Early talent in peril: What the data reveals about the future of entry-level hiring

SAP SuccessFactors has published new research, Early Talent in Peril, examining the state of early talent hiring and what HR leaders can do to respond. The report combines SAP SuccessFactors insights with a global survey of more than 1,700 early talent workers and job seekers, interviews with HR leaders, and supporting data contributions from Findem and SmartRecruiters, an SAP company.

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Findem contributed proprietary data on early-career talent pipelines, entry-level hiring trends, and workforce mobility patterns, drawn from our analysis of more than 850 million professional profiles. 

Entry-level hiring has contracted sharply

The early talent job market has been tightening for several years, but the pace of contraction has accelerated. Across the 10 most common entry-level job titles, open roles declined 35% in a single year, from 2024 to 2025. Since 2021, the share of new graduates securing employment within their graduation year has dropped by 10%.

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For candidates, the impact is significant. Early talent job seekers now spend an average of eight months searching for roles, submitting roughly 384 applications and dedicating more than 500 hours to the process before securing employment. Nearly three-quarters report substantial stress during their search.

Work-based learning is becoming a defining differentiator

One of the clearest signals is the growing importance of work-based learning experience among candidates who successfully find employment. Among new graduates who secured a job within their graduation year, the share with work-based learning backgrounds grew from 48% in 2021 to 58% in 2025. As entry-level roles become more competitive, applied experience is increasingly what separates candidates who break through from those who do not.

There is a gap between what HR says it prioritizes and who actually gets hired

The report surfaces a meaningful disconnect between stated hiring priorities and actual hiring outcomes. HR leaders consistently report prioritizing professional skills, citing adaptability, resilience, and collaboration as more enduring indicators of long-term success than technical depth. But Findem's analysis of employed versus unemployed early talent profiles tells a different story.

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Employed profiles demonstrate deeper technical specialization. For software engineering roles, for example, employed candidates show notably higher rates of Python, SQL, and data analysis skills compared to their unemployed counterparts. Unemployed profiles, by contrast, show higher prevalence of generalized soft skills and basic workplace competencies such as communication, leadership, and Microsoft 365.

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Professional skills remain essential, but in today’s high-volume market where applicants per early talent opening have doubled since 2021, they've become a baseline expectation rather than a differentiator. The candidates who stand out are the ones with demonstrable technical capability. The ability to identify longer-term potential early, before candidates have had the opportunity to build an extensive track record, requires better signal detection than most organizations currently have.

The strategic case for investing in early talent is stronger than ever

The report makes clear that the risks of underinvesting in early talent extend well beyond near-term pipeline gaps. Early talent represents the most AI-native segment of the workforce, individuals who have grown up alongside AI tools and are already integrating them into how they learn, work, and solve problems. Organizations that reduce early talent investment now risk eroding future capability, AI fluency, and organizational resilience at precisely the moment those qualities matter most.

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At the same time, 1 in 3 HR leaders report having no way to measure or demonstrate the value of their early talent investments, which makes it difficult to build the internal case for sustained commitment. The report offers a framework for reframing the business case, shifting from traditional metrics like time to productivity toward measures that better capture the value early talent brings in an AI-enabled environment.

Read the full report

"Early Talent in Peril" is available now. The research offers a detailed look at the forces reshaping entry-level hiring and a set of practical recommendations for HR leaders navigating them.