New year. New you. New recruitment trends.
And with this, you need to tweak your ongoing strategies to find the best tech talent. Some trends will continue to stay the same while others will want you to multiply your ongoing efforts with a new approach. But to ensure you do all of this the right way, you need to know the recruitment trends that are being forecasted to turn talent acquisition on its head in 2023!
Trend #1—Recruitment through social media
Social media has been the north star for recruiters and hiring managers. It’s not restricted to building a personal brand and influencer marketing anymore; also finding quality and targeted candidates. With more and more people joining the social squad, social recruiting will continue to be one of the primary channels for recruiters to source candidates.
Clearly: recruiting via social media is an effective recruiting strategy. Recruiters are seeing the results and this will become more effective with social channels like LinkedIn.
If you are a recruiter leveraging LinkedIn, here’s how you can amplify your efforts:
- Connect with candidates by scanning their LinkedIn profiles and understanding their interests, skills, experience level and so on
- Send them an Inmail asking if they are open to opportunities and sharing the job profile you are hiring for
Pro tip: To reach out to super-targeted candidates, make a list of ideal candidates. Engage with their content first or connect with them on LinkedIn and introduce yourself and your company first.
Trend #2—Automation: or ATS- Automated nurturing for resumes
An ATS or applicant tracking system remains to be a savior in the recruitment industry and takes off the load of the hefty manual hiring process. Whether you want to create stronger job descriptions or automate tedious workflows—an ATS can do it all for you; however, recruiters will rely on the ATS only to an extent. They’ll leverage automation and manual efforts to get the best results. When hiring for super-targeted and niche job profiles, recruiters will still have to do a deep dive into their target candidate personas by reaching out to select candidates and scanning their profiles.
Recruiters will need to carry out several recruiting tasks manually if they are hiring for a laser-focused senior or niche role. On the flip side, an ATS works in favor when hiring for junior-level roles.
A simple workflow for carrying out your recruitment process via ATS looks like this:
Created a job posting for a junior-level role → candidate applies for the role → an ATS emailer is sent to the candidate asking for the online assessment → candidate takes the test → invited for the interview process (if the test gets approved).
When this recruitment workflow is conducted by recruiters manually for senior roles, each task remains the same but the workload of screening every profile for different roles lessens which makes the ATS a winner.
Trend #3—Reskilling and upskilling to enhance internal mobility
After the layoffs by big tech giants like Twitter and Meta, it is obvious employees can be laid off at any time, at any stage of employment. However, before laying off the employees, companies follow a layoff plan and a multi-step approach on who to select for the layoff. They look at tenure, certifications, performance reviews, and promotability. Based on these factors, they create a scale and measure the employees on this scale, and then lay them off.
External hires are 61% more likely to be laid off or fired in their first year of service and 21% more likely to leave.
And the common point for these layoffs is performance. If the employees are not learning and upskilling, there will always be a lag in their performance. That’s why you need to regulate programs for your employees to help them upskill and reskill themselves to stay ahead of such situations.
And how, you may ask, do you encourage them to upskill? Offer stipends for certifications or conduct in-house training—from educational programs to personal development programs—all of them help in the growth of the employee.
Leaders can invest in programs that teach people tools and approaches for self-development. At my own company, it is ingrained in our values to respect boundaries and the needs of our employers, creating the space for honest communication, and reshaping the mindset from what this employee can do for the company to instead, what can our company do for this employee? We work with our employees to invest in their self-discovery to uncover how they can create meaning in their work through the Pathways Work at Meaning Program. Otherwise, the cycle of quitting will persist, whether quietly or out loud.
74% of Millennial and Gen Z workers plan to quit in 2023 due to a lack of upskilling and career advancement opportunities. I always advise prospective employees to look for what the company is offering: upskilling, mental health coverage like compensation for therapy if needed, education programs, and even testimonies from the leaders of the companies they are interested in working at to gather those invaluable specifics.
—Danny Gutknecht, Co-founder and CEO, Pathways.io
The key is to keep the employees in the learning loop—which will help you to fill open job roles internally and prepare them for any adverse situations ahead.
Also read: How HackerEarth Made it Through 2 Recessions Without Relying on Layoffs?
Trend #4—Employee well-being and engagement
Employee well-being and engagement have been the highlight for better workplace functioning ever since the pandemic. Candidates are now selective about the companies they want to work with. They even create a checklist of the kind of companies they want to work with. Here’s how a candidate’s basic filter checklist looks like:
- Do I believe in their company’s purpose?
- Will I work with people who inspire me?
- Am I going to learn something I don’t already know?
Candidates are as laser-focused on their choice of companies as are the recruiters on finding the right tech talent. They have switched from just focusing on paychecks to companies that:
- Offer career growth and learning
- Respect their after-work boundaries
- Offer them the flexibility to choose their work options
- Value their emotional and mental health
One of the best ways to build a safe and supportive community is to communicate regularly with your employees. Make sure they feel comfortable approaching you with any personal or work-related issues they may be having. We have weekly meetings with our employees where we discuss the week’s highlights and achievements. We also discuss issues the employees may have experienced during the week and how we can work together as a team to solve them. The meeting also aims at strengthening the bond between the employees and the management. Your employees will appreciate knowing that you care about them as people, not just as workers.
—Matthew Ramirez, Founder, Rephrasely
Here’s the thing: offering employees an annual comp off to give themselves a break from the mental exhaustion of burnout won’t help. It needs to be ingrained in the company’s culture on how to create an employee-first ecosystem.
Trend #5—Employer branding
Employer branding will continue to be a crucial factor in attracting candidates and filling up roles at your organization with quality candidates. With a solid employer brand, you will be able to showcase your company values and aspirations and drive candidates who don't want to stay with you for the annual package but for what you are building. However, building such an employer brand needs effort and authenticity.
“When it comes to the employer brand, organizations are looking to ensure that it best aligns with the values of the talent they seek and that it is genuine,” she says. “The talent audience today is highly skeptical and cynical about corporate messaging. If you tell them that you are committed to diversity and sustainability, for example, you better be able to demonstrate it.”
—Amy Bush, President, Sevenstep
To demonstrate your company values to the candidates and attract the best talent, do this:
- Get your employees to talk about the company on social media. For example, ask them to share about a fun activity the company did recently and how it impacted them.
- Get ample PR coverage for the initiatives you have contributed to.
- Showcase interviews with the leadership team—this helps the candidates understand your leaders’ vision and culture.
Also watch: Creating an Employer Brand That Sticks
Trend #6—Workforce diversification
Work diversification doesn’t just mean what, where, and how people work but also the type of work. Simply put, organizations now rely not just on a geographically distributed team but on a team with different employment types—full-time employees and freelancers.
We are especially proud of our commitment to belonging which is one of our core cultural values. We live it in so many ways. We’ve created a diverse team across geographies, genders, sexual orientations, races, ethnicity, ages, etc. We wanted to build a team that looked representative of our country and of our customers because doing so allows us to better serve them. It also makes for a healthier company culture where we aren’t all stereotypical “tech bros” building a platform that isn’t inclusive.
—Amy Spurling, Founder, Compt
With workforce diversification, companies are successful in doing two things: bringing employees from different backgrounds and having employees with specialized skills together.
A good way to amplify workforce diversification is by having a mix of full-time and independent employees, ideally, by following Pareto's principle of 70:30.
Trend #7—Predictive analysis
Companies will use predictive analysis to audit the skills of existing employees, shortlist them for difficult-to-fill roles, provide them with learning opportunities based on their skills, and help them build personalized career pathways.
Workforce churn is a reality today. Companies in the software industry use analytics to predict customer churn. Similarly, they can use their employee’s data such as data from employee surveys, 1:1 meetings, and productivity data from sprint burn-down charts to determine/predict the possibilities for their employee’s churn. Such analysis helps managers design innovative campaigns to re-engage with employees before the existing skills of the employees.
—Dr. Soudip Roy Chowdhary, CEO, Eugenie.ai
Some questions predictive analysis can help answer include:
- What are your most effective candidate sourcing channels?
- How long does the screening process take and which techniques are most effective?
- How long does it take to go from application to offer?
- What positions are likely to open in the future?
- How likely is it for a new hire to perform well and stay long-term?
- Where do bottlenecks occur in your hiring pipeline?
- Which roles and skills are urgently needed to meet business goals?
Trend #8—AI in Talent Acquisition
Leveraging AI for candidate sourcing
AI-powered tools can efficiently scan vast resume databases, identifying top talent by analyzing skills, experience, and cultural fit—streamlining the initial sourcing phase.
Enhancing candidate assessment
Using NLP and machine learning, AI ensures objective and consistent candidate assessments by evaluating resumes and conducting initial interviews—reducing biases and saving time.
AI in predictive hiring
AI-based predictive analytics forecast a candidate’s potential success and tenure, enabling more informed hiring decisions and improving retention rates.
Ethical considerations and transparency
While powerful, AI must be used responsibly. Companies must ensure algorithmic transparency and actively address bias to build fair and ethical hiring practices.
Incorporating AI in talent acquisition is no longer optional—it is essential for efficient, fair, and scalable recruitment.
Grab the spotlight in 2024 with these recruitment trends
Now that you’ve seen all the major recruitment trends shaping the future of hiring, it’s time to reassess your strategies. While some trends are already familiar, others offer fresh angles to boost your recruiting game.
Analyze, adapt, and apply these insights to attract the best tech talent in 2024—and make your hiring strategy truly future-ready.
