why do candidates reject job offers? - glassdoor · 2 wh do candidates reject job offers? 04...

Why Do Candidates Reject Job Offers? An Analysis of International Data from Glassdoor

Jason SockinEconomic Research Fellow

Daniel ZhaoSenior Economist & Data Scientist

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04 INTRODUCTION

03 KEY FINDINGS

27 CONCLUSION

29 APPENDIX A: REGRESSION RESULTS

07 I. Methodology

10 II. How Often Do Canditates Reject Job Offers?

15 III. Harder Interviews Have Higher Acceptance Rates

20 IV.IsThereanInterviewDifficulty"SweetSpot"?

22 V.TestSkills,NotPersonalityorIQ

24 VI.ExtendingOurResultsInternationally

Contents

WHYDOCANDIDATESREJECTJOBOFFERS?

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• Today's labor market favors the candidate. With abundant

opportunities, job seekers are increasingly choosy. In the United

States, 17.3 percent of job offers—over 1 in 6—are rejected,

according to Glassdoor data, reflecting a steady increase in

offer rejection rates over the last few years. So even when

employers find qualified candidates, it’s often difficult to

convince candidates to accept offers.

• Candidates are choosier in some industries than others. Candidates in professional and technical industries, like

business services and information technology, reject 19.4

percent of job offers compared with 14.8 percent in other

industries. These workers are often in high demand and have

the ability to compare competing offers

• Difficult interviews can increase offer acceptance rates. Candidates in professional and technical industries are

significantly more likely to accept an offer after facing a difficult

job interview. Candidates are 2.6 percentage points more likely

to accept a job offer if they experience an interview with a

difficulty one-level higher (on a 5-point scale).

• Candidates use interviews to gauge the quality of a potential employer. For candidates seeking career growth,

a challenging interview can be encouraging. For instance,

younger Gen Z and millennial workers (aged 16 to 34), for

whom career growth is most top of mind, have the strongest

positive link between interview difficulty and likelihood to

accept job offers.

• Companies have room to try difficult interviews. Candidates

in professional and technical industries are most likely to

accept an offer if their interview is “difficult” (a rating of 4 on a

5-point scale). However, only 10.5 percent of interviews today

are considered "difficult", and only 1.2 percent of interviews

are considered "very difficult" (a rating of 5). While employers

don’t want to dissuade candidates with very difficult interviews,

there’s ample room to increase the difficulty of interviews

without crossing that threshold.

• Different types of tests during interviews can affect job offer acceptance rates. Candidates are 1.4 to 2.5 percentage points

more likely to accept an offer if their interview includes a skills

test, where they can showcase their expertise. However, they

are 1.0 to 2.3 percentage points less likely to accept if their

interview includes an IQ test or personality quiz.

• Our results are similar across five developed countries. Candidates for jobs in professional and technical industries

in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and

France are all more likely to accept offers when their interviews

are more difficult.

KeyFindings

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4

Ask any recruiter and they'll tell you it's a job seeker's market today. Employers are struggling to find qualified candidates and, even when they do, closing candidates is no guarantee. In a historically tight labor market, candidates often have multiple options. So recruiters must work harder and more creatively to land new hires while working within tight budgets.

Introduction


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5

And the cost of rejection is high—every time a candidate declines

an offer, companies have to expend additional effort to find and

interview other qualified candidates. The additional days, if not

weeks, of work needed can quickly become a significant burden for

recruiters, hiring managers and interviewers.

To improve job offer acceptance rates, compensation and benefits

are often viewed as the primary lever. However, our research shows

that the interview experience itself also has a significant impact on a

candidate's decision to accept or reject a job offer.

Interviews are not just opportunities for employers to evaluate

applicants; they're also a channel for employers to impress and

engage candidates. For many job seekers, interviews are the

first meaningful face-to-face interaction with a potential future

employer and convey valuable information about the firm's culture

and career opportunities.

In particular, the difficulty of a job interview and the types of stages

in the interview process have a significant impact on a candidate’s

perceptions of the employer. For example, previous Glassdoor

research found that interview difficulty is positively related to

employee satisfaction—in the United States, a 10 percent increase

in interview difficulty is associated with a 2.5 percent increase in

employee satisfaction.


https://www.glassdoor.com/research/studies/interview-difficulty/

https://www.glassdoor.com/research/studies/interview-difficulty/

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In this study, we analyze a unique dataset of hundreds of thousands

of job interview reviews and offer decisions reported on Glassdoor

to understand how often and why candidates accept or reject offers.

First, we describe the data and methodology used in our analysis.

Second, we identify which candidates are most likely to reject offers

and explore several hypotheses. Next, we analyze how the interview

itself can encourage candidates to accept an offer through its level

of difficulty and the nature of the process. Finally, we extend our

findings internationally based on data from the United Kingdom,

Canada, France and Germany to provide lessons for other countries.

We conclude by discussing implications and providing actionable

advice for recruiters and employers.

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About the SurveyTo conduct our analysis, we study user-submitted reviews on

Glassdoor where users describe their job interview experiences.

The interview survey asks a number of structured questions about

what types of stages the interview included, how difficult the

interview was, whether the candidate received an offer and, if

they did, whether they accepted or rejected it.

Users report their interview difficulty on a categorical scale,

which we convert to a numerical rating: Very Easy (1), Easy (2),

Average (3), Difficult (4) and Very Difficult (5). Users report

which interview stages they experienced, selecting all the stages

that apply from a list including skills review, IQ test, personality

quiz, presentation, phone screen, 1-on-1, group/panel, drug test,

background check and other.

The survey also asks users what job title and employer they

interviewed for. We group together job titles into a smaller set

of canonical Glassdoor-defined occupations using a proprietary

machine learning model. We also categorize employers into two

groups of industries: "professional and technical industries", which

represents accounting & legal, aerospace & defense, biotech &

pharmaceuticals, business services, finance, information technology,

insurance, real estate and telecommunications, and "other

industries", which represents all other industries.

I.

Methodology

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About Our DataFrom this unique Glassdoor dataset of millions of interview

reviews, we draw a sample of approximately 822,000

interviews conducted between January 2008 and November

2019, filtered to reviews where the candidate reports receiving

an offer. Of those reviews, 691,000 are from the United States.

We replicate our analysis on data from four other countries: the

United Kingdom, Canada, France and Germany.

When reporting summary statistics, we adjust our sample

in two cases. First, when describing current conditions, we

only use interviews conducted since 2018 (unless otherwise

stated) in order to best capture the current state of the labor

market. Second, when describing the share of interviews of

each difficulty level, we incorporate all interviews, not just

those that resulted in an offer. Looking only at interviews that

received offers would overestimate the share of easy reviews

since candidates who aced an interview would be more likely to

obtain an offer.

About Our ApproachIn this study, we analyze the impact that interview difficulty and

interview stages have on offer acceptance rates. To measure the

impact, the main specification we estimate is the linear regression

described below.

We include controls for interview year, state, employer and

occupation in order to account for other factors that might

influence job offer acceptance decisions like changes in labor market

tightness over time. We also include a control for the logarithm of

calendar months since the interview occurred because we observe

that candidates are less likely to report rejected offers as time

passes after the interview. Moreover, we cluster our errors for

these regressions within employers in order to allow candidate’s

acceptance decisions to be differentially correlated within each

employer. While we generally treat interview difficulty as numerical,

we also run our regression on an alternate specification where

interview difficulty is treated as categorical.

Source: U.S. Glassdoor reviews, Jan 2008 - Nov 2019

Country Sample Size(2008–2019)

Sample Size(2018–2019)

United States

United Kingdom

Canada

France

Germany

690,649

64,719

43,881

12,091

10,426

95,177

16,776

8,160

3,589

3,063

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To measure the differential impact of interview difficulty by

age, we interact age bins (grouped into 10-year cohorts, filtered

to workers between 16 and 64) with interview difficulty and

industry group, and include controls for age bin interacted with

industry type. Because the set of U.S. data with age available

is smaller (n=202,219), we only include age controls for the

analysis focused directly on the importance of interview

difficulty by age.

To measure the impact of interview stages, we include

additional dummies for each interview stage interacted with

industry type. While we report regression results for the drug

test and background check stages, we don't discuss them as

these steps often occur in a distinct post-offer period during the

interview process. Because employers likely have standardized

interview processes, we do not include employer fixed effects

when modelling the effect of interview stages; though, adding

employer fixed effects does not meaningfully change the results.

Full regression results are reported in Appendix A and available

upon request to the authors at [email protected].

mailto:research%40glassdoor.com?subject=

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II.

How Often Do Candidates Reject Job Offers?In Glassdoor data, we find that candidates in the United States

reject 17.3 percent of job offers—more than 1 in 6. The job offer

rejection rate has trended upward in the last few years as the labor

market has tightened, rising from a low of 15.9 percent in 2015.

This steady increase in rejection rates supports anecdotal evidence

from employers of an increasingly competitive hiring environment.

That being said, drawing long-run trends in the rejection rate can

be difficult—as a two-sided market, both offers from employers

and rejections from job seekers can respond differently over the

business cycle.

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And while it may seem that a candidate's decision to accept or reject

an offer is driven by individual preferences for compensation, work

flexibility, culture and career opportunities, the type of industry and

nature of the position a candidate is applying to also affect whether

or not they are likely to accept an offer.

Offer Rejection Rates Rise From 2015 Low As Job Market Tightens

Off

er R

ejec

tion

Rate

21.0%

20.0%

19.0%

18.0%

17.0%

16.0%

15.0%

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

17.3%17.1%16.9%

16.6%

15.9%

17.0%

16.4%

17.8%

18.4%

19.7%

Offer Rejection Rates Rise From 2015 Low As Job Market Tightens

Note: annual rejection rates are regression adjusted to account for compositional shifts over time and set to 2019 baseline. Source: U.S. Glassdoor reviews, Jan 2008 - Nov 2019

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For example, in the chart to the right, we show that workers

in professional and technical industries are the most likely to

reject offers. On average, these workers reject 19.4 percent

of job offers—almost 1 in 5. Professional and technical

industries include professional services like insurance, finance

and business services as well as high-tech industries like

information technology and biotech & pharmaceuticals.

These industries are generally characterized by reliance on

what economists call "human capital"—the skills and knowledge

of workers themselves. On top of having highly-educated

workforces, these industries tend to have competitive labor

markets where qualified workers are scarce and have the ability

to seek competing offers.

Candidates in professional service industries like insurance,

business services and finance are the most likely candidates to

reject job offers, with rejection rates topping 20 percent. While

rejection rates for technical industries are slightly lower than

for professional services, they are still above the economy-wide

average of 17.3 percent.

22.6%

21.8%

20.5%

19.2%

18.7%

17.9%

17.6%

17.6%

13.2%

19.8%

19.4%

18.4%

18.1%

15.8%

15.6%

14.9%

14.9%

14.0%

13.6%

13.1%

12.3%

12.1%

10.6%

Insurance

Business Services

Finance

Aerospace & Defense

Telecommunications

Biotech & Pharmaceuticals

Information Technology

Accounting & Legal

Real Estate

Manufacturing

Oil, Gas, Energy & Utilities

Media

Non-Profit

Transportation & Logistics

Education

Government

Construction

Health Care

Consumer Services

Retail

Arts & Entertainment

Travel & Tourism

Food Services

25%20%15%10%5%

Average 17.3%

Offer Rejection Rates Higher for Professional & Technical Industries

Professional & Technical Industries Other Average


Offer Rejection Rates Higher for Professional & Technical Industries

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By contrast, workers in other industries reject 14.8 percent

of job offers. While demand for workers in industries like

consumer services and retail is high, candidates typically have

less bargaining power and ability to turn down offers in favor of

higher-paying opportunities. And even though these rejection

rates are lower, they are still significant across all industries:

a powerful reminder to employers that closing a candidate

is never a guarantee and to workers that rejecting a non-

competitive offer is a viable option.

Similarly, we can identify the jobs with the highest and lowest

job offer rejection rates. Consistent with our findings above,

jobs in professional and technical industries have the highest

offer rejection rates.

Entry-level marketing positions like marketing assistant (41.1

percent), marketing associate (35.0 percent) and marketing

coordinator (27.5 percent) have among the highest offer

rejection rates. Even specialized marketing roles like PR

associate (32.6 percent) and event coordinator (29.3 percent)

have high rejection rates. This likely reflects how ubiquitous

marketing roles are across industries and how these candidates

often have multiple job openings they can apply to or offers

to choose from.Source: U.S. Glassdoor reviews, Jan 2008 - Nov 2019

Technical workers like Java developers (31.7 percent) and data

scientists (24.5 percent) also have high rejection rates. These

rejection rates are likely driven by high employer demand for

these specialized roles compared to the number of qualified

technical workers available. The highly competitive market for

skilled workers pushes employers to pay top dollar for technical

talent and gives workers in those fields more bargaining power

to reject non-competitive offers.

Occupation

Highest Job Offer Rejection Rates Lowest Job Offer Rejection Rates

OccupationOffer Rejection Rate

Offer Rejection Rate

Marketing Assistant

Financial Advisor

Marketing Associate

PR Associate

Java Developer

Event Coordinator

Marketing Coordinator

Financial Services Representative

Financial Representative

Data Scientist

Substitute Teacher

Student Assistant

Lifeguard

Courtesy Clerk

Teaching Assistant

Deli Clerk

Warehouse Worker

Film Crew Member

Machine Operator

Server

41.1%

37.9%

35.0%

32.6%

31.7%

29.3%

27.5%

25.9%

25.3%

24.5%

41.1%

37.9%

35.0%

32.6%

31.7%

29.3%

27.5%

25.9%

25.3%

24.5%

Table 2: Jobs with Highest and Lowest Offer Rejection Rates

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By contrast, the jobs with the lowest rejection rates are generally roles

where workers have less bargaining power and limited alternative

options. Lower-wage customer service roles, like courtesy clerk (2.5

percent) and deli clerk (3.1 percent), or physical labor, like warehouse

worker (3.6 percent), are jobs where employers have a large pool of

available workers who can fill them.

Student-specific jobs, like student assistant (2.2 percent) and

teaching assistant (2.5 percent), or seasonal jobs, like lifeguard (2.2

percent), also have low offer rejection rates. Candidates for these

positions may be more willing to accept a satisfactory but less ideal

offer, as they likely expect these jobs to be temporary and instead

prioritize factors like schedule flexibility or location over long-term

career opportunities.

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III.

Harder Interviews Have Higher Acceptance Rates

To improve offer acceptance rates, employers should consider how

the job interview itself is a tool to win over talent. Candidates use

interviews to judge their potential employer, evaluating whether

the job will be a good fit, advance their career and provide learning

opportunities. Our research finds that the difficulty of the interview

process itself can influence candidates. In fact, difficult interviews

can even motivate candidates to accept offers.

We find that for professional and technical industries, a one-

level increase in interview difficulty is associated with job offer

acceptance rates that are 2.6 percentage points higher. Even after

controlling for occupation, employer, location and year to ensure

an apples-to-apples comparison, this effect is large and statistically

significant. By contrast, candidates from other industries are slightly

less likely to accept offers following more difficult interviews.

For other industries, a one-level increase in interview difficulty

is associated with offer acceptance rates that are 0.3 percentage

points lower—a statistically significant but small effect.

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In the chart to the right, we show the effect of a one-level

increase in interview difficulty on offer acceptance rates. From

left to right, each subsequent pair of bars introduces additional

controls. We consider the rightmost pair of bars to be our best

estimates, as they include our most complete set of controls.

To put this effect in context, the average employer in

professional and technical industries today has a job offer

acceptance rate of 78.4 percent (or, conversely, an offer

rejection rate of 21.6 percent). Increasing their interview

difficulty one level—for example, from "average" (3) to

"difficult" (4)—can drive a 2.6 percentage point drop in their

job offer rejection rate, a substantial positive effect equivalent

to a 12 percent reduction in their rejection rate.

How meaningful is such an improvement? To help illustrate,

consider a simple example of a typical recruiter with a goal

to hire 40 employees per year. If they have an average offer

acceptance rate of 78.4 percent and an interview-to-offer

rate of 20 percent, then a 2.6 percentage point increase in

their acceptance rate would mean the recruiter could conduct

8.2 fewer interviews a year. Assuming that each interview

takes 10 working hours to organize, coordinate and execute,

that amounts to 93 working hours saved, over 2 full

work weeks.

Controls forYear + Sector

Cha

nge

in O

ffer

Acc

epta

nce

Rate

(Per

cent

age

Poin

ts)

Adding Controlsfor State

Adding Controlsfor Occupation

Adding Controlsfor Employer

Professional & Technical Industries Other

3.5%

3.0%

2.5%

2.0%

1.5%

1.0%

0.5%

0.0%

-0.5%

-1.0%

-1.5%

2.4%*

-1.2%* -1.1%*

2.5%*

3.1%*

-0.3%* -0.3%*

2.6%*

Harder Interviews Associated With More Accepted Offers in Professional & Technical Industries

Effect of One-Level Increase in Interview Difficulty on Offer Acceptance Rates

Harder Interviews Associated With More Accepted Offers in Professional & Technical Industries


*Statistically significant to p<0.05 Source: U.S. Glassdoor reviews, Jan 2008 - Nov 2019

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Why Are Difficult Interviews More Engaging?Why do more difficult interviews yield higher acceptance

rates among professional and technical workers? Some reasons

may include:

Career and skill development: An easy interview can signal to

candidates that their work will be easy as well. That may dissuade

career-conscious candidates who expect challenging work that can

provide opportunities for career growth and skill development.

Quality of peers: Candidates who face an easy interview may lower

their expectations of the quality of their prospective co-workers.

Career-minded candidates may be concerned about their ability

to learn from their peers.

Signaling to the future employers: Employers often develop

reputations that are hard to shake. If a worker’s employer is known

for easy interviews, that may send a negative signal to future

employers about their ability and potential.

Sense of accomplishment: Receiving an offer after a challenging

interview is more likely to provide a sense of pride and

accomplishment than passing an easy one.

High expectations: Candidates may expect to face difficult

interviews that test them on the skills they have invested

substantial time and effort into developing. Experiencing instead an

easy interview may disappoint candidates who feel that their skills

are being undervalued.

By contrast, workers in other industries may be more wary of

difficult interviews. Workers in retail or food services, where

salaries are lower, may be discouraged by a difficult interview if it

signals that the work will be more difficult than they feel the offered

salary justifies. Workers with less bargaining power may also feel

they have no choice after getting an offer, even if they endured a

discouragingly difficult interview to get it. Lastly, career growth may

be less of a factor in industries like food services and retail, where

moving from an entry-level service role to the corporate ladder

is more difficult.

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Gen Z and Millennial Workers are Motivated More by Harder InterviewsIf desire for career growth is the primary driver of the link

between more challenging interviews and higher offer

acceptance rates, we would expect workers for whom career

growth is most top of mind to have the strongest relationship.

In fact, we find that younger Gen Z and millennial workers

between the ages of 16 to 34 in professional and technical

industries have the most positive relationship between

interview difficulty and offer acceptance rates.

Workers in this age range are still establishing their careers.

This is the period of time when they'll be experiencing the most

rapid career change and salary growth, and have the most time

in front of them to reap the benefits of a strong early career

start. Choosing the right employer can have significant impacts

on their long-term career trajectory. Our findings strongly

suggest that employers seeking to attract younger Gen Z and

millennial workers can benefit from emphasizing opportunities

for career growth. For these candidates, climbing the learning

curve on a difficult yet rewarding job isn't discouraging,

it's expected.

Cha

nge

in O

ffer

Acc

epta

nce

Rate

(Per

cent

age

Poin

ts)


3.5%

3.0%

2.5%

2.0%

1.5%

1.0%

0.5%

0.0%

-0.5%

-1.0%

-1.5%

16–24

2.8%*

-0.2%

25–34

3.1%*

0.3%

35–44

1.4%*

0.3%

45–54

0.6%

-0.2%

55–64

-0.4%-0.8%

Effect of Harder Interviews on Offer Acceptance Strongest for Gen Z and Millenial Workers


Effect of Harder Interviews on Offer Acceptance Strongest for Gen Z and Millenial Workers



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Even for mid-career workers aged 35 to 44 in professional and

technical industries, more difficult interviews are noticeably

appealing as these candidates are still driven by motivation to climb

the corporate ladder. Conversely, workers near retirement may not

be seeking out jobs that are as challenging. In particular, workers

near retirement in industries like retail or food services may be

looking for supplemental income rather than career growth, and

so would naturally be hesitant to accept an offer for a job that they

think would be overly strenuous.

Ultimately, this data suggests that employers have the opportunity

to improve their appeal to driven candidates by increasing the

difficulty of their interviews. Career-conscious workers are more

attracted to opportunities with greater potential for career growth

and skill development.

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While more difficult job interviews can better engage candidates,

there is a threshold above which interviews become too difficult.

To show this, we repeat our analysis from above, but this time allow

each interview difficulty level to have a different-sized effect. We

find again that as interview difficulty increases from "very easy"

(1) to "difficult" (4), offer acceptance rates increase sharply for

candidates in professional and technical industries. However,

once interview difficulty reaches "very difficult" (5), offer

acceptance rates drop. The sweet spot for interview difficulty

appears to be "difficult". This is consistent with our past research

which found that "difficult" interviews are ideal for driving future

employee satisfaction.

IV.

Is There an Interview Difficulty"SweetSpot"?

https://www.glassdoor.com/research/interview-difficulty/

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In the chart to the right, we show our regression results where

each bar shows the increase in offer acceptance rates relative

to a "very easy" interview. For example, on average, "difficult"

interviews have an offer acceptance rate that is 8.7 percentage

points higher than "very easy" interviews.

Intuitively, when an interview is extremely difficult, it can

signal to candidates that the job is not a good match, even if

the employer ultimately decides to extend an offer. Employers

may therefore attempt to avoid scaring candidates away

by strategically reducing the difficulty of their interviews.

However, it's important to note that candidates hardly

ever perceive an interview as too difficult. Candidates in

professional and technical industries rated only 1.2 percent

of interviews as "very difficult". Even moderately difficult

interviews are fairly rare—candidates rated only 12.1 percent

of their interviews as "difficult".

Employers who think they're enticing candidates with easier

interviews may be hurting themselves by making their

interviews too easy and dissuading qualified candidates. While

it is important to calibrate interview difficulty thoughtfully,

our results suggest that employers have room to increase

the difficulty of their interviews, and thus improve their offer

acceptance rates, without scaring candidates away.

Cha

nge

in O

ffer

Acc

epta

nce

Rate

(Per

cent

age

Poin

ts)

Professional & Technical Industries

10.0%

9.0%

8.0%

7.0%

6.0%

5.0%

4.0%

3.0%

2.0%

1.0%

0.0%

Interview Difficulty

Easy (2)

2.0%*

Average (3)

5.0%*

Difficult (4)

8.7%*

Very Difficult (5)

3.9%*

Difficult Interviews are the Sweet Spot for Professional & Technical Industries

Effect of Interview Difficulty on Offer Acceptance Rates, Relative to “Very Easy” Interviews

Difficult Interviews are the Sweet Spot for Professional & Technical Industries

Effect of Interview Difficulty on Offer Acceptance Rates, Relative to "Very Easy" Interviews


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V.

TestSkills,Not PersonalityorIQWhile employers can make interviews harder simply by asking

harder questions, one powerful factor that affects interview

difficulty is the types of tests in the interview process. For

example, a group panel interview may be perceived as more

difficult than a 1-on-1 interview even if the same questions are

asked. Similarly, a skills test is likely to be seen as more difficult

than a more general personality or intelligence test. In fact,

previous Glassdoor research has found that different stages have

very different effects on perceptions of interview difficulty.

https://www.glassdoor.com/research/what-makes-a-job-interview-difficult/

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In this study, we find that including certain stages can make

candidates more likely to accept offers, while others have

the opposite effect. For example, including a skills test or

presentation can improve offer acceptance rates—by 2.5

and 0.6 percentage points, respectively—for workers in

professional and technical industries. Even in other industries,

including a skills test is associated with a statistically significant

increase in offer acceptance rates of 1.4 percentage points.

By contrast, IQ and personality tests have the opposite

effect. Interviews that include a personality quiz or IQ test

actually experience lower offer acceptance rates. Candidates

in professional and technical industries report lower offer

acceptance rates when their interview process includes a

personality quiz (-2.3 percentage points) or an IQ test (-1.2

percentage points). Similarly, workers in other industries also

have lower acceptance rates when their interview includes

personality quizzes (-1.0 percentage point) or IQ tests (-1.1

percentage points).

While many companies nowadays are turning to personality-

based or psychometric tests to predict candidate fit, our

findings suggest candidates are not a fan of these new types of

assessments. These tools are appealing to employers because

they often tout using artificial intelligence and machine learning

techniques to sift through large volumes of applications, but,

to candidates, these tests may appear black-box or opaque,

and it may be unclear how these tests measure candidates' real

world skills and experiences. It remains to be seen whether

candidates will grow accustomed to these new techniques, but

in the interim, Glassdoor data suggests that personality and IQ

tests may in fact discourage candidates from accepting offers.

Cha

nge

in O

ffer

Acc

epta

nce

Rate

(Per

cent

age

Poin

ts)


3.0%

2.0%

1.0%

0.0%

-1.0%

-2.0%

-3.0%

SkillsTest

Presentation 1-on-1 Group/Panel PhoneScreen

-0.6%*

-1.2%*

IQ Test PersonalityQuiz

-1.2%*-1.1%*

-2.3%*

-1.0%*

Interview Stages Have Varying Effects on Offer Acceptance Rates

Effect of Interview Stage on Offer Acceptance Rates

2.5%*

1.4%*

0.6%*

0.0%

1.2%*

0.6%*0.2% 0.4%*

Interview Stages Have Varying Effects on Offer Acceptance Rates

Effect of Interview Stage on Offer Acceptance Rates


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VI.

ExtendingOurResults InternationallyOur findings above are based on analysis of U.S. data, but do they

hold internationally as well? In this section, we replicate our analysis

on a set of four additional countries with a sample size of at least

10,000 offer decisions—specifically, the United Kingdom, Canada,

France and Germany.

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The figure at the right shows that the average offer rejection

rates are largely similar across these five countries. The

percentage of job offers rejected by candidates range from a

high of 21.7 percent in Germany to a low of 15.7 percent in the

United Kingdom. Differences in average offer rejection rates

are likely due to structural differences between each economy,

such as the share of workers in each industry, local labor market

trends and cultural and legal differences.

Despite these differences, our main finding still holds. In

all of the countries we analyze, more difficult interviews

are associated with higher acceptance rates for workers in

professional and technical industries. Additionally, we confirm

that "difficult" (4) interviews are the sweet spot in all five

countries for professional and technical industries. We also find

that all countries show either negative, smaller or statistically

insignificant effects of interview difficulty on offer acceptance

rates for workers in other industries.

Average Offer Rejection Rates in Five Developed Countries

Germany UnitedStates

France Canada UnitedKingdom

25%

20%

15%

10%

5%

0%

21.7%

17.3% 16.5% 16.2% 15.7%

Average Offer Rejection Rates in Five Developed Countries


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Germany is the exception where there is a large positive

impact of interview difficulty on offer acceptance rates for both

industry groups. This likely reflects the nature of our German

data, which is smaller than our sample for the United States

and which has a higher percentage of white-collar workers in

traditionally low-wage industries like retail compared with

other countries. Ultimately, however, our core findings for

professional and technical industries still hold for Germany

and are in line with what we would expect.

Lastly, while there isn't enough data to estimate the effect

of every interview stage on offer rejection rates in the other

countries in our sample, we are able to replicate the finding that

personality quizzes and IQ tests have a significantly negative

impact on offer acceptance rates for professional and technical

industry workers in Canada and the United Kingdom.

Ultimately, our results are similar across these five major

economies. While more data is needed before concluding

that these results hold in more diverse types of labor markets,

our results do suggest that these findings can be useful for

employers across developed countries to optimize their

interview processes and improve their ability to attract and

hire the best candidates.

Harder Interviews Associated With More Offers Accepted for Professional & Technical Industries Across Countries


Personality & IQ Tests Negatively Affect Offer Acceptance Rates

Effects of the Interview Stage on Offer Acceptance Rates in Professional & Technical Industries


Harder Interviews Associated With More Offers Accepted for Professional & Technical Industries Across Countries


Cha

nge

in O

ffer

Acc

epta

nce

Rate

(Per

cent

age

Poin

ts)

4.0%

5.0%

3.0%

2.0%

1.0%

0.0%

-1.0%

-2.0%

United Kingdom France Germany United States Canada

4.0%*

-0.6%

3.9%*

-0.9%

3.1%*

2.1%*

2.6%*

-0.3%*

2.4%*

-0.6%*

0%

-0.5%

-1.0%

-1.5%

-2.0%

-2.5%

-3.0%

-3.5%

United States

-1.2%*

-2.3%*

United Kingdom

-2.8%*

-1.3%*

Canada

-2.2%*

-3.0%*

Personality & IQ Tests Negatively Affect Offer Acceptance RatesEffect of Interview Stage on Offer Acceptance Rates

IQ Test Personality Quiz

*Statistically significant to p<0.05 Source: U.S. Glassdoor reviews, Jan 2008 - Oct 2019


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ConclusionAs the labor market tightens, competition is increasing for quality

candidates and recruiters are under growing pressure to balance

the need to hire quickly with ever-tight budgets. Savvy recruiters

are keeping a close eye on their bottom-of-funnel conversion

rates, where the costs of missing out on qualified candidates are

particularly high. When a candidate rejects an offer, the time spent

interviewing that candidate is lost and another qualified candidate

has to be found, adding days, if not weeks, of additional work.

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In order to convince more candidates to accept offers, Glassdoor

research suggests that recruiters should ensure their company's

interview process challenges and attracts candidates and makes

them feel the job matches their skills, experience and aspirations.

For workers in professional and technical industries, increasing

interview difficulty by one level on a 5-point scale is associated with

a 2.6 percentage point increase in offer acceptance rates. More

difficult interviews signal to candidates that their work will be

challenging and benefit their career development.

Similarly, the types of interview stages candidates undergo

substantially impact their impression of the company. Tests that

allow candidates to showcase their skills and experiences, like

skills tests and presentations, improve offer acceptance rates.

Conversely, personality quizzes and IQ tests—where the connection

to a candidate's skills is less clear—discourage candidates from

accepting offers.

Ultimately, our research shows that how job interviews are

structured and conducted significantly affects companies' ability

to attract and recruit talent. Interviews are not just a means of

identifying qualified candidates, but also a way to impress and

excite top talent. For many candidates, the job interview process

is the first face-to-face interaction with a company, and employers

who don't take advantage of this opportunity to make a good first

impression are missing out. As employers today vie for talent in

the most competitive job market in a generation, employers who

invest in a high-quality and challenging interview experience will be

rewarded with an edge over the competition.

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Appendix A: RegressionResultsThis appendix contains the regression results described in the

study above. Standard errors are reported in parentheses below

each coefficient estimate. Since the dependent variable in each

regression is a dummy variable (takes on only the values 0 and 1),

each coefficient should be interpreted as percentage points / 100.

The asterisks following the coefficient estimates indicate which

results are statistically significant: * p<0.10, ** p<0.05, *** p<0.01.

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TABLE A1

Table A1: Regression of Interview Difficulty on Offer Acceptance Probability

Variable of InterestType of Industry

Country

United States Canada France GermanyUnited

Kingdom

Level of interview difficulty (1-5 stars)

Professional and Technicial Industries

0.024*** 0.025*** 0.031*** 0.026*** 0.024*** 0.039*** 0.031*** 0.040***(0.003) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.004) (0.009) (0.009) (0.004)

Other-0.012*** -0.011*** -0.003*** -0.003*** -0.006** -0.009 0.021** -0.006*

(0.001) (0.001) (0.001) (0.001) (0.003) (0.010) (0.011) (0.003)Controls for year and industry Y Y Y Y Y Y Y YControls for state of employer - Y Y Y Y Y Y YControls for occupation category - - Y Y Y Y Y YControls for specific employer - - - Y Y Y Y YObservations 690,649 690,649 656,338 611,165 35,437 7,368 6,672 52,959Adjusted R-squared 0.07 0.07 0.09 0.13 0.13 0.10 0.14 0.10

A1: Regression of Interview Difficulty on Offer Acceptance Probability

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Source: Regressions_rejection_rate_20200115_agebin_v2.csvTABLE A2

Table A2: Regression of Interview Difficulty on U.S. Offer Acceptance Probability by Age Group

Variable of Interest

Type of Industry

Professional & Technicial Industries

Other

Level of interview difficulty x age 16-240.028*** -0.002(0.003) (0.002)

Level of interview difficulty x age 25-340.031*** 0.003*(0.002) (0.002)

Level of interview difficulty x age 35-440.014*** 0.003(0.003) (0.003)

Level of interview difficulty x age 45-540.006 -0.002

(0.004) (0.004)

Level of interview difficulty x age 55-64-0.004 -0.008(0.007) (0.007)

1{age 16-24}-0.054** 0.026(0.021) (0.017)

1{age 25-34}-0.062*** 0.011

(0.02) (0.017)

1{age 35-44}-0.043* -0.011(0.022) (0.018)

1{age 44-54}-0.012 -0.007(0.022) (0.019)

Controls for year and industry YControls for state of employer YControls for occupation category YControls for specific employer YObservations 202,219Adjusted R-squared 0.13

A2: Regression of Interview Difficulty on U.S. Offer Acceptance Probability by Age Group

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TABLE A3

Table A3: Categorical Regression of Interview Difficulty for Professional & Technical Industries on Offer Acceptance Probability

Variable of Interest

Country

United States

Canada France GermanyUnited

Kingdom

Level of interview difficulty = 2 stars0.020*** 0.026** 0.051** 0.046* 0.068***(0.003) (0.011) (0.025) (0.027) (0.015)

Level of interview difficulty = 3 stars0.050*** 0.054*** 0.079*** 0.062** 0.100***(0.004) (0.010) (0.025) (0.026) (0.014)

Level of interview difficulty = 4 stars0.087*** 0.079*** 0.144*** 0.113*** 0.143***(0.005) (0.013) (0.030) (0.030) (0.015)

Level of interview difficulty = 5 stars0.039*** -0.011 0.035 0.058 0.092***(0.009) (0.045) (0.092) (0.068) (0.026)

Controls for year and industry Y Y Y Y YControls for state of employer Y Y Y Y YControls for occupation category Y Y Y Y YControls for specific employer Y Y Y Y YObservations 611,165 35,437 7,368 6,672 52,959Adjusted R-squared 0.13 0.13 0.1 0.14 0.1

A3: Categorical Regression of Interview Difficulty for Professional & Technical Industries on Offer Acceptance Probability

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TABLE A4

Table A4: Regression of Interview Stages on Offer Acceptance Probability

Variable of InterestType of Industry

Country

United States

Canada France GermanyUnited

Kingdom

Level of interview difficulty (1-5 stars)


0.023*** 0.028*** 0.037*** 0.036*** 0.035***(0.001) (0.004) (0.008) (0.007) (0.003)

Other-0.008*** -0.006** -0.003 0.014* -0.005**

(0.001) (0.003) (0.008) (0.008) (0.003)

Requires skills review


0.025*** 0.016** 0.024 0.026 0.010*(0.002) (0.007) (0.015) (0.019) (0.006)

Other0.014*** 0.006 -0.001 0.015 0.003(0.001) (0.005) (0.017) (0.018) (0.005)

Requires presentation


-0.012*** -0.030*** 0.016 0.003 -0.028***(0.003) (0.009) (0.015) (0.018) (0.008)

Other-0.011*** -0.004 -0.008 -0.024 -0.020***

(0.002) (0.007) (0.019) (0.025) (0.006)

Requires IQ test


-0.006*** -0.006 0.011 -0.016 -0.001(0.002) (0.006) (0.010) (0.012) (0.006)

Other-0.012*** -0.019*** 0.008 0.013 -0.003

(0.001) (0.005) (0.011) (0.015) (0.005)

Requires personality quiz


0.006*** 0.009 0.022* 0.019 0.037***(0.002) (0.006) (0.012) (0.012) (0.005)

Other0.012*** 0.018*** -0.002 0.023* 0.042***(0.001) (0.005) (0.011) (0.013) (0.005)

Requires phone screen


0.002 0.005 -0.005 0.029** 0.009*(0.002) (0.006) (0.014) (0.012) (0.005)

Other0.004*** 0.003 -0.003 0.011 0.025***(0.001) (0.005) (0.019) (0.017) (0.006)

Requires 1-on-1 interview


0.006*** -0.007 0.004 0.002 0.028***(0.002) (0.006) (0.011) (0.014) (0.006)

Other-0.000 -0.006 0.018 0.037** 0.013***(0.001) (0.005) (0.012) (0.016) (0.004)

Requires group/panel interview


-0.023*** -0.022*** -0.022 -0.046** -0.013*(0.003) (0.007) (0.017) (0.021) (0.007)

Other-0.010*** 0.010* 0.015 -0.037 0.005

(0.002) (0.006) (0.021) (0.025) (0.006)

Requires drug test


0.116*** 0.108*** 0.004 0.045** 0.090***(0.003) (0.008) (0.015) (0.018) (0.006)

Other0.064*** 0.047*** -0.019 0.045* 0.030***(0.002) (0.006) (0.020) (0.024) (0.005)

Requires background check


0.091*** 0.087*** 0.018* 0.046*** 0.052***(0.002) (0.006) (0.010) (0.015) (0.005)

Other0.053*** 0.041*** 0.018 0.030* 0.026***(0.001) (0.005) (0.013) (0.018) (0.005)

Controls for year and industry Y Y Y Y YControls for state of employer Y Y Y Y YControls for occupation category Y Y Y Y YControls for specific employer - - - - -Observations 656,338 39,886 9,028 8,321 58,451Adjusted R-squared 0.12 0.10 0.08 0.10 0.08

A4: Regression of Interview Stages on Offer Acceptance Probability

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