Appcast’s 2025 Recruitment Marketing Benchmark Report | ep94

Our regular cohosts of the Inside Job Boards and Recruitment Marketplaces Podcast, Peter M. Zollman of AIM Group and Steven Rothberg of College Recruiter job search site, are working their way through the 2025 Appcast Recruitment Benchmark Report. 

As usual, the report is full of great information. Rather than making you wait for our analysis, we thought it would be fun to use Google’s new NotebookLM product to create a quick podcast episode. Listen in as the guest AI cohosts discuss the findings in the report and let us know in the comments what you think about them.

The report highlights a labor market that has reached a near-perfect balance, shifting away from the Great Resignation to a period of stability. Employees are staying put, reducing churn and hiring activity. Despite expectations, CPCs rose over 27% in 2024, likely due to harder-to-fill roles and job board pricing. Apply rates surged 35% to 6.1%, keeping CPA relatively stable with only a 4.8% increase.

White-collar jobs saw higher application rates due to increased competition, while healthcare, education, and construction struggled to attract applicants. Mobile applications dominated “standing-up jobs,” while “sitting-down jobs” saw more desktop applications. Geographic differences impacted hiring costs, but every state experienced lower CPAs in 2024.

A balanced recruitment strategy should incorporate search, display, and social media. Search and display ads target active candidates, while social media helps build employer brands and engage passive talent. Employers must track internal recruitment data, optimize for mobile users, and diversify sourcing strategies to maximize hiring success. The key to effective recruitment in 2025 lies in refining data-driven strategies tailored to specific job markets and hiring needs.