Filling roles in 2026 requires ‘careful planning and adaptability’

With nearly nine in 10 (88 per cent) employers having a candidate decline a job offer in the past year, hiring managers anticipate a myriad of recruitment challenges for 2026.

With ongoing talent shortages and complex regulations creating a new set of recruitment challenges, Gartner research highlighted the prevalence of candidates landing multiple job offers and “fewer candidates accepting the offers made to them”.

According to research by Robert Half, many employers have reported bracing for “multiple barriers in the year ahead”. For its research, Robert Half collected online survey responses from 500 finance, accounting, IT, technology, and HR hiring managers in October 2025. These respondents were drawn from a sample of SMEs, as well as large private, publicly listed, and public sector organisations across Australia, to explore job trends, talent management and general workplace trends.

‘Salary expectation mismatches’

Robert Half research found that almost all (97 per cent) of respondents reported anticipating at least one challenge to their hiring efforts that they think will impact business growth. Robert Half director Nicole Gorton (pictured) found that these challenges indicate that “friction is increasing, not easing”.

Remuneration was one of the key challenges that employers faced, with 58 per cent of hiring managers reporting salary expectation mismatches and 31 per cent of respondents reporting job offer declines as a result of uncompetitive compensation, the data revealed.

Amid a widening skills gap, hiring managers reported experiencing impacts from not being able to fill crucial roles. Sixty-one per cent of respondents reported they lacked skilled applicants, while 54 per cent of respondents reported they struggled to hire staff quickly enough to reduce the cost of the vacant position.

Addressing the ‘full value proposition’

Gorton said that declined offers highlight a critical disconnect between what businesses are offering and candidate expectations. She noted that even in an “employer-led” market, “top talents” are always willing to seek other opportunities if they see them as “a better fit”.

“Businesses need to think beyond transactional offers and address the full value proposition they present to candidates,” Gorton said.

Robert Half research showed that 29 per cent of respondents identified inflexible working models as a hiring barrier, while 57 per cent reported experiencing challenges in finding candidates aligned with company culture, and 55 per cent reported struggling to find candidates who were willing to work in the office.

Role ‘mismatch’

Year13 research found that Generation Z workers desired CSR outcomes, which include providing workers with career advancement and growth opportunities, as well as an opportunity to develop a sense of identity, place and purpose at work.

Natasha Markham, chief of staff at Year13, said the proximity between work and identity is closing for Generation Z workers.

However, the challenges that hiring managers have been facing have not all been from controllable factors – 58 per cent of employers reported that competing offers from other competitors were also a hiring barrier, while 29 per cent reported candidates rejecting a job offer due to role misalignment.

In research by the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management at the UNSW Business School, data revealed that one in three employees experienced a “mismatch” between their “actual” and “preferred” work arrangements.

“Many companies are discovering that simply having an open role, on its own, isn’t a guarantee to secure the right hire,” Gorton said.