From Villain to Value-Add: How Modern Recruiters Can Rebuild Trust in a Tough Job Market

It’s a tough time to find a job right now, there’s little denying that.

The last couple of years have been one of the toughest job markets in recent memory.

Between LinkedIn rants about ghosting, Reddit threads about misleading job postings, and viral TikToks mocking automated rejection emails, it’s clear that candidate trust in recruiters has hit a low point.

That atmosphere has led to understandable—but misplaced—distrust and anger towards recruiters, particularly online.

Rather than point to a few bad apples, it’s more valuable for candidates and recruiters both to look more closely at the structural causes of economic uncertainty and what can be done about it.

It’s not the fault of recruiters that the system is broken. However, they are in a unique position to help repair both it and the broken trust between them and job seekers.

This article will be a guide on how recruiters can repair that trust by focusing on the candidate experience, leading with empathy, and practicing better communication and ethical hiring practices. We’ll look at specific strategies that work in today’s market, backed by insights from companies that are getting it right.

Why are recruiters facing a trust crisis?

The erosion of candidate trust didn’t happen overnight. It’s the result of deeper problems with the economy. Poor communication, outdated hiring practices, and a fundamental misalignment between hiring expectations and market realities.

The economic context behind recruiter mistrust

You see it every time you open up LinkedIn or X/Twitter.

Hiring freezes and budget cuts have become the norm. Mass layoffs in the tech sector make the headlines on a routine basis. That uncertainty has led to a protracted, more cautious hiring process. The competition for skilled talent has rarely been so intense.

It makes sense that people are tired, scared, and fed up.

Communication issues and ghosting

At a time when the line of communication between recruiters and candidates should be open and streamlined, it’s being clouded and strained.

Personal anecdotes abound of getting canned rejection emails after multiple rounds of interviews if they even get responded to at all. When they ask for feedback, they get crickets.

Ghosting and misleading hiring practices have led many worthwhile candidates to waste their time applying for jobs that aren’t actually there.

Misaligned expectations between hiring managers and recruiters lead to inconsistent messaging about roles, salary, and job responsibilities. Candidates are shown one thing when they apply and told another in the interview process.

Some companies and teams use hiring practices that are borderline unethical. Many companies post jobs to collect data from resume submissions and prefer to hire internally.

The truth is far more complicated than angry social media posts suggest.

Most recruiters are honest professionals trying to do their jobs the best they can with what they have. They’re often caught between candidates’ expectations and leadership’s often unrealistic directives.

The real culprits? Hiring managers and C-suite executives who create cultures of opacity and inefficiency.

Recruiters frequently find themselves implementing practices they know are unfair, and constrained by systems they didn’t design. It’s not a problem of individual bad actors but of deeply entrenched corporate dysfunction.

While it’s tempting to blame recruiters, the issue runs much deeper. The entire talent acquisition process needs a complete reimagining.

How recruiters can rebuild trust with candidates

The situation is bad, but it’s far from unfixable. There are actionable ways that work-a-day recruiters can be a part of the solution, even while working within a broken system that affects them as much as it does job seekers.

1. Improve transparency and set clear expectations

It starts at the beginning of the hiring process.

Be upfront about the realities of the job market. It sucks for everyone. People are dealing with it as well as they can, you included.

If hiring freezes or budget issues can affect hiring, let candidates know early on in the process.

Remove any old or outdated job listings. Keeping defunct job postings out there for people to send their resumes into a black void wastes both their time and yours.

Be clear about salaries, and include salary ranges in job postings. That gets things off to the right foot by establishing trust and attracting the right kind of candidates.

Communicate hiring timelines realistically. Let candidates know when you hope to make a decision. If a process takes 6 weeks or more, let candidates know from the start. Leaving them hanging is disrespectful to them and a bad look for you.

2. Prioritize meaningful communication

Give personalized feedback. Even just a few sentences of honest, constructive feedback leaves a better impression.

Promptly respond to candidates. A short message to let them know where they are in the process goes a long way.

Set up structured check-ins. Included scheduled calls or email updates to keep candidates in the loop.

Be honest when roles change. If an opening is closed or has been moved to a different department let candidates know instead of leaving them in the dark.

3. Balance automation with human interaction

It’s all well and good to want to be honest and upfront with candidates and keep them in the loop. The cold reality, though, is that individualized communication simply isn’t possible when 100s of applicants apply for the same opportunity and only 2 or 3 make it to the final round.

You can’t give personal attention to every candidate. You can, however, use AI and automation to free up parts of the process to free up more time for as much 1-to-1 communication. Use strategically for things like automated scheduling. When candidates ask about the status of their application, that’s when the human recruiter steps in.

Amy Spurling, the CEO of Compt, outlined some best practices for using automation in a way that allows for a more human-centered approach.

“Use automation for administrative tasks like scheduling and initial resume screening, but keep all candidate communication personal and authentic,” says Spurling. “AI tools should enhance human connection, not replace it. Have real team members conduct interviews and provide honest feedback. Having candidates jump through hoops, submit video resumes, write cover letters, and all of these extra steps to be ignored is a recipe for disaster.”

4. Become an advocate for candidates

The real decision-making behind hiring decisions comes from the top down. As the intermediary between them and job seekers, the onus is on recruiters to let job seekers think about why outcomes happen the way they do.

Push back against unrealistic job descriptions from hiring managers. The role of a social media manager should not include technical SEO, white paper creation, or brand management. The role of a project manager should not involve debugging code.

Give candidates realistic compensation expectations. Take their side in salary negotiations, and help them make a case for fair pay.

Nurture long-term relationships. Just because a candidate isn’t the best fit now, they can still grow and upskill until one day they are. It’s in your interest and theirs to keep them in your network for future roles. Ghosting them or stringing them along is a sure-fire way to burn bridges.

The business case for candidate trust

Growing recruiter trust matters. A bedrock of open communication and transparency leads to a better bottom line.

Stronger trust in recruiters means that better candidates will come to you. Trustworthy hiring brands make for a good brand – especially in a job market marked by horror stories and hopelessness.

The future of ethical recruiting

The path forward isn’t about perfection. It’s about progress.

Recruiters have the power to transform the hiring landscape, one candidate interaction at a time. Small, meaningful changes in transparency and communication can rebuild the trust that’s been eroded by years of impersonal, opaque hiring practices.

This isn’t just an ethical imperative—it’s a business strategy. Companies that prioritize candidate experience will attract top talent, reduce turnover, and build a reputation that sets them apart in a competitive job market.

The time for change is now. Start your journey toward more human-centered recruiting with Workable’s 15-day free trial. See how the right tools can help you rebuild trust, streamline your hiring process, and connect with candidates in more meaningful ways.