Recruit Management Solutions Survey on 2026 Graduate Hiring: Quality and Individualized Follow-Up, Not Company Size Alone, Drive Hiring Fulfillment

Recruit Management Solutions Co., Ltd., which supports companies in solving management and HR issues and advancing business and strategy, conducted a survey on selection processes and follow-up practices for 2026 graduate hiring to clarify the realities and challenges of new graduate recruitment in companies. As companies face increasingly visible challenges such as shortages of applicants, failure to meet planned hiring numbers, and heavier workloads for HR staff, they are pursuing various initiatives, including internships, revisions to selection processes, and stronger follow-up with candidates who have received job offers. The survey suggests that hiring fulfillment is not determined solely by company size or the number of initiatives implemented. Instead, the quality of selection and follow-up measures, individualized responses, strategic resource allocation, and continuous improvement are important. Specifically, for attract measures designed to engage applicants and raise their motivation to join, the quality of the content affects fulfillment more than whether such measures are implemented. For follow-up with candidates who have received offers, companies that conduct individual interviews through HR staff or recruiters tend to achieve hiring targets. The survey also found that companies meeting their hiring targets review each component of the selection process. Going forward, companies will need to pursue more sustainable hiring by improving the quality of recruitment activities within limited resources. The company hopes this survey will help inform future hiring strategies and HR measures. Executive summary: The main challenges in new graduate hiring are securing planned headcount and reducing HR workload. The average selection process has 4.1 steps, and interviews emphasize personality, fit with the company, and retention potential. About 30% of companies have reviewed their selection process over the past three years and have felt some effect. New methods are spreading, but adoption remains limited. Structured interviews have been introduced by only about one quarter of companies, with operational burden in the field acting as a barrier. AI interviews are gradually being adopted, but full integration into selection processes remains limited. Hiring fulfillment is driven not only by company size but also by quality and individualized response. Fulfillment varies even among companies of the same size. Companies that meet their targets review and continuously improve each component of the selection process. Attract measures are influenced more by quality than by mere implementation. In follow-up with candidates who have received offers, individualized responses by HR staff and recruiters are key to preventing declined offers. Researcher Yohei Matsumoto commented that new graduate hiring has long been understood as a process in which students choose companies during application and companies choose students during selection. Recently, however, hiring difficulties have made it necessary for companies to devise ways to be chosen by students even within the selection process. AI interviews are also spreading rapidly. The selection process for new graduate hiring is facing unprecedented change, making it important to understand the latest situation. This survey explores current selection processes and approaches them from the perspective of their impact on hiring fulfillment. Manager Kaori Watanabe commented that the survey confirms new graduate hiring fulfillment is not uniformly determined by conditions such as company size. Companies that meet their hiring targets appear to treat selection and follow-up as a connected process and make deliberate decisions about resource allocation and operations for each measure. Differences among companies of the same size suggest that process design and operational differences may influence results. Interviews emphasize personality, company fit, and retention. In attract measures and follow-up with candidates who have received offers, companies that provide individualized responses tend to meet hiring targets. These findings suggest that the selection process functions not only as an evaluation opportunity but also as a place for mutual understanding and relationship building with students. Meanwhile, structured interviews, which are considered effective in improving evaluation quality, have limited adoption. The results suggest that understanding and ease of operation in the field are challenges. AI interviews are increasingly being introduced or considered, but only a minority of companies currently incorporate and use them within the selection process. In future new graduate hiring, companies will need to determine where to improve evaluation accuracy and where human involvement adds value, while reviewing the overall selection and follow-up process within limited resources. Survey results: Hiring challenges center on securing planned headcount and reducing HR burden. The top issues are failure to meet planned hiring numbers, insufficient applicants, and heavy HR workload, indicating that quantitative hiring and workload reduction are the main challenges. By contrast, fewer companies cite difficulty obtaining cooperation from business units or selection process efficiency as issues. At present, companies appear to prioritize securing headcount and reducing HR burden, with hiring activities driven by the need to meet quantitative targets. The average new graduate selection process has 4.1 steps, and the number of steps increases with company size. Selection methods combine document screening, aptitude tests, group discussions, and multiple individual interviews. Individual interviews carry particularly high weight, with many companies setting up several evaluation opportunities. Larger companies tend to create more selection opportunities and evaluate candidates from multiple angles. However, more selection steps may also increase the risk of candidate drop-off, making balance in process design important. Interviews emphasize personality and fit with the company. The top traits evaluated include communication skills, cooperativeness, responsibility, and sincerity, showing emphasis on interpersonal qualities and character. Beyond personality, companies evaluate motivation to join, fit with organizational culture, intention to stay long term, and understanding of the business. Interviews therefore focus more on interpersonal ability and character than on logical thinking or vitality, with emphasis on whether candidates can work well within the organization and continue working at the company. Over the past three years, 35.4% of companies reviewed their selection process. The most common reason was hiring top talent, at 39.6%, followed by shortening the selection process and improving yield during selection. Except for some reasons, companies that reviewed their processes reported effects at levels from the high 60% range to the high 70% range. Although process reviews are not implemented by most companies, those that do conduct them gain certain benefits in securing strong candidates and improving selection efficiency. Structured interviews have been introduced by only about one quarter of companies, with resistance in the field as a challenge. Structured interviews standardize questions and evaluation criteria and ask about applicants’ behavior; they are a method with evidence for improving evaluation accuracy. However, only 18.9% of companies have introduced them, or 26.4% including similar approaches, meaning about three quarters have not. Reasons for non-adoption include difficulty aligning evaluation criteria and levels, difficulty training interviewers, and difficulty clarifying evaluation perspectives. Some also report that interviewers feel the method is hard to use. Wider adoption of structured interviews will require not only introducing the method but also promoting interviewer understanding, training, and careful communication with the field. AI interviews are spreading, but full-scale use is limited. The overall adoption rate is 17.6%, while only 2.7% of companies have incorporated AI interviews into the selection process, so full-scale use remains limited. Companies considering AI interviews account for 24.7%, with larger companies more advanced in both adoption and consideration. Reasons for adoption include improving recruiter efficiency, reducing interviewer burden, and selecting candidates by fair standards. The most decisive factor is fair selection standards, indicating rising expectations not only for efficiency but also for improved evaluation quality. AI interviews are spreading, but at this stage they have not yet been fully integrated into selection processes, and companies are still considering how to position them in evaluation. Hiring fulfillment is not determined by company size alone. Among companies with fewer than 500 employees, the non-fulfillment rate is in the high 40% range, while among companies with 500 or more employees it is in the 30% range, showing some effect from scale. However, results vary within the same size category, suggesting that factors beyond company size have a significant influence. Companies that meet hiring targets review each component of the process. In addition to outcome indicators such as accepted offers and yield rates, these companies are more likely to conduct detailed reviews such as pass rates by interviewer, aggregated aptitude test results, and surveys of interviewers and recruiters. Companies that do not meet targets have relatively lower rates of such element-level reviews. To achieve hiring fulfillment, companies need to go beyond checking outcome indicators and repeatedly improve each component of the selection process. Attract measures, which engage applicants and raise their motivation to join, are influenced more by quality than by mere implementation. From the attract perspective, implementation rates are high for providing information through internships, following up with participants, and continuous information sharing by HR staff and recruiters.