Customer Service

Retail hiring facing urgent demand, hiring process challenging

Photo: Adobe Stock

September 24, 2025

There is an urgent demand to hire retail workers but the hiring process is full of challenges for brands.

Those are top findings in the "State of Frontline Hiring Report," released by talent acquisition software provider iCIMS.

Nearly all, 91%, of frontline hiring managers overwhelmingly state the need to hire is immediate.

Yet, most candidates never make it from application to interview. Six in 10 workers have abandoned an application because it was too lengthy or unclear, and nearly one-third of frontline hiring managers see the most drop-off at the interview stage, according to a press release.

"Frontline teams are the face of the customer experience, but too often they are stalled by outdated hiring processes," Trent Cotton, head of talent acquisition insights, iCIMS, said in the release. "This costs organizations critical talent at a time when speed and AI-powered technology are essential. Our report challenges talent leaders to rethink frontline hiring with urgency and strategy so they can fill critical roles faster and keep business moving."

Additional findings include:

• In the retail sector only 9% of retail workers always find a suitable job match, the lowest across industries. Despite high urgency from retail hiring managers (90%) and low no-show (12%), poor communication drives 22% of candidate drop-off and 51% want pay posted. With holiday hiring ahead, retailers risk losing talent with stronger job matching, transparent postings and faster replies
• Sixty-two percent of frontline hiring managers say quality of candidates is their biggest challenge, ahead of turnover (30%), no-shows (27%) and not enough applicants (24%). Yet only 17% of frontline workers say they "always" come across jobs that meet their needs.
• One-third of frontline hiring managers report candidate drop-off at the interview (32%), followed by scheduling (20%) onboarding (18%) and application (14%). On the worker side, 60% said they have started but not finished an application, citing that forms are too lengthy or time-consuming (50%), uncertainty about qualifications (35%) and lack of pay transparency (31%).
• Sixty-nine percent of frontline workers say employers always or sometimes ignore what candidates want in the hiring experience, emphasizing the need for hiring managers to provide role clarity and pay transparency, fewer steps, faster replies and manager authority to decide.
• With 68% of candidates abandoning applications and 26% skipping interviews, hospitality has the leakiest funnel. Hospitality hiring managers say the biggest issue is applicant quality (57%), but candidates want responsiveness (42%) and supportive teams (44%). Hospitality employers can prioritize improving candidate experience — not raising the bar — to capture quality talent.