90% of US companies say they missed their hiring goals in 2025

Summary

A GoodTime Hiring Insights report found 90% of US companies missed their 2025 hiring targets, with one in three missing by a wide margin. The independent survey of more than 500 talent-acquisition leaders at organisations with 1,000+ employees (conducted November 2025) highlights growing time-to-hire, heavy scheduling burdens and rising concerns about AI-assisted candidate fraud.

The report also shows near-universal interest in AI agents (99.8% use or plan to use them) and points to top-performing TA teams that reorganised workflows around AI — rather than simply adding headcount — to speed hiring and improve quality without enlarging teams.

Key Points

90% of US companies reported missing hiring goals in 2025; 1 in 3 missed by a wide margin.
Recruiters spend 38% of their time scheduling interviews, identified as the biggest operational drag on hiring.
60% of organisations saw time-to-hire increase in 2025; only 1 in 9 reduced time-to-hire.
99.8% of talent-acquisition teams either use or plan to use AI agents; AI is central to evolving hiring workflows.
Reports of fraudulent or AI-assisted candidates have increased, making fraud the top anticipated hiring challenge in 2026.
Top-performing teams redesign roles and workflows around AI to surface better signals, protect candidate experience and improve quality-of-hire without growing TA headcount.
TA leaders are split on whether hiring will become more or less competitive in 2026, reflecting uneven adoption of modern hiring infrastructure and role-specific demand.

Context and relevance

The findings matter for HR and talent leaders because they quantify how operational inefficiencies (not just supply/demand imbalances) are hamstringing hiring. The prominence of scheduling as a time sink and the near-universal pivot to AI suggest that the immediate levers for improvement are process redesign and tooling — not just more recruiters. The fraud angle is a new operational and compliance headache as candidate-generated AI content becomes more prevalent.

Author style

Punchy: the story drills straight to the data HR leaders need — near-universal missed targets, concrete productivity drains and a clear case for workflow redesign around AI. Read this if you want fast, data-backed reasons to rethink how your team hires.

Why should I read this?

Short version: hiring got tougher in 2025 and this report tells you why — scheduling is eating recruiters’ time, AI is both a tool and a headache, and the teams that win are redesigning workflows rather than hiring more people. If you hire or run TA, this saves you the time of digging through the report yourself and gives the practical headlines you need to act now.