The Readiness Reset: The State of Early-Talent Hiring in 2026

Early-talent hiring hasn’t slowed, but confidence has.

Employers aren’t struggling to attract candidates. They’re struggling to trust the signals used to evaluate them.

Application volume has surged as one-click application tools and AI-assisted résumés make it easy to apply at scale. For recruiting teams already stretched thin, that volume obscures what matters most: who actually understands the work, who is prepared to do it, and who is serious about the role.

In response, leading organizations are redefining readiness. Instead of relying on hiring signals such as GPA or résumé polish, they’re looking for earlier evidence that candidates can apply relevant skills in real workplace scenarios.

This shift marks a fundamental change in how early talent is assessed.

What’s driving the readiness reset:

Several changes in the hiring environment have made familiar early-career signals less useful and more risky.

Recruiter capacity has reduced.

Talent acquisition teams are leaner than they were just a few years ago. Benchmarks show the average recruiting team shrank from 31 recruiters in 2022 to 24 in 2024, even as hiring expectations remained high. With fewer hands managing more volume, teams have less room for uncertainty or rework later in the process.

Traditional indicators have lost credibility.

GPA, school prestige, and résumé keywords are increasingly viewed as weak predictors of on-the-job success. Only about 22 percent of employers say GPA reliably signals potential workplace performance, largely because these markers reveal little about how candidates communicate, prioritize, or solve problems in real roles, which are precisely the skills employers need to assess with confidence.

Readiness gaps are showing up earlier—and more clearly.

Employers consistently report gaps in communication, professionalism, and applied skills among early-career hires. More than 60 percent say new hires require more on-the-job training than expected, slowing productivity and increasing the risk of early attrition.

Together, these trends point to the same conclusion: The signals most hiring teams rely on today don’t provide enough confidence when it matters most.

Why weak signals create fragile hiring funnels

When early screening fails to reveal true preparedness or intent, i.e., readiness, the consequences are compounded: Candidates advance based on application strength rather than demonstrated capability. Recruiters don’t see genuine understanding or intent until late-stage interviews. Misalignment emerges after offers are extended or onboarding begins, at a point when reversing course is expensive and disruptive.

This creates a familiar but inefficient pattern. Recruiters and hiring managers are forced to do their most critical evaluation work at the very end of the process, under time pressure and with limited flexibility to change direction. Offers carry more uncertainty. Onboarding begins with unanswered questions about fit and readiness.

Candidates feel this instability as well. Without early exposure to the realities of the work, some move forward without fully understanding the role. Others opt out late, after interviews or offers, once expectations finally come into focus.

The process may appear efficient on paper, but in practice it is brittle—easy to enter, difficult to correct, and costly when alignment breaks down.

Readiness as the signal that holds

In this environment, readiness has emerged as the most practical and predictive hiring signal.

Readiness shifts hiring from assumption to evidence. It reveals whether or not candidates understand the work, can apply relevant skills, and are prepared to succeed—before  decisions are locked into place following interviews and offers.

Data from Forage supports this shift from assumption to evidence. Candidates who complete realistic, role-specific experiences are four times more likely to receive and accept an offer. Eighty-five percent say they’re more likely to apply after completing a realistic preview of the work. These outcomes reflect alignment, not persuasion.

Early visibility into readiness benefits both sides. Candidates gain clarity about expectations and self-select accordingly. Hiring teams evaluate preparedness sooner, reducing late-stage surprises and decision risk.

The result is a hiring process built on evidence rather than guesswork.

What the readiness reset makes possible

The readiness reset isn’t about adding friction to early-talent hiring. It’s about placing confidence in a candidate’s readiness earlier in the process—when it’s most important.

In 2026, the advantage in early-talent hiring isn’t speed alone. It’s knowing who is prepared to fill the role before final decisions are made.

Organizations adapting to this reality are not screening harder; they are learning earlier. They use realistic, role-specific experiences to surface readiness before interviews begin. This enables recruiters to spend less time guessing and enables hiring managers to evaluate candidates with clearer supporting evidence. Candidates enter the process with a grounded understanding of what success requires.

Forage helps employers make this shift practical at scale. Through company-branded, day-in-the-life job simulations, teams gain early, objective insight into how candidates approach real work, while candidates opt in to roles they are genuinely prepared to pursue.

The result is a more stable hiring process: clearer signals, fewer post-hire surprises, and stronger early-career outcomes for employers and candidates alike.

In a market where application volume is unavoidable and confidence is hard-won, readiness is the signal that holds, and Forage is the way that many leading organizations are successfully identifying their candidates’ readiness.