The percent of interviews resulting in a job offer has climbed to its highest level of the past five years, but acceptances and retention rates for the first three years of employment fell, according to results of NACE’s 2022 Recruiting Benchmarks Report.

The ascent in offer rates from 42.1% in 2019 to 47.5% in 2022 reflects the status of today’s labor market as there is more competition for talent. (See Figure 1.) However, the rate at which these offers are being accepted dropped from 73.6% in last year’s report to 69.3% in this year’s, signaling that students have more options.

This is also evident in retention rates, which have declined for the first through the third year of employment. For example, the first-year retention rate dropped from 87.2% in 2021 to 83.6% in 2022, and the third-year retention rate dipped from 67.0% in 2021 to 61.6% in 2022. (See Figure 2.)

The 2022 Recruiting Benchmarks Report explores key aspects of university recruiting, such as the structure, staffing, focus, and execution of the efforts, and provides outcome-oriented benchmarks and metrics. The survey on which this report is based was conducted from May 9, 2022, until June 17, 2022, and was distributed to 816 organizations holding NACE membership as well as nonmembers. There were 183 NACE member respondents, representing 22.4% of eligible member respondents. An additional 27 responses were received from nonmember companies. The 2022 Recruiting Benchmarks Report is available to members through MyNACE.