10 Recruitment Trends For 2023

An unstable economy

The economy has become increasingly uncertain, and businesses are tightening their belts as a result. Yet this doesn’t mean there are fewer jobs to fill. Patterns indicate the hiring rollercoaster isn’t over. Unemployment rates are the lowest they’ve been in years, and despite many companies going through layoffs, new jobs are being created elsewhere.

The great resignation continues

Talent shortages are at a ten-year high. By 2030, it’s predicted more than 85 million jobs could go unfilled because there aren’t enough skilled candidates. Meanwhile, the Great Resignation continues, with 40% of the global workforce considering leaving their current employer within the next year. People are job-hopping to keep up with the rising cost of living, and pivoting to different industries in search of flexibility and work-life balance.

A generational shift in the workplace

Once the largest generation of workers, baby boomers are now leaving the workforce in droves. Many brought forward their retirement plans after the pandemic, and this mass exodus has impacted talent pools. Millennials now make up the largest working cohort, while Gen Z enters the workforce. This gradual change doesn’t just mean fewer workers available overall, it means a shift in communication styles, values and drivers in the workplace too. Companies must adapt their EVPs and employer brand to capture younger generations’ interest.

Long story short

The hiring market is changing. But with a solid plan, the right tools, and knowledge of how to navigate these challenges, your hiring team can get ahead. It’s no longer enough to sit back and expect candidates to find you. Organisations need to get creative: prioritising the candidate experience, employer branding, and alternative sourcing channels.

Ready to overhaul your hiring practices and adapt to the new world of work? Here are the 10 recruitment trends you need to know to successfully hire in 2023.

2023 Recruitment Trend 1: Recruiters, think like marketers

Perhaps the biggest shift in 2023 will be the way we think about recruiting.

To attract top talent, traditional HR methods are no longer going to cut it. Today, successful recruiters need new marketing strategies to proactively draw in applicants.

Recruitment marketing allows you to attract, engage, nurture and convince great

jobseekers to apply for a role or express interest in your organisation. It’s about using all the tools at your disposal: careers sites, social media, employee stories, job ads, employer branding, SEO, and automation, to deliver a personalised experience that paints a compelling picture of life at your company.

In a nutshell, recruitment marketing shows jobseekers why they should want to work for you, which allows you to attract more applicants and build a strong pipeline of talent. Then, instead of searching for people every time you have an open role, you’ve got a shortlist of qualified candidates at the ready.

This is completely new territory for many HR teams. Creating content and building website landing pages isn’t what most people think of when pursuing a career in HR. But, with competition for talent at an all-time high, exploring innovative tools is the path to winning candidates.

A huge part of recruitment marketing is choosing the right distribution channel. With the explosive growth in user-generated content and apps like TikTok, companies need to adapt their communication strategies to meet jobseekers where they are. Gen Z and Millennials often use social media to conduct careers research, so a job-board ad isn’t likely to catch their eye. A short-form video of your employees sharing why your company is a great place to work, however, could stop them scrolling.

Recruitment marketing boils down to showing the right message, to the right people, at the right time, in the right place, and presenting a cohesive picture of your employer brand across all channels. This is a huge shift away from traditional hiring methods, but it works. And, there are plenty of tools available to help you execute your strategy easily and without increasing your workload.

Using recruitment marketing, Which? saw the following results:

• Return visitors to their careers site increased from 9.2% to 16%
• Average website page views per session increased from 1.89 to 2.2 pages
• Visitors converted to potential candidates increased from 2.82% to over 16%
• Potential candidates converted to completed applications now sits at 61%

They achieved this by using recruitment marketing strategies:

• Building an on-brand, engaging careers site
• Enlisting employee ambassadors and creating employee-generated content
• Sharing content that showcases their EVP and resonates with individual talent groups
• Driving traffic back to their site via social media
• Adding targeted CTAs

Do:

• Think outside the box. Break down your key talent segments, consider what really matters to them, and construct your content and EVP messaging around that.
• Use targeted calls to action and customised landing pages for specific talent segments (engineers, data scientists, referral networks, alumni or ex-employees) on your careers site.
• Create a pipeline of talent, and use recruitment marketing tools to nurture jobseekers through your recruitment funnel.
• Use your careers site as a hub for all your recruitment marketing activity. That way, you can track what’s working, and what isn’t, then fine-tune your strategy.

Don’t:

• Post an ad on a job board and call it a day.
• Rely on manual processes to build your talent pipeline – it’s resource-intensive and often delivers a poor candidate experience.
• Be generic. It’s all about standing out from the crowd. Today’s jobseeker asks, “Why should I want to work for you?”. With 75% of talent not actively seeking a job, your recruitment marketing efforts should convince them your organisation is a great fit.

Traditionally, HR teams thought of the talent journey as a linear lifecycle. They’d bring in new talent through external acquisition, onboard and develop that talent, then, when it was time to move on, bid that person farewell and show them the door. Now, the talent lifecycle is more circular, and that door is a revolving one. Ex-employees can be welcomed back in, and internal talent can fill skills gaps.

With many organisations wanting to rebuild their workforce, but operating in a highly competitive market and with limited budget, HR teams are going beyond acquisition. Instead, they’re taking a holistic view of talent that incorporates internal and ex-employees (or alumni). By shifting their focus away from external attraction – and towards ‘internal mobility’ – organisations can save on sourcing costs and hire culturally-aligned, pre-vetted talent.

Internal mobility strategies can be difficult to implement. But in changing times, the ability to look inward and maximise your workforce potential is crucial. Internal mobility is, on average, nine times more effective than job boards at producing hires, plus, it takes just four internal applications to result in one successful hire. These internal career pathways are different for each company: it could include lateral moves, upwards mobility, or cross-functional training and development.

One of the biggest drivers of employee engagement, especially to Millenials, is career development opportunities. Careers no longer look like moves up and down a ladder. They’re “squiggly”. They meander. And organisations must offer internal opportunities that support their employees’ desire to pursue their interests, or they risk losing them to competitors.

These squiggly career paths have brought about a rise in “boomerang employees” – those who leave a company, but come back at a later time. In a tight talent market, ex-employees can hold incredible value. They get up to speed faster, hold institutional knowledge, and understand the company’s culture and values.

Do:

• Focus on skills over experience. Think laterally and redeploy your talent to avoid laying off team members where possible.
• Build an internal mobility culture, and make it a prominent part of your company’s values. Showcase internal opportunities on your careers site and all internal communications channels.
• Develop an alumni network to stay in touch with ex-employees. You never know when the perfect opportunity may arise to welcome them back.
• Use targeted calls to action on your careers site – create pages for internal mobility and ex-employees that hold relevant content for them.

Don’t:

• Think about career paths as linear, one-way journeys. Let your employees drive their own development and encourage them to explore new interests and opportunities.
• Exclude ex-employees from your talent pools.
• Let managers “hoard talent”. This is where internal mobility strategies often fail. People are people, not commodities to covet!

The importance of employer branding comes as no surprise to anyone in HR. But there’s been a huge shift in what’s resonating and what’s not – and this shift will directly impact your ability to attract and win talent in 2023.

Companies are building “people-first” employer brands. They’re thinking about what their target talent segments want from an employer, and empowering their people to contribute. In the end, the companies that focus on celebrating individual differences and showcasing inclusiveness are the ones that come out on top.

Sure, a good employer brand draws people in. But leading employer branding teams go one step further. They use targeted EVPs to attract the specific types of talent they want to hire. This might include dedicated careers pages for LGBTQI+ or Women in STEM candidates, or pages catered to tech talent. These pages show specific content that appeals to each cohort, including unique EVP callouts and proof points.

Think about the type of content your target talent segments want to see. Our data shows that jobseekers are often looking for: 

• Employee stories and testimonials
• Ways to understand the organisation’s culture and values
• Information on benefits: flexibility, remote working etc.
• Diversity and inclusion
• Leadership/Mission statements

Tip: 85% of visitors land on your careers site via a job page, not your homepage. Make sure you’ve got content that promotes your EVP on all job listings.

When it comes to telling your company’s employee experience story, employee-generated content is key. Videos and images, when created by existing team members, are the most trusted source of information, providing a window into life at your company.

Not only is this an opportunity to show that you can walk the walk, it also gives candidates the chance to see themselves reflected in your diverse team. And it’s this authenticity that will help you build a reliable and well-received employer brand.

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) practices should form a core part of your employer brand. DEI has become a central focus for HR teams in today’s competitive talent landscape. More than 75% of jobseekers state diversity is an important factor for them when evaluating companies and job offers. And 39% of candidates reject a role, or don’t proceed with a job application, due to a perceived lack of inclusiveness within the organisation.

Did you know?

Asking employees to be brand ambassadors can help to engage candidates. After updating their EVP and careers site, Which? had over 10,000 site views and a feedback score of 100% for candidate engagement. Want to find out more?

Do:

• Use authentic employee stories to build your employer brand and give jobseekers the information they’re looking for. Today’s candidate wants to see and hear content they can relate to. Showcasing “people like me” stories on careers sites helps candidates visualise themselves working at your organisation.
• Highlight your diverse culture on your company channels and create targeted landing pages to appeal to diverse candidate segments.

Don’t:

• Stick to “polished” communications – it won’t stand out in the sea of information candidates are searching through.
• Have one blanket EVP for all target segments. Think about what content will appeal to each of your target audiences and create specific landing pages to support.

With jobseekers in control, talented people know they can be picky. This means they aren’t afraid to say no to offers – in fact, candidates are now 66% more likely to say no to an offer than before the pandemic. So how can your organisation convince them to say yes? By providing a great candidate experience.

49% of jobseekers would reject a job offer after a bad candidate experience.

It’s important to deliver a seamless experience at every touchpoint of your hiring journey. In the past, difficult application processes were seen as a way to discourage unsuitable candidates. Now, they’re a way to lose quality talent.

In such a tight market, the focus should be on reducing barriers. For example, 54% of Gen Z candidates won’t complete an application if your recruiting methods seem outdated. And 46% have applied for a job on their phone. Making it easy to apply for a role on any device leaves a great first impression.

The next stage of the recruitment process is about providing access to the information that jobseekers are searching for. Not only does this give interested parties a great experience, but it allows those who are on the fence to make an informed decision about whether the role is worth pursuing. Remember, transparency is key in today’s workforce.

Another important factor for candidates is timelines. The job your advertising might not be the only one they’re considering, and if your hiring stages are long-winded and slow, you risk losing top talent to a competitor. Jobseekers aren’t going to commit to dozens of rounds of interviews, skills assessments and evaluations. To secure the best people, streamline your processes and show candidates that you appreciate their time.

Finally, make sure your candidate communications are personalised and specific. Provide feedback in the post-interview stage, and treat the applicant with care and respect – regardless of the outcome. Leading recruiters know that every candidate could one day be a new hire. So don’t burn any bridges, and leave every person feeling valued.

78% of candidates say “validating that a job is worth pursuing” is important to them. Jobseekers want access to crucial information at the start of the hiring process to make an informed decision about whether to continue their application. 70% of jobseekers said they’d be more likely to apply for a position if the salary was included in the ad.

Do:

• Put people at the centre of your hiring process – prioritise their experience throughout the recruitment cycle.
• Speed up your time to hire. Good people will get snapped up fast! Use AI and recruitment automation tools to streamline your processes.
• Be transparent about the role from day one.

Don’t:

• Have long, drawn-out interview phases. Not only is it a poor candidate experience, but it reduces your hiring time, and you might lose your candidate.
• Ghost rejected candidates. Provide post-interview feedback and ask if they’d like to remain in your talent network. You never know when the perfect role will come up!

We know we probably sound like a broken record, but global hiring teams have all highlighted the same thing: the need to do more, with fewer resources. Recruiter workloads increased by 28% last year compared to pre-pandemic – and they’re showing no signs of changing.

Savvy hiring teams are turning to tech to help increase productivity and speed things along. And with in-depth analytics, they’ll have the metrics to prove ROI.

But large all-in-one ERP solutions are losing relevance, as they lack the flexibility to meet each organisation’s needs. Instead, teams are shifting to an integrative ecosystem of leading point solutions, like the “gold-standard” tech stack.

Some HR tech stacks include solutions for AI skills matching, chatbots, and candidate screening. Others include video interviewing, I-9 verification, and background-checking software. By choosing a software that integrates seamlessly, teams end up with the perfect, customised tech stack for their company.

Of course, these tools can’t replace the need for recruitment teams – nor would we want them to. But they can make hiring easier in tight markets. This tech can nurture candidates, build out talent pipelines, speed up screening processes, and enable remote hiring across the globe. It helps lean teams provide a great, personalised candidate experience – at scale.

Do:

• Seek out your perfect tech stack. Take time to evaluate your goals, and investigate what options are available to help relieve your biggest pain points.
• Choose tools with lots of integration options. This will future-proof your tech stack as your business needs change.

Don’t:

• Rely on manual processes – a recruiter’s time is worth too much to spend on tasks that can be automated.

Onboarding should be high on the agenda. A new hire’s first weeks and months with your company should set them up for success and immerse them in your employer brand. Over 20% of turnover happens within 45 days of an employee joining an organisation. And with talent acquisition costs skyrocketing, this can have a huge impact on ROI and your bottom line.

Three factors will be particularly important to successful onboarding in 2023:

• Perceptions around onboarding have changed. Traditionally, onboarding and orientation were treated the same, and this process might have lasted a week – or even less in some companies. Now, strategic HR teams are spreading onboarding over six months or more. Gone are the days of box-ticking. In today’s workplace, it’s about getting new hires engrossed in the team, the culture, and their role.
• “Quick quitting” is a new trend in the competitive talent market, where a recent hire leaves their role in the first 12 months to pursue a new position. Sound familiar? Try extending your onboarding period. This will give you adequate time to ensure the new hire is aligned with the company values. It also provides the employee with early exposure to development and internal mobility opportunities – which in turn helps to retain talent. The job market is moving faster: companies must shift their practices to focus on retention and employee engagement from day one.

• We’ve already mentioned that internal mobility will be an important strategy for hiring teams in 2023. Yet, employees who move into a different position within the same organisation often receive little-to-no onboarding, despite being new to their role. While there will be a certain level of institutional knowledge carried over, a lack of cross-boarding process sets new team members up to fail.
• The best talent teams align their onboarding and cross-boarding processes. They set up clear 30, 60 and 90-day expectations, plus key milestones and frequent check-ins to ensure the new team member is settled, supported, and ready to succeed.

• Remote onboarding isn’t a new challenge. In the post-COVID world, it’s commonplace for team members to work in hybrid or remote arrangements. But for many organisations, this isn’t extending to the remote onboarding experience – leading to high staff turnover, burnout, and disengaged team members.
• When onboarding remotely, the focus should be on getting buy-in to the company culture. Set aside time to build a rapport between team members. Remember, for those who are fully remote, there’s no office environment to instigate casual conversation, so teams must find opportunities to build real, trusting relationships. Research shows that culture is the most important factor in job satisfaction. Prioritising this is essential in reducing staff turnover.

Do:

• Ensure internal hires going into new roles are supported with a solid cross-boarding process. 
• Dedicate sessions to building relationships between team members, especially in remote or hybrid onboarding.
• Set up clear and realistic expectations for your new hires, with regular milestones for month one, three, six and 12.

Don’t:

• “Set and forget” your new hires. Give them a clear plan and encourage regular check-ins.
• Confuse onboarding with orientation. Onboarding is about setting your new hire up for success; orientation is about introductions and compliance factors.
• Skip talking about internal mobility opportunities and development because the team member is “too new”. If they can’t see a future with your organisation, you may lose your new hire to quick quitting.

Most businesses are already aware of the value that HR teams bring to organisations, but some still see them as administrators or “order takers”. During the pandemic, HR leaders were catapulted to the forefront and presented with a wave of new challenges. And with many businesses now facing talent shortages – either due to layoffs or having no applicants – being strategic with your headcount has never been more important.

This need for HR’s input and insights on business policy demonstrates that they’re a key partner in the organisational machine. Going forward, hiring teams need to prove they can provide support to redeploy talent, maximise internal resources, and show ROI on their activities.

While this shift will affect the dynamic of many talent teams, it needs to happen. With HR taking a seat at the table, businesses can get more out of their people, have a highly engaged workforce, and boost their bottom line – even in times of change.

Do:

• Build strong business cases for activities, using case studies and metrics to show ROI.
• Automate processes where possible to focus on strategic decision making.
• Show long-term thinking by building talent pipelines, following market trends and anticipating future talent needs.

Don’t:

• Ignore the changing role of HR and TA teams. While some businesses are shrinking headcount, the fluid and evolving nature of the talent market means the knowledge and skill sets found within TA teams will always be needed.

Hybrid and remote work is here to stay, yet there’s still a disconnect between what employees and jobseekers are looking for, and what traditional executives are offering. Up to 95% of executives believe being in the office helps to promote culture, while 34% of employees said they’d search for a new role if their employer didn’t provide remote work possibilities. So how will organisations navigate this?

Research indicates that 60% of jobseekers are looking for remote work options, while only 30% of advertised jobs are listed as remote roles. Now is the perfect time for hiring teams to bridge the gap and realign their EVP with the current market.

Some teams are implementing “work from anywhere” policies, which, as the name suggests, allow employees to work from anywhere in the world, across any timezone. Heralded as the ultimate in flexibility, these policies also provide great content for companies to share to bolster their employer branding efforts. Jobseekers can hear testimonials from employees working from Fiji, which paints an impressive picture of life at the company.

The other key shift we’re seeing with remote-first organisations is the move from time served to impact delivered – in other words, an outcomes-based model of working. Remote workers are free to structure their day as they choose, so long as they meet their targets.

Tip: Today’s jobseekers value transparency. When hiring, be open about your expectations and opportunities for remote or hybrid work, so candidates can make an informed decision.

There are some challenges linked to having a remote workforce: building culture, increased levels of burnout, and inability to disconnect are just a few. With people sat in both camps, the general consensus is that team members want the option that works best for them. In 2023, HR’s role is to be aware of the challenges, and support employees to overcome them.

Do:

• Ensure you’ve got the right tech stack to enable remote work. Find ways to connect and build a company culture outside of physically meeting.
• Hold online connection events and awards ceremonies, and get your employees involved in building your employer brand.
• Encourage employees to switch off and take regular breaks.
• Be clear about your expectations surrounding hybrid or remote work from the start.

Don’t:

• Equate culture with physical presence. While connecting in person is a great way to establish relationships, remote and hybrid teams need to be creative and build culture in other ways.

In 2023, many teams are experiencing reduced budgets and headcounts, but increased workload. ROI and process efficiencies are the key to success. How? Through metrics.

Savvy hiring teams use data to drive their decisions. Having measurable proof points helps when building a business case for new technology and new processes, or requesting additional funding for much-needed projects. With today’s companies cutting down on unnecessary spending, every decision needs to be backed by clear supporting data.

It all starts with setting the right KPIs. Think about the core things you’d like to achieve. Looking to increase internal mobility? Consider a KPI around internal hires. Want to increase your offer acceptance rate? Outline KPIs that support a quicker time to hire. Be careful not to introduce too many KPIs at once; choose the most important goals and build targets around that.

Having clear goals can also help you maximise the effectiveness of your channels. For example, if your careers site is getting a lot of traffic, but that’s not reflected in the number of applications, try reviewing your job listings to ensure they’re relevant and engaging to your target talent segment.

Using analytics, Mater Hospital improved their LinkedIn sourcing channel effectiveness from 3% to 20% of all hires.

Why use data?

• Faster time to hire
• Increased channel effectiveness
• Lower hiring costs
• Reduced bias in the hiring processes

Do:

• Take advantage of the analytics available in your tech stack.
• Choose recruitment technology solutions that provide deep data and analytics insights.
• Establish a baseline to measure progress against.
• Research and set benchmarks to work towards.
• Set clear, achievable goals, and measure your progress towards them regularly.

Don’t:

• Over-KPI. Data is great, but tracking too many numbers can dilute the importance of the ones that really matter.

Retention is becoming more strategically important than recruitment. This is because the “churn and burn” mentality adopted by many high-growth companies is causing the talent pool to dry up. The most successful organisations will prioritise retention, employee engagement and internal mobility, and as a result, rely less on external recruitment.

For the past few years, the “hustle culture” has run rampant among younger generations, putting hard work on a pedestal and demonising the idea of rest. But in the aftermath of the pandemic, and the economic changes that followed, 52% of workers are facing burnout – and the hustle is no longer glamorised. Instead, we’ve seen the rise of a new phenomenon in Millennials and Gen Z: quiet quitting.

While quiet quitting sounds dire, when broken down, it’s just people doing the standard required of them. Instead of pushing to go above and beyond, quiet quitters are performing the duties outlined in their job description, and nothing more.

Many have called out quiet quitters as lazy or entitled. But what quiet quitting really represents is much more troubling than a group of workers who “can’t be bothered”. It

represents a workforce in crisis, and leaders who haven’t yet acknowledged the problems.

It’s easy to misjudge the intentions behind quiet quitting, but at its core, it shows a misalignment between a business and its employees. The employees are feeling burnt out and disengaged, so instead of going above and beyond, they’re choosing to do only the tasks as narrowly assigned to them in their job descriptions. Workplaces that have built their processes and productivity metrics around the previous framework of “hustle culture” – or their employees going above and beyond – see this as a drop in productivity.

We know that disengagement occurs when there’s a lack of purpose and values in the work an employee does. It’s crucial for organisations to reflect upon their EVPs, listen to what their employees are looking for, and work towards it. For example, salary isn’t always the main focus. People generally want meaningful work and to contribute to a larger purpose.

Successful organisations showcase their inclusive cultures, their commitment to DE&I, and their focus on tackling social and environmental issues. Flexibility and autonomy are also highly valued by today’s workers. Research shows 34% of employees would look for a new role if their employer didn’t provide remote work options. More than half of working professionals would take a pay cut if it meant they could work from home 100% of the time.

In an era when retention is just as crucial as acquisition, talent teams have additional responsibilities to encourage employee wellbeing – and ensure leaders do, too. Organisations that prioritise employee engagement will overcome quiet quitting, reduce staff turnover, and ultimately, improve their bottom line.

Do:

• Take time to understand the values and what’s important to your employees. This will help you to build activities and an EVP that keeps them engaged.
• Encourage your employees to focus on wellbeing in the workplace.
• Carefully construct job descriptions.

Don’t:

• Consider quiet quitting as being lazy – it’s your team members saying they’re at capacity. See it as an opportunity to better support your employees to find work-life balance.

Ready to take control of your recruitment strategy?

Navigating the current talent market will need a strong strategy. eArcu works with hundreds of clients around the globe to optimise their sourcing channels and career sites, build strong talent pipelines, and nurture relationships with internal and external talent.

Get in touch today to see how we can help you attract the talent you need to grow in 2023 and beyond.