A Year of Change: The 2024–2025 University Recruiting Changelog
Everything that happened. What it all means. What to do next.
The 2024–2025 recruiting cycle was relentless. Budget cuts. ROI scrutiny. AI disruption. Political volatility. The early careers landscape shifted underfoot: redefining what it means to run a strategic University Recruiting function.
At Veris Insights, we’ve spent the past year distilling thousands of data points, executive interviews, and employer benchmarks into one definitive report. This is your changelog for Early Careers recruiting: the year’s most significant shifts, and what they mean for 2026 and beyond.
Make Sense of the Chaos
This report is your roadmap through a year of upheaval. Inside, you’ll find the four forces that defined the 2024–2025 recruiting cycle:
- Pressure to Prove ROI: How UR teams adapted to the era of budget cuts and increased scrutiny from the C-suite.
- Labor Market Volatility: The nuanced story behind a cooling market and where opportunity still thrives.
- Political and Policy Shifts: What changing DEI regulations, higher ed pressures, and student loan reforms mean for talent pipelines.
- AI Transformation: How GenAI reshaped candidate behavior, recruiter workflows, and the meaning of “AI fluency.”