Where Our Numbers Come From

We publish a lot of numbers on this site. Percentages about applicant tracking systems, how quickly recruiters decide, how many candidates use AI. Those figures shape the advice we give, so you are entitled to know where each one comes from.

This page lists every statistic used across the CV Hub, names the study behind it, and gives the date we last checked it. It also documents one figure we published and have since removed, along with the reason.

How Many UK Employers Screen CVs With Software

Our main figure is 71%. That comes from the CV Genius UK Recruitment Trends Survey 2024, which polled 625 hiring managers across the UK and Ireland through Pollfish in April 2024. Respondents had to have been actively involved in hiring in the previous year, and the methodology is published alongside the results.

Asked how often they use an applicant tracking system to screen CVs before personally reviewing them, 41% said frequently and 30% said for certain roles. Combined, that is 71%. A further 16% said rarely and 13% said never.

The same survey gives the sector breakdown we quote elsewhere: 93% of hiring managers working in recruitment use an ATS frequently or for certain roles, alongside 83% in business and finance. At the other end, roughly half of those in law, construction and government services rarely or never use one.

It also found that ATS use rises with employer size, and that 57% of hiring managers say they are likely to invite a candidate to interview within a week of applying.

The Wider Employer Picture

Where we refer to more than 90% of employers filtering or ranking candidates with software, the source is Hidden Workers: Untapped Talent, published by Harvard Business School and Accenture in September 2021 and written by Joseph Fuller and Manjari Raman.

That study surveyed executives in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. Of those surveyed, 94% said they use a recruitment management system to filter or rank middle-skills candidates, and 92% said the same for high-skills roles. The report also found that 88% of employers believe qualified candidates are being screened out by their own systems.

Two caveats we think matter. The sample skews towards larger employers that already run such systems, so it should be read as describing surveyed employers rather than every business in the country. And the fieldwork is from 2021, which makes it the oldest source we rely on.

Candidates and AI

For how many UK job seekers use AI, we cite Beamery’s Talent Index, which found that 46% use some form of AI in their job search, including tools that draft all or part of a CV.

On disclosure, we cite TotalJobs research finding that around three quarters of UK adults think AI use in a hiring process should be fully disclosed to candidates, and that 80% are opposed to AI making the final hiring decision. Both figures are compiled with their original sources in StandOut CV’s AI in recruitment statistics.

We use these to make a narrow point: AI-assisted applications are now common, so the differentiator is no longer whether you used AI but whether the output still sounds like you. That is the argument in making an AI-written CV sound like you.

The Statistic We Removed

Until recently, several articles on this site repeated a claim you will have seen everywhere: that 75% of CVs are rejected by an ATS before a human sees them. We have removed it.

The figure appears to originate in a 2012 marketing claim by Preptel, a CV optimisation company that ceased trading in 2013. No methodology, sample size or published study has ever been produced to support it. It has since been repeated so widely, including by careers services and national publications, that it reads as established fact.

Recent work points the other way. Research summarised by The Interview Guys and reported in HR.com found that the large majority of recruiters interviewed say their ATS does not automatically reject applications. Filters are used to rank and prioritise, and the main reason a CV goes unread is application volume rather than an algorithm binning it.

Some earlier versions of our articles also attached corroborating attributions to named UK recruiters that we could not substantiate on review. Those have been removed too. We would rather correct the record openly than quietly edit and say nothing.

What We Will Not Publish

Three things, as a standing commitment.

• No statistic without a linked, dated source. If we cannot point you to the study, the claim does not appear.
• No outcome claims we cannot evidence. Zappli is pre-launch. We will tell you what the product does, not what it will get you.
• No borrowed authority. We will not attach a recognisable name to a figure that organisation did not publish.

If you spot something on this site that does not hold up, tell us at hello@zappli.co.uk and we will correct it and note the change here.

A Faster Way

Reading the research yourself is the most reliable way to understand what happens to your CV, and the sources above are all freely available if you want the detail.

Zappli’s free tier scores your CV against the things these studies actually measure, parsing, structure and language match, and names what is failing.

That costs nothing and needs no account. The free allowance also covers three CVs and three job matches, and it is a lifetime one rather than a trial, so it shows you what the tool does instead of running a countdown.

If you want more than that, passes are one off and priced by length. £9.99 for seven days and up to 25 applications, £24.99 for thirty days and up to 100, or £49.99 for ninety days and up to 250. One payment only, never auto-charged, and nothing to cancel. Zappli is paid by candidates, never by employers.

Zappli is paid for by candidates, never by employers, which is the same reason we would rather lose a persuasive statistic than keep one we cannot stand behind. If a free diagnosis sounds more useful than a number you cannot verify, pick whichever of these is closest to where you are.