Employers Still Hire Off the Resume, but Trust in What Candidates Claim Is Falling
Sign Up For Daily Job Market News
The resume is still the most-used hiring tool, with 77.8% of organizations relying on it, according to eSkill’s 2026-27 Hiring Signals Report. Only 37.9% of employers rate resumes as extremely or very good at predicting job performance, and 52.0% name the resume as the hiring tool most likely to be exaggerated or misleading. eSkill surveyed 1,056 U.S. HR professionals in August 2026, all at companies with at least 250 employees and involved in hiring.
eSkill sells pre-hire skills tests, and its report says plainly that the company is biased toward skills validation. Keep that in mind with every number below.
Trust in what candidates say about themselves is falling. Nearly half, 47.9%, trust candidate information less than they did 2 years ago, while 15.0% trust it more. At companies with 5,000 or more employees, 61.2% trust it less. And 78.8% are at least somewhat worried about candidates using AI to misrepresent their skills, with resumes the top worry at 54.4%.
More applications are not producing better candidates. About 56.6% of HR professionals say applications per opening went up over the past year, and 52.2% say their teams spend more time screening. Only 27.4% say the share of qualified applicants improved, 31.6% say it got worse, and 40.9% say it stayed the same.
Skills testing is the response. 63.7% say AI has made them more likely to use formal skills tests, and 58.2% expect to use them more over the next 12 months. Skills tests scored best on predicting performance, at 62.4%. The barriers are real, though. The biggest are slowing down hiring (29.5%), candidates dropping out when steps are added (24.9%), and cost (22.3%).
The number I’d put in front of every hiring manager is the gap between 77.8% and 37.9%. Most companies screen with a document they don’t believe predicts performance, and AI has made that document the easiest part of an application to polish. eSkill’s own page adds a second clue. 52.4% of respondents rate work samples and simulations as extremely or very predictive, yet only 19.1% say their organizations use them.
Read the results by role type, because the sample leans toward manufacturing (30.0%) and frontline or high-volume hiring (36.1%), with only 21.2% hiring professional or knowledge roles. Clinical hiring trusts license checks most (64.5%), while professional and knowledge hiring trusts structured interviews (50.9%).
My advice is to add one short, role-specific check of the actual work early in the process instead of piling on extra rounds. If a test slows you down or drives good people out of your process, you’ve traded one problem for another. Recruiters have a job here too. When a recruiter has talked to a candidate and checked the claims that matter for the role before a hiring manager sees them, the resume stops being the only evidence on the table. If you want help vetting candidates before they reach your team, talk to us about hiring.
Staffing your team doesn’t have to be hard.
Reach out and see how we can help.
Jobless Claims Rose 9,000 to 200,000, but 249,000 Fewer People Are Collecting Benefits Than a Year Ago
The U.S. Department of Labor reported that 200,000 people filed first-time unemployment claims in the week ending November 7. The number rose 9,000 from the week before, which was revised up to 191,000 from 189,000, and it compares with 228,000 a year ago.
The 4-week average, which smooths out weekly bumps, held at 195,250. It ties last week for the lowest in the release’s 12-month table, which goes back to November 2025.
Continuing claims fell 20,000 to 1,697,000 for the week ending October 31, down from 1,946,000 a year earlier. By my math, that is about 249,000 fewer people collecting benefits. The insured unemployment rate stayed at 1.1%, down from 1.3% a year ago.
Before seasonal adjustment, claims rose 16.2% to 206,982, while the government’s seasonal model expected an 11.0% increase for early November. The raw number came in a little hotter than normal, which explains the 9,000 bump in the adjusted figure.
A 9,000 jump will get some headlines today, and I’d ignore it. The 4-week average didn’t move, and every week from November 1, 2025 through April 18, 2026 came in above 200,000. The number I’d watch is continuing claims. Fewer people collecting benefits tells me employers are still holding on to the people they have and most of the people who do get let go are landing somewhere. Some of that drop could also be people running out of benefits, and the weekly numbers can’t separate the two.
State rates are unadjusted and a week behind, covering the week ending October 24. New Jersey had the highest insured unemployment rate at 2.0%, followed by Washington at 1.9%, Massachusetts at 1.8%, and California at 1.7%. Florida came in at 0.3%, tied with Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina, and North Dakota, and South Dakota was lowest at 0.2%. Florida’s initial claims fell by 722 in the week ending October 31, the fourth-largest state decline behind New York, Texas, and Kentucky.
If you’re hiring, low layoffs mean the people you want already have jobs. Few strong candidates are sitting on unemployment waiting for a call, so plan on recruiting people who are employed and need a real reason to move. Florida employers face the same math, since the pool collecting benefits is about as small as it gets anywhere, and our staffing services can help you reach people who already have jobs.
69% of Workers Report Being Undermined at Work, and Layoff Fear Is Making Teams Less Helpful
Resume Builder surveyed 1,014 employed U.S. adults in October 2026, and Stacie Haller, its chief career advisor, wrote up the results on November 10. Of them, 69% said they dealt with at least one form of undermining at work in the past year, and 77% think backstabbing or intentional undermining is at least somewhat common.
The most common forms were getting blamed for a mistake (30%), someone drawing unnecessary attention to their mistakes (26%), and gossip or rumors (22%). Another 21% had information withheld from them, 21% were left out of conversations or decisions, and 19% had someone take credit for their work.
Some of it goes further. 62% believe or suspect someone tried to push them out of their job, including 16% who say it’s happening right now. When workers named a suspect, a coworker on their own team came up most often (37%), followed by their direct manager (19%). Workers think people do it mostly for credit or recognition (37%) and to protect their own jobs (37%), followed by improving their chances at a promotion (34%).
Layoff fears are part of the picture. When asked how anxiety over layoffs or job security has affected workplace relationships, 24% said people are less willing to help each other, 22% said people are quicker to blame each other, and 21% said people are less trusting. If layoffs threatened their own job, 35% say they’d be likely to call out a coworker’s mistakes.
I’d treat the layoff numbers as the real story. When 37% think coworkers undermine each other to protect their jobs and 24% see people less willing to help, layoff fear is hurting how teams work together, and most companies never measure it.
The headline number deserves some caution. The article never defines backstabbing, and “undermining” in this survey includes being blamed for a mistake or having your errors pointed out. Some of that is ordinary accountability, and the person on the receiving end won’t always see it that way. The 69% covers the past year, while the 62% figure includes anything in the past plus suspicions. The options also add up to more than 100%, so respondents likely picked more than one, and the article does not say whether all 1,014 answered the layoff question. Resume Builder offers resume-building tools and career advice, so it has a stake in the story that workers are thinking about their next move.
For managers, the fix is mostly visibility. Credit and blame stick to the wrong people when nobody can see who did the work, so make ownership of projects clear and say out loud who did what. If you suspect you’re being pushed out, keep your own record of your work and results and keep your resume current. With 16% saying it’s happening right now, a lot of people should be quietly preparing for their next move, and they can see what’s open right now.
