Dive Brief:

• Candidates are rejecting job offers at their highest rate in five years, a Glassdoor study said. The researchers concluded that this confirms conventional wisdom on the growing competition for talent. While the general rejection rate hovers around 17.3%, candidates in professional and technical industries are rejecting job offers at an even higher rate of 19.4%. Millennial and Gen Z candidates in general respond better to difficult interviews.
• Having a more challenging interview process, measured on a 1-to-5 rating from the candidate, and assessments in the form of skills tests leads to a higher acceptance rate, researchers found. Conversely, less challenging interview processes and assessments that are IQ or personality tests lead to a lower acceptance rate. The positive implications of difficult interviews include the caliber of future peers, a sense of accomplishment, and having high expectations. The ideal score on the 1-to-5 scale is a four, according to the research.
• Glassdoor found that these observations held across different geographies, as candidates in professional and technical industries in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Germany and France were all more likely to accept offers after difficult interview processes. "It was surprising to see the consistency of results across the countries studied in our research. It reveals that workers around the world do share similar values, such as wanting to find opportunities for career and skill development in their job search," co-author Daniel Zhao told HR Dive in an email.

Dive Insight:

It's no secret that the candidate experience is an important factor in recruiting success. In fact, a recent PwC survey found that almost half (49%) of job seekers have turned down an offer because of a bad candidate experience.

With 48% of U.S. workers expecting to conduct a job search in the coming year, a company can boost its talent acquisition efforts by improving the candidate experience while still making it challenging as well. 

"A simple way employers can increase the difficulty of their interviews would be to make sure their interview processes include skills tests or presentations," Zhao said. "These stages not only increase the likelihood of an accepted offer, but prior Glassdoor research shows these stages also increase the perceived level of difficulty."

Some turn-offs for job seekers include using social media to reach out to Gen-Z candidates, asking inappropriate questions (one-fifth of candidates have had an interviewer flirt with them and 59% of have been asked about their personal lives, per a recent survey), and using A.I. apps in the screening process.

Companies looking to stand out in their candidate experience may want to look into 'hyper-personalization.' In terms of which questions to ask, the tech world has its favorites and others have shared best practices for assessing soft skills in the interview process