Insights

At RippleMatch, we’ve always believed that opportunity should be based on what you can do, not where you went to school. That’s why we’re especially excited to share our new partnership and deeper integration with CodeSignal, which brings verified technical and professional skill certifications directly into the RippleMatch marketplace.

If you lead early-career hiring, you’re probably bracing for tougher conversations with your CFO. In most industries, hiring targets are getting smaller, budgets are tightening, and the instinct might be to scale back entry-level hiring. After all, if AI is automating more of the “starter” work, do you still need as many junior hires?

Three years ago, I chose to join RippleMatch because I felt an immediate connection to its mission of expanding access to opportunity. I saw a product and a team with the potential to fundamentally change how hiring works in today’s world, making it fairer, faster, smarter, and more human. My own journey began in another country at a school few people here had ever heard of, so joining the leadership team of a New York-based tech startup felt like a major milestone in my career. I had worked hard to get to that point, but I also had quite a bit of luck along the way. I was fortunate enough to cross paths with some amazing people who helped me push my career and life forward in ways I never thought were possible. To me, RippleMatch has always felt like a way to pass some of that luck forward and help others access the kind of opportunity that changed my own life.

Resumes have long been the cornerstone of recruiting. The assumed starting point of every candidate evaluation. But in 2025, that foundation is collapsing. With the rise of generative AI, we’re entering a new era of recruiting: one where application volume is exploding, polish is effortless, and every candidate looks good on paper. It’s no longer just hard to find top talent , it’s hard to tell what “top talent” even looks like anymore.

In today’s fast-moving campus recruitment landscape, it can be difficult to think beyond the next month—let alone plan for next year. But if you want to ensure you have a continuous pipeline of top talent, investing in Early ID programs is essential. In fact, RippleMatch data finds that 60% of candidates say they go directly to a company's career page to check out available opportunities when searching for a job or internship. That means the early recognition you build early on can have a big impact in the kind of talent you can attract later on.

In today’s hiring landscape, securing an offer acceptance doesn’t mean your job is done. With 60% of Gen Z candidates continuing to passively search for roles after accepting an offer and a number of employers reporting that candidates are reneging on offers, employers must think strategically about how to reduce post-offer fallout—and it starts well before a candidate’s first day.

Every recruiter knows the frustration of a hard-to-fill role. Unlike high-demand positions where you’re choosing between dozens of qualified candidates, these roles either receive very few applicants or an overwhelming number of unqualified ones. Whether it’s a niche skill set, lack of candidate awareness, or low interest, the question remains the same: What do you do when you have a role you just can’t fill?

With return-to-office mandates in full swing, most new college graduates expect to relocate to the city where they’ve landed a full-time role. This aligns with Gen Z’s preference for in-person work, with 79% saying they hope to work in a hybrid structure, while only 7% prefer a fully remote role.

Do your current recruitment marketing strategies appeal to Gen Z candidates? With this generation constantly shifting their priorities and behaviors, its important to optimize and update for what appeals to this generation.