Charles Hipps sees five recruitment trends for 2026

Oleeo Chief Executive Officer Charles Hipps has outlined five recruitment trends he believes will shape hiring in 2026, highlighting growing pressure on employers as application volumes rise and candidate expectations shift.

Hiring teams are managing much larger applicant pools without a matching increase in recruitment headcount. Some campaigns now attract more than 20,000 applicants, while application volumes across several sectors are rising by 40% year on year.

That imbalance is changing how employers handle the early stages of selection. Instead of relying on recruiters to screen large numbers of CVs manually, companies are turning to tools and processes that identify suitable candidates earlier in the hiring journey.

Pressure on teams, Hipps argued, means employers need to rethink how they narrow longlists. The goal is to identify strong candidates efficiently without creating excessive workloads for hiring staff.

Assessment shift

One of the main changes Hipps identified is the growing use of structured and behavioural assessments at the start of the process. In his view, these are beginning to replace the CV as the first point of evaluation for many employers.

The shift reflects a broader effort to assess potential and job fit earlier, rather than relying mainly on educational background or previous employers. Qualities such as resilience, adaptability and determination are gaining more weight in initial screening.

He linked the move to both efficiency and fairness. Reducing manual sorting allows employers to handle larger candidate volumes while widening the basis on which applicants are judged.

Changing expectations

Hipps also said candidate expectations are changing, particularly among younger workers entering the labour market. Flexibility, career progression and workplace culture are increasingly seen as core requirements rather than optional benefits.

That puts pressure on employers with more rigid working practices. Those that fail to adapt risk losing candidates to rivals offering more flexible arrangements and clearer development paths.

Hipps added that employers with adaptable policies are seeing stronger retention and engagement. In his view, workplace flexibility is becoming tied not only to talent attraction but also to broader workforce performance.

Interview bottlenecks

While technology and assessment methods may ease pressure earlier in the process, interviews remain a significant operational challenge. Scheduling and conducting interviews at scale becomes harder when senior decision-makers are involved and candidate experience must still be maintained.

For many businesses, that creates a bottleneck after initial screening. Recruitment leaders are therefore being pushed to simplify interview stages and make each step more focused on specific competencies.

Hipps said structured interviews and stronger early-stage assessment can reduce unnecessary complexity. That approach, he suggested, allows organisations to maintain standards as hiring volumes grow.

Strategic role

Across his comments, Hipps presented recruitment as a business function moving beyond an administrative role. Employers are redesigning hiring processes in response to scale, labour market shifts and the need to make selection decisions more consistently.

The broader message is that recruitment is becoming more closely tied to workforce planning and organisational strategy. Employers that can update their processes without undermining fairness or overloading staff are likely to be better placed in a competitive market for talent.