What's turning employees off from applying to your company

Employees have expressed their desire to find new jobs in 2025, but while the job market has swung back to the benefit of employers, applicants are still selective in how they're conducting their search. 

According to recent research from Gallup, 51% of employees are actively looking for new job opportunities, and less than 20% felt satisfied with their current roles. But employees aren't making it easy for hiring managers — a survey from resume writing service StandOut CV found some common faux pas that are turning applicants away. 

Including the phrases "winner's mindset," "hustle," and "work hard, play hard" in job descriptions had nearly 40% of job applicants looking elsewhere for their next opportunity. Describing the work team as a "family" had 62.5% of applicants scrolling through to the next posting. 

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"If you want to hire the best candidates for your business, you need to provide targeted, compelling and engaging job descriptions," says Andrew Fennell, director of StandOut CV. "Consider what applicants will take away from the [posting]. Your level of effort could result in an inbox full of incredible applications, underwhelming ones or worse, no applications whatsoever." 

While salary transparency is now required or will be implemented this year in 14 states, including California, New York, New Jersey and Washington, employees expect to see those figures in job descriptions no matter the location. Leaving out salary details was a big no-no for 63.8% of prospective applicants. 

"While you may not want to include a specific figure, including a salary range is normally the best option," Fennell says. "This leaves room to negotiate depending on the caliber of candidates you receive, prompts fair negotiation and shows respect and transparency." 

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If an employee does choose to apply to a job posting, recruiting managers still face hurdles throughout the next phases of the interview process: 76.8% of respondents told StandOut CV that interviewers with an unpleasant odor were a major turnoff to moving forward. Seventy percent were also put off by a group interview format, while nearly 50% did not appreciate when an interviewer tried to make a joke. Half of applicants would end the process if they were asked to go through three to four rounds of interviews. 

So what are today's applicants looking for in an ideal job application process? Sixty percent listed a clear understanding of work hours as an important consideration, as well as what benefits come with the role. Sixty-one percent also wanted a clear understanding of the qualifications before they started the application process. 

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"Candidates are getting pickier than they have been before," says Stacie Haller, chief career adviser at Resume Builder. "The recruiter [has to] sell a story to candidates to get them to take the job." 

To do that, hiring managers must understand their organization's culture, and have a clear process for explaining a company's values and how a potential candidate will fit into that, both at the start and throughout their entire tenure.  

"Setting up structures that let people know what they're supposed to be doing, how they're supposed to be working and what's expected of them relieves a lot of stress," says Rhett Power, executive coach and CEO of Accountability Inc. "Then it's a matter of getting everybody to buy into it."