It’s Not a Talent Shortage — It’s a Clarity Shortage in Hiring and Assessment

She spent 11 months looking for a new job.

Forty‑two interviews. Hundreds of résumé sends. A marathon of “we’ve decided to move forward with other candidates.”

 

She finally landed an offer.

And then—weeks later—she shocked herself and her company. She quit. Today’s job market is brutal, yes. But it's also…weird. On one side, candidates in many industries and roles are stuck in near record-long unemployment stretches. On the other, new‑hire retention is collapsing:  data shows 15% of people who started a job in 2025 were gone within 90 days—up from just 6% the year before.

 

When the world feels unstable, people take “step jobs." These are roles they’re not thrilled about, but will accept because silence from the job market is louder than their preferences. And once something better—or simply closer to their intended career path—comes along, they bounce. But the bigger story isn’t about flaky candidates. It’s about organizations unintentionally setting people up to leave.

 

 

The recipes vary, but the ingredients are familiar: unstable strategies, fuzzy expectations, approved headcounts that are suddenly frozen or cut, shifting policies for flexibility, and roles that start to look different from what was shared during the candidate experience.

 

New hires accepted an offer based on the 'marketing version' of the job, only to be startled by the day‑to‑day reality.  When we're hired into Plan A, but the company quietly pivots to Plan C, the honeymoon ends fast — and the honeymoon hangover begins.

 

It’s not a motivation problem—it’s a mismatch problem. And here’s the kicker:
we're speeding up hiring cycles to 'get talent in the door' but skipping the clarity work:

 

• the role definition
• the competencies
• the cultural expectations
• and the structured assessments that ensure true fit

Taking shortcuts in hiring drives higher turnover (this isn't new).
But it's worth saying differently: if you hire fast but not clearly, you’re building a revolving door.

 

Here’s the good news:
Once people get through those first 90 days, the story flips—first‑year turnover drops dramatically (to as low as 12 percent using 2025 data).

Retention is possible. We just struggle to create the conditions for it.

 

So what helps?

 

Start with the hiring process. Use realistic job previews—self-assessments, videos, day‑in‑the‑life shift follows or shadows, and specific scenarios. Show the real work, schedule, and pressure points. If the culture is intense, name it and illustrate it. If the pace is chaotic, describe how that looks in a typical week. Define and share the few non‑negotiable behaviors required to thrive, and bake them into your job posting, interviews, and assessments. If you can’t do that, the role isn’t ready to hire for—and candidates will feel that fuzziness in the first 90 days.

 

Then, assess for potential to thrive in that real environment, not an idealized one. Use validated, evidence-based assessments and a structured behavioral interview process to evaluate how candidates have navigated similar pace, pressure, and expectations in the past. Ask for specific examples of handling back-to-back rushes, coaching underperformers, enforcing (or living up to) standards when it’s unpopular, or stepping up when staffing is tight. Anchor your questions and assessment tools to the few culture‑ and role‑critical competencies that actually predict retention and performance: resilience, coachability, accountability, and how they show care for your customers, business, and team members when things get messy.

 

 

 

 

 

When strategies shift, bring new hires into the conversation, not just along for the ride (remember, you did hire them for their skill, ability, and potential). Silence invites interpretation, and interpretation rarely goes the company’s way. Cross-industry research finds that organizations with meaningful, frequent, and expected communication practices are about four times more likely to financially outperform competitors.

For new hires, this doesn’t require glossy town halls—it requires simple, predictable rhythms. Give every new team member a standing one‑on‑one with their manager during the first 90 days, even if it’s just 15 minutes before or after a shift, focused on three questions:

1. What’s going well?

2. What’s unclear?

3. What do you need from me?

Use pre‑shift huddles (or similar moments that work with your operations) and weekly updates to connect the dots between “here’s what’s changing” and “here’s what this means for your role this week.”

Equip managers with short talking points or scripts so they can deliver consistent messages across departments and locations, and make it clear who owns which pieces of communication—so questions don’t disappear into the void. Finally, close the loop by circling back on concerns raised, even if the answer is “not yet.” Consistent, transparent follow‑through is what turns communication from noise into trust.

 

 

People join for purpose, belonging, and momentum. Audit your messaging. Review everything from job postings and interviews to communication templates and onboarding. How well does it illustrate the actual day-to-day? Where there’s a gap, either adjust the promise (i.e., your employee experience) or fix the candidate experience. Support managers with the language and tools to describe the culture honestly. Share real stories from current team members, and make sure the first projects and schedules new hires receive reflect what you sold. When the culture they enter doesn’t match the one described, they don’t wait three months to correct the mismatch—they leave.

 

Build confidence in your updates by tracking key metrics, leading and lagging indicators, you expect the changes to influence. New 90 day mentoring program? How is that influencing training, learning, cross-training, and even new hire engagement?

 

 

Not with fancy swag boxes (although cement a solid first day impression), but with:

 

It’s a signal of how much work today’s workforce needs around clarity, connection, and culture.
And the companies willing to do that work—really do it—are the ones who will keep their people, even in the weirdest talent market we’ve ever seen.