ISE got together with early careers experts including those from A&O Shearman and Coca-Cola Europe to find out how they’re managing unprecedented volumes of applications including the consideration for quality and candidate experience.
Fewer vacancies, AI-powered applications, and widened entry criteria have created a perfect storm, resulting in a surge in job applications that has remained at historic highs for the past two years.
ISE’s Student Recruitment Survey shows that the number of graduate applications have risen from 38 per vacancy two decades ago to 86 ten-years-on. They now sit at 140 per vacancy, with a 14% increase in the last year alone.
Some sectors have been hit harder than others. Retail, FMCG and tourism roles attracted 290 applications per graduate vacancy last year, and many employers cannot keep pace.
Last year Coca-Cola Europe received more than 20,000 applications for 42 internships and 9,000 applications for six graduate roles. Around a third of their total applications came from the UK, with the highest volume of interest coming through the marketing function.
“We've seen a huge spike in volume despite the short amount of time we've been running our schemes,” said Jake Bustos, Director of Early Careers and Employer Brand. “In 2024 our pilot programmes received over 14,000 applications for 39 vacancies in a four-week window. Last year those numbers doubled.”
Time for a rethink
To cope, employers are redesigning processes and rethinking tactics. Jake explained, “When you're reviewing thousands of applications, you cannot just rely on instinct, you have to look at the design of your processes.
“We’ve had to become more deliberate. You need clear success profiles, structured criteria and a shared understanding of what to assess when looking for potential in an early career context. We are now more intentional on what we assess at each stage and why. We're focusing more on clarity of criteria and consistency in screening profiles.”
Attraction strategies are also under the microscope. Balancing mass media with a more targeted approach is key. “Our objective is to be more targeted. Instead of driving volume, we want to focus on quality, but it’s about striking a balance. We have wide brand awareness through a careers website while investing heavily in more targeted strategic university partnerships,” said Jake.
Meanwhile Barbara Menhart, Senior Manager of Early Careers Recruitment at A&O Shearman, described the need for an approach that is both balanced and transparent, “Regardless of the high application volumes, we still believe in investing in attraction to ensure we build our brand and are able to reach students who may not have considered a career in law or have the same access to resources. We offer students a blend of opportunities to meet us, whether that's in person at careers fairs, through virtual interactions, or by working with partners to ensure our message reaches the right students.
“We want candidates to make informed decisions, so we set them up for success by being transparent about what we’re looking for and our expectations in terms of culture and working hours. Through transparency and honesty, we hope to make it easier for students to self-select out of the process. If they don’t have the academics or aren’t prepared to work late, some of our programmes won’t be right for them.”
Self-selection, where candidates can screen themselves in or out before reaching application stage, is also being used by British Airways to help reduce application volume. Connectr explained how IntentSignals is enabling employers to be honest about the role while encouraging self-reflection. The results have reduced poor-fit candidates without any adverse impact on diversity.
Shorter windows, tighter criteria
Employers are also using shorter application windows and sharper eligibility criteria to control volume.
Coca-Cola now opens application windows for two to three weeks instead of four and Lindsay Rowe, who has worked in early careers for nearly 10 years, is an advocate for this approach. “Despite the belief that AI is being used to sieve applications, many employers use humans to screen. Closing some streams early can be advantageous if you don’t have the manpower to be able to go through the sheer volume of applications. This can be understandably frustrating for some students, but employers need to be able to manage it from their side as well.”
Barbara added, “This really is a tough situation, so we’ve shortened our recruitment windows to run prior to Christmas. We also retained quite tough academic requirements. We absolutely focus on skills and consider contextual information, but strong academics have helped us to target a pool of candidates that we know we want to engage with.
“We used to have quite broad eligibility criteria for our vacation schemes, but last year we pivoted to be more strategic in terms of when we need our candidates. Our winter scheme is now only applicable to final year students and our summer vacation scheme is only for penultimate year students. Our Training Contract pathway is for graduates and beyond. This really helped us to manage some of the volumes.”
These strategies also come with risk and there is particular concern around the impact on diversity. “I’m always really mindful that closing early can have EDI implications and employers generally want to avoid adversely impacting any protected characteristics. It’s important to monitor that and keep streams open if you spot anything detrimental,” said Lindsay.
A&O Shearman is also ensuring processes remain fair and inclusive. Barbara added, “We have been working with an external provider for a long time to monitor adverse impact on our first stage assessment process. This has enabled us to safely nudge cut scores a little bit higher at that first stage without creating unfair bias, because our data shows it won't negatively affect protected groups.
“We have a lot of trust in our first stage process, as we've found clear correlations between high scores at that stage and success later in the process. Having strong data has really helped us make these informed decisions with confidence and manage the volumes that progress to the screening stage.”
A question of quality
AI is also reshaping candidate behaviour. Prospects at Jisc reported significant AI use with a quarter of early talent using it to apply for as many jobs as possible and 27% had applied to more than 50 roles. Yet ISE data shows 39% of employers oppose AI use and almost half provide no guidance. The result is a flood of generic, AI‑generated applications and employers are concerned about quality. “We get a high volume of applications and a lot of them just don't meet the quality that we're looking for because students aren't really making a huge amount of effort,” said Barbara.
Employers agreed that personalisation is important. “High volume is a signal that the brand is attractive, but there comes a point where they don’t necessarily add quality and it becomes harder to see the human behind every application. It’s super important that your real voice comes through,” Jake explained. “A slightly imperfect CV that clearly reflects the person always beats a perfectly polished AI generated version that could belong to anyone.”
“Clarity on differentiation is important too. We need to educate students about the importance of being clear about the value they bring to a role – not just listing everything they've done. When they're able to showcase their unique combination of strengths and focus on key skills and relevant experiences, it really helps them to stand out.”
Barbara reiterated, “Individuality needs to shine through. We look for work experience and lots of applicants just list their responsibilities and skills. The ones that really stand out are able to link skills and interests to the role. We also look for applicants who have met us or made the effort to engage with us before. That makes a huge difference to the generic applications that we see.”
University careers teams play a really important role in creating safe spaces where students can learn practical frameworks for AI assisted applications that authentically reflect the candidate. Employers also need to be clear about what’s required. “It’s important to get guidance out there as much as possible. We've done quite a lot of careers fairs and recruiter insight sessions, so that everyone can have access to the same information,” said Barbara.
Candidate experience at risk
Last year ISE members handled over 1.8 million applications to recruit more than 31,000 students, generating millions of rejection messages. The volume is putting candidate experience under severe strain. Transparency, feedback and good management of the rejection process are essential for protecting the employer brand.
Barbara explained, “We’re mindful that it is a really disheartening experience for some students when they're getting lots of rejections. We’ve made a lot of effort to take care of those students. We can't offer tailored advice to every rejected candidate, so we've included unsuccessful stories that have turned around and tips on how to improve your application in our comms and career guide.
“We found that shortening our recruitment window improved the candidate experience as rolling recruitment wasn't really working for us - some candidates got really early slots and waited a long time while others left it late and missed interview slots.”
At The Coca-Cola Company, candidate experience is grounded in clarity, care and accountability. “We commit to transparent communication throughout the process, particularly during high-volume hiring cycles. Candidates can track their status in real time through our careers portal, and we aim to provide screening outcomes within three weeks of the application deadline,” said Jake.
“For those progressing, we take a deliberate and supportive approach. Candidates receive structured preparation guidance, business context, and clear expectations to help them succeed. Final-stage candidates are provided with meaningful, constructive feedback, regardless of outcome. Our ambition is that every candidate walks away with value - a stronger understanding of our business, exposure to our people, and greater confidence for their future opportunities.”
It's a challenging time to be a recruiter, but employers are finding that targeted attraction, smarter processes and transparent communication can ease the pressure. ISE will continue to support the sector by enabling the sharing of challenges, solutions and best practice.