State of Hiring — Q1 2026
Hiring remains selective: employers prioritize proven skills over credentials, and AI-assisted screening has made keyword-aligned resumes essential. Remote roles still dominate software hiring, while healthcare and engineering niches show the strongest salary growth.
Key findings
- 73% of resumes are filtered by ATS before a human recruiter reviews them.
- Software engineering remote postings account for roughly 42% of new tech roles indexed on NeuroHires.
- Candidates who tailor resumes per job see an estimated 2–4× higher callback rate.
- Interview-ready candidates (practiced answers + tailored resume) close offers 18% faster on average.
- AI literacy is now listed in 31% of product and engineering job descriptions — up from 19% year ago.
Hiring trends
Tech job postings (indexed)+8% YoY
Time-to-fill (median)34 days
Application volume per role+22% YoY
Employer response rate-6% YoY
Remote vs hybrid
Remote: 38%
Hybrid: 41%
On-site: 21%
Fastest-growing skills
TypeScript +24%Python +18%Kubernetes +16%Product discovery +14%LLM / AI integration +31%Customer success +9%
Salary snapshots (US)
Software Engineer (US)
$130k
+4% YoY
Data Scientist (US)
$135k
+5% YoY
Product Manager (US)
$125k
+3% YoY
DevOps / SRE (US)
$138k
+6% YoY
Predictions
- Employers will continue shrinking generic "years of experience" requirements in favor of portfolio proof.
- Public salary transparency laws will push more employers to disclose bands in job postings.
- Practice-based interview signals (recorded answers, structured scores) will supplement resume screening.
- Niche vertical networks (engineering, healthcare) will outperform generalist job boards for hard-to-fill roles.