2025
YOUR YEAR IN HIRING

Lessons from a Year of Assessment Data

From “you’re invited” to “done”

60%
40%
On average, 6 in 10 invited candidates engaged with the process and completed at least one assessment.
  • An early point of self-selection that ensures candidates who continue are motivated to engage.

Why this matters for TA leaders

Our clients are generating a very healthy top-of-funnel reach
A strong majority of engaged candidates followed through.
This is a sign that the process is attractive enough that when people start, they tend to commit. 
TIP: Sova’s new Modern Projects experience comes with built-in, pre-set messages that you can share with your candidates to give them a nudge and remind them they have been invited to complete the assessment. Speak to your CSM to discuss how you can personalise these touchpoints to increase the conversion rate.
Assessment Types

What candidates

actually did

on Sova

Assessment
blended / personality / cognitive
75%
Video Interviews
strategic second lens
20%
VAC
assessment centres & interviews
4%
Partner assessments
e.g. eSkill, language tests
0.5%

Most popular assessment types:

~9%
Cognitive-only
~9%
Personality-only
~55%
Blended assessments

What this says about our clients’
hiring strategy:

For most, blended assessments are default
TA teams are not relying on a single dimension. That means better decisions and fewer regrets.
Video as a second lens, not a first gate
For most, VI is used later in the funnel with a more engaged pool.
Assessment Centres are the final stage
Allocating recruiter time to a small, final shortlist.

Global reach

When the magic happened

Peak Hour: when the internet was basically just your candidates
That’s the moment when:
TA teams were juggling dashboards, hiring managers, and Slack messages.
Thousands of candidates were mid-assessment, wondering if they saw themselves more as a team player or as an independent worker.

Daily behavioural patterns

Weekdays
~13–14k
completions
Higher peaks
Tues/Weds
The power days for candidate activity
Friday afternoon
Everyone mentally off for the weekend already
Weekends
~10k
completions
Lower peaks but more evenly spread
Sunday 4pm
Steady ~10k completions
the “okay, I’ll be productive before Monday” crowd 

What this means for you:

Start the Week Strong
If your campaigns open or reminders go out early in the week, you’re perfectly aligned with candidate behaviour.
Be Ready When Activity Peaks
Support and comms should be staffed and ready around mid-week daytime – that’s when the hiring machine is busiest.

Device habits

Once upon a time, applying for jobs was a desktop-only affair. Not anymore.
While desktop remains dominant, mobile usage has grown from under 2% in 2019 to nearly a third of all applications today.

Candidate experience:

did they finish

what they started?

Once candidates start the assessment process, they tend to see it through.

Assessment completion rates

For every 100 candidates who start an assessment, 86 finish.
The biggest drop-off happens before candidates begin the experience, and that’s not a problem to solve.

It suggests early self-selection: people who are not interested or ready opt out quickly. Those who do start are engaged enough to continue, and the majority of them finish.
Who finished an assessment
Who did not finish an assessment
The average completion time is 19.8 minutes
(assessments only, excluding VAC)

Time On Task: respecting candidates’ time

Long enough to capture meaningful data. Short enough that candidates don’t feel like they’re doing a second job.
For TA leaders, this helps when:
• Justifying the process to HRBPs and hiring managers (“No, it’s not an hour-long psychometric marathon.”)
• Defending candidate experience: less than 20 minutes for an assessment is reasonable when compared with typical application and screening time expectations.

Efficiency & time savings


In a traditional hiring process, each candidate would typically require around 30 minutes of manual effort, including CV review and an initial screening call, before being progressed.

Applied to the number of candidates who completed at least one Sova assessment, that’s:
12,446,625
minutes of manual screening saved
that’s
207,444
hours of recruiter effort saved
or around
200
 full-time recruiter-years
Yes, more than two centuries of manual screening time no longer required.

This is intentionally conservative. It reflects only early-stage manual screening and excludes scheduling, no-shows, follow-ups, interviews, or assessment centres, meaning the real time burden would be significantly higher.

Video: Seeing the Humans Behind the Data

What this means

More Than Datapoints
Sova clients use video interviews provide human context at scale, complementing structured assessment data.
Structure at Scale
The volume is high enough that without structure and technology, this would be impossible for TA teams to manage.
The takeaway

When we look at the whole Sova community together, a clear picture emerges

Most candidates who start an assessment go on to finish it

Thousands of TA teams invited millions of candidates.

Of those who started an assessment, 86% went on to complete it. This completion rate reflects an assessment experience that places a reasonable demand on candidates’ time and is perceived as fair.

We're buying back recruiter time, at scale

Even with a conservative assumption of around 30 minutes of manual screening per candidate (including CV review and an initial screening call), Sova clients collectively avoided the equivalent of around 200 full-time recruiter-years of early-stage screening.

This is a significant amount of time that teams can reinvest in higher-value hiring activity.

... and TA teams are spending time where it matters

Instead of spreading time thinly across large volumes of early applications, hiring teams are able to reserve attention for fewer, more suitable candidates.

This is where interviews become more meaningful, recruiters can work more closely with hiring managers, and final decisions are more confidently supported by evidence.

Thank you to our customers and partners for the care and effort you put into hiring. We’re proud to support you.

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