7 recruitment mistakes companies are still making in Belgium in 2026

Recruiting in Belgium remains challenging in 2026. Companies continue to compete for specialised professionals, while candidates have become more selective about the roles, organisations and career opportunities they consider. 

According to Statbel, Belgian companies still reported 140,462 job vacancies in the first quarter of 2026, representing a job vacancy rate of 3.42%. The pressure is particularly visible in Flanders, which accounts for almost two-thirds of all vacancies in the country. 

Yet talent scarcity does not explain every difficult recruitment. From our experience supporting employers across Belgium, some hiring processes still create obstacles that could be avoided. 

Slow decisions. Too many interviews. Unrealistic job descriptions. Salary expectations disconnected from the market. An increasing preference for candidates who can perform every aspect of the role from day one. 

Individually, these decisions may seem reasonable. Combined, they can make a strong candidate choose another employer. 

Here are seven recruitment mistakes we continue to see in 2026.

1. Taking too long to respond to candidates 

1. A strong candidate applies on Monday. 
2. The CV is reviewed the following week. 
3. The hiring manager is unavailable for another few days. 
4. An interview is eventually scheduled. 
5. Then the candidate waits for feedback. 
6. By the time the company decides to move forward, another employer has already made an offer. 

Speed does not mean rushing a recruitment decision. It means removing unnecessary waiting time from the process. 

Candidates interviewing for specialised positions are frequently involved in several recruitment processes simultaneously. A company that takes ten days to provide feedback is not simply creating a poor candidate experience; it is giving competitors ten days to move ahead. 

Before launching a recruitment, employers should therefore agree internally on: 

• who reviews applications; 
• how quickly feedback will be provided; 
• when interviews can take place; 
• who has final decision-making authority. 

A recruitment process should be ready before the first candidate enters it. 

2. Involving too many people in the recruitment process 

Stakeholder involvement can improve a hiring decision, but too many stakeholders can paralyse it. 

We still see recruitment processes where candidates meet HR, the hiring manager, the hiring manager's manager, several future colleagues and sometimes additional stakeholders whose role in the final decision is unclear. 

Each additional interview creates another scheduling constraint, another opinion to reconcile and another opportunity for the process to lose momentum. 

For senior positions, several conversations are often justified. 

But every person involved should answer a specific question. 

• Who evaluates technical expertise? 
• Who assesses leadership? 
• Who evaluates team compatibility? 
• Who ultimately decides? 

If several interviewers are assessing exactly the same criteria, the process probably needs to be simplified.

3. Recruiting at a salary that no longer matches the Belgian Market 

Salary misalignment remains one of the easiest recruitment problems to diagnose and one of the hardest for organisations to acknowledge. 

• A role may have been budgeted six months ago. 
• An internal salary grid may restrict the range. 
• The previous employee may have earned significantly less. 

None of these factors determines what candidates with the required skills expect today. 

This becomes particularly problematic when an organisation is looking for scarce expertise. 

Employers can spend weeks interviewing candidates only to discover at offer stage that the salary expectations of every suitable profile exceed the approved budget. 

Market benchmarking should therefore happen before, not after, the search begins. 

Recruitment consultants in Belgium have an important role here. Because they speak with candidates and employers continuously, they can provide a realistic view of compensation expectations before an organisation spends several months searching for a profile the approved package cannot attract. 

4. Turning one job into three

Job descriptions are becoming increasingly ambitious. 

• A Finance role also requires Data expertise. 
• A Marketing position incorporates Communications, CRM, Analytics and Employer Branding. 
• An HR professional is expected to cover Talent Acquisition, Learning & Development, HR analytics and operational HR. 

Together, these responsibilities sometimes create a profile that barely exists. 

This often happens gradually. When someone leaves, organisations reconsider the role and add responsibilities that were previously distributed across several people. 

The intention is efficiency, but the recruitment consequence can be the opposite. 

The candidate pool becomes smaller, salary expectations increase and candidates may question whether the workload is realistic. 

Before adding another responsibility to a job description, employers should ask a simple question: 

Is this genuinely part of the role, or are we trying to solve several organisational needs with one recruitment? 

5. Looking only for “Plug-and-Play” candidates 

One of the biggest changes we observe concerns expectations around readiness. 

Companies increasingly want candidates who have already done the exact job, in the same sector, using the same systems, in a similar organisation. 

Understandably, employers want to reduce recruitment risk, but reducing the willingness to train creates another risk: dramatically reducing the available talent pool. 

Belgian employment authorities themselves emphasise the role of training in addressing labour shortages. Companies with at least 20 employees are required to establish annual training plans, and these plans must notably consider training that can help address shortages in occupations where candidates are difficult to find. 

The broader labour-market debate points in the same direction: skills shortages cannot be addressed exclusively by searching for candidates who already possess every required competency. 

Potential matters. A candidate who meets 80% of the requirements and has the capacity to learn the remaining 20% may ultimately create more value than waiting six months for a theoretically perfect profile. 

6. Writing the job description before defining the real hiring need 

A vacancy appears and one of the first actions is often to retrieve the previous job description, add a few responsibilities and adjust the title. 

However, organisations change faster than job descriptions. 

Before replacing someone, employers should ask what the business actually needs from the position over the next two or three years. 

• Perhaps the previous profile is still appropriate. 
• Perhaps the role needs different technical skills. 
• Perhaps greater leadership capability is required. 
• Perhaps the organisation should recruit at a different seniority level altogether. 

A replacement recruitment is also an opportunity to challenge the structure of the role.

7. Treating recruitment as a selection process rather than a two-way decision 

An interview is still sometimes approached primarily as an opportunity for the company to assess the candidate, its skills but also to assess the cultural fit. 

Candidates are assessing the company just as carefully. 

They evaluate the manager, they observe how organised the process is. 

They notice whether interviewers agree on the role. 

They compare what HR says with what the hiring manager says. 

They ask themselves whether the responsibilities appear realistic and whether the organisation can offer the development they are looking for. 

The recruitment process therefore communicates much more than the employer brand presented on a careers page. 

It gives candidates a preview of how the organisation operates. 

A slow, confusing or contradictory recruitment process can undermine an otherwise compelling opportunity. 

What Belgian employers can do differently in 2026 

The Belgian labour market remains complex. 

While 1 in 5 young professionals sees their permanent contract end within the first year in Belgium, Statbel reported an employment rate of 72.8% in the first quarter of 2026, while unemployment stood at 6.3%. Among highly educated workers, unemployment was considerably lower at 3.7%,  

For employers recruiting specialised and highly qualified professionals, this means the realistically addressable candidate market can be much narrower than headline unemployment figures suggest. 

Improving recruitment therefore requires more than attracting additional applications. It requires removing friction from the hiring process. 

Before launching a recruitment, we recommend asking: 

• Is our salary aligned with the market? 
• Does this profile realistically exist? 
• Which requirements are essential and which can be learned? 
• How many interviews are genuinely necessary? 
• Can we provide candidate feedback quickly? 
• Are all stakeholders aligned on what they are recruiting? 
• What will make a strong candidate choose us over another employer? 

These questions can save weeks of unsuccessful recruitment.

Read more: How to calculate the return on investment (ROI) of a recruitment?

The recruitment firm as a bridge between employer expectations and candidate reality 

One of the most valuable roles of a recruitment consultancy is not simply sourcing candidates: it is providing information in both directions. 

Employers need to understand what candidates expect, which skills are available, what salaries the market commands and where their requirements may be limiting the search unnecessarily. 

Candidates need an accurate understanding of the position, the organisation, the expectations and the opportunity before deciding whether to engage in a process. 

The recruitment consultant sits between these two perspectives. 

Sometimes that means telling a candidate that their expectations are unrealistic. 

Sometimes it means telling an employer that the profile, salary or recruitment process needs to change. 

That honest feedback is precisely what can prevent a search from continuing for months without results. 

At Morgan Philips Belgium, our recruitment specialists work closely with employers throughout the hiring process, from defining the position and benchmarking the market to identifying candidates, managing expectations and supporting both parties through the final decision.