of their AI techniques in any respect, and eight% say they do not know what their algorithms prioritize. Solely 21% are very assured that their techniques aren’t rejecting certified candidates.
What Comes Subsequent?
The findings elevate uncomfortable questions: If candidates can’t inform what’s actual, who’s evaluating them, or the way to succeed, has the hiring market basically damaged down? When is optimization really hurting the system? Can belief ever be rebuilt so long as AI exists? Greenhouse’s knowledge suggests the reply received’t come from higher AI. As a substitute, it would outcome from re-establishing transparency, introducing “good friction” like identification verification, and enhancing the standard of hiring indicators. We should rethink the hiring course of to make sure that humanity will not be misplaced on the altar of algorithmic supremacy. Hiring is finally about human match, not algorithms.
Further U.S. Findings from Greenhouse’s 2025 AI in Hiring embrace:
- Regardless of three in each 4 (74%) U.S. job seekers personally utilizing AI, the overwhelming majority (87%) say it’s vital for employers to be clear about their very own AI use, which is essentially lacking.
- Over a 3rd of job seekers (36%) within the U.S. have used AI to change their look, voice, or background throughout video interviews, with 59% doing so to seem extra skilled and 37% to cover bodily look and identification traits.
- The bulk (68%) of hiring managers within the U.S. are extra concerned in hiring than they had been final yr.
- To confirm authenticity, 39% of hiring managers within the U.S. are conducting extra in-person interviews, suggesting they’re attempting to separate actual expertise from the fakes and spending extra time doing so, not much less.
View Greenhouse’s full set of findings right here.
Survey Methodology
Greenhouse performed a multi-market survey of 4,136 respondents, which included 2,900 job seekers and 1,236 recruiters and hiring managers throughout the U.S., U.Ok., Eire, and Germany. Among the many respondents from the U.S., there have been 1,200 job seekers and 665 recruiters and hiring managers.
