Across APAC, job seekers have embraced AI more quickly than anywhere else in the world. Nearly six in ten (59%) used AI tools in their most recent job search – above the global average of 52% – with India leading at 84%.

PeopleScout’s 2026 APAC Inside the Candidate Experience report – drawing on a survey of over 400 job seekers across India, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore and PeopleScout’s Candidate Experience Index, an objective audit of hiring processes across 20+ industries – reveals a region where the gap between candidate expectations and employer communication is widening fastest.

The loop nobody’s breaking

Our research revealed a concerning hiring loop: a self-reinforcing cycle that both employers and candidates are stuck in, and that only employers have the power to break.

Employers automate screening to manage rising application volumes. Candidates aren’t told how they’re being evaluated. They receive no feedback and no response on their application. They respond by investing less effort per application and using AI to apply to more jobs faster. CVs start to look similar. Genuine differentiation becomes harder to detect. So, employers lean into automation. The loop continues.

The data shows this loop is spinning fastest in APAC. The region has the highest candidate AI adoption, the highest number of candidates who suspect they’re being evaluated by AI and some of the most damaging ghosting statistics in the entire global study.

57% of APAC candidates believe employers are probably or definitely using AI to screen their applications – yet 66% say none of the employers they applied to mentioned AI at any point.

The ghosting problem is getting worse

Nearly seven in ten APAC candidates (67%) were ghosted in more than half their applications. In Singapore, that figure rises to nearly three-quarters. Just 8% say they were never ghosted at all.

The emotional consequences are significant: 63% of candidates felt frustrated or discouraged. In Singapore – where talent is scarce and alternatives are plentiful – 54% of ghosted candidates say they would not apply to that organisation again.

The commercial consequences are sharper still. In Australia, 50% of candidates with a negative experience said they stop purchasing from that company. For consumer-facing businesses, that makes ghosting a revenue risk, not just an HR concern.

What the Candidate Experience Index shows

The Candidate Experience Index, PeopleScout’s benchmark of employer hiring processes scored against 40 key indicators, confirms this picture. The Engagement stage – covering everything that happens after a candidate applies including acknowledgement, next steps, rejection communication, specific feedback – scores just 9 out of 100. In 2023, it scored 24.

The 67% ghosting rate in the survey and the 9% Engagement score in the Index are not two separate findings. They are the same finding, measured from two different angles.

Most AI investment is concentrated in stages that are already performing well – like Awareness, which scores 77. The stage actively damaging employer brands is Engagement, which scores 9. That is not an AI problem. It is a communication problem.

What India shows the rest of the region

While 66% of APAC candidates heard nothing about AI from employers, 64% of Indian candidates received some AI communication from at least one organisation they applied to – the highest of any market in the global study.

The downstream effects are measurable. Where Indian employers communicated openly about AI with all candidates, 56% were very confident a human reviewed their application. Where employers said nothing, just 24% were confident. India also has the lowest ghosting rate in APAC (56%), consistent with its higher transparency rate.

India is also the only market in the entire global study where work samples rank in candidates’ top three priorities – tied with guaranteed human review at 4.01 out of 5. It is a signal of where the most AI-advanced candidate population in this study has arrived: not anxious about AI, but ready for a mature conversation about how to demonstrate genuine capability through it.

What candidates actually want

Across all four APAC markets, the top priority is the same: fair assessment regardless of background (4.41 out of 5). In a region where AI adoption is highest and algorithmic suspicion runs deepest, candidates are placing the greatest value on being evaluated fairly.

Respect for their time (4.36) and process transparency (4.26) round out the top three. All three are Engagement-stage commitments – the lowest-scoring segment of the Candidate Experience Index.

Bottom line: The basics work

APAC employers are investing heavily in AI to reduce time-to-hire and manage application volume, but the data shows they’re largely ignoring Engagement stage communications where brand damage, lost revenue and pipeline attrition are quietly eroding those gains.

The good news is that AI, done right, creates the capacity to fix this. Automating the high-volume, repetitive parts of the hiring process frees talent acquisition teams to do what no algorithm can: communicate clearly, follow up consistently and treat candidates as people.

The organisations that will build genuine competitive advantage in this region are not those spending most on hiring technology. They are those who build the communication foundation that earns the trust of job seekers – and that makes every subsequent investment in AI more effective, not less.

To get the full APAC research and more actionable insights, download the APAC 2026 Inside the Candidate Experience report.

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