10 Recruitment Trends for 2024: Latest Predictions You Should Be Thinking About

Recent technological advancements and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic are forcing the modern workplace to evolve. From shifts in recruiting expectations to AI-powered hiring, disruptive recruitment trends continue to emerge.

Are you prepared to succeed in competing for today’s best talent? Below are ten global recruitment trends businesses and HR professionals should be aware of in 2021 and beyond.

Amidst changes in the HR space and the disruptions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, technology has given birth to a new breed of recruiters. These technology-empowered headhunters are pro-active, savvy, and highly strategic in hunting down the right talent for the job.

Recruiters are increasingly using social media posts, web-based job boards, and online job portals nowadays (4Imprint, 2020). However, some traditional methods of recruiting continue to be effective today, such as referrals and job fairs. Yes, we’re now in an age where AI, augmented reality, and machine learning rule. But finding the right balance between digital and traditional channels is key to accomplishing recruitment priorities such as improving quality of hire (52%) and time-to-hire (23%)  (HRD America, 2020, 2021).

Aside from knowing the right recruiting mix, it is important for businesses and hiring managers to be aware of the current recruitment statistics. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted HR tech on two major fronts: the overall decline in employment and the increase in remote work. Many recruiters must now embrace virtual recruiting to find the best candidates. These include shifting to online interviews and establishing rapport via digital platforms, and walking new hires through the technologies used by the company.

Being on top of the workforce market’s current status and upcoming directions will be key in this evolving environment. This is why knowing these recruitment trends below is a perfect place to start.

1. The emergence of employer branding

In a highly competitive talent market like today’s, a compelling employer brand is key to attracting the best talents. Businesses with excellent employer brands receive 50% more qualified applicants. Having a great brand image helps in reducing hiring costs per candidate, as well.

A company’s reputation and popularity as an employer mainly comprise an employer brand. Another key element here is its employee value proposition or EVP. An effective EVP integrates employee engagement with branding to support an efficient candidate attraction and retention approach. In the US, the top EVPs are inspiring purpose, respect for people, and team-oriented work (Universum).

Is employer branding important?

Employer branding strategies are becoming more crucial to creating a robust and attractive employer brand. In fact, over 75% of job seekers research employer brand and reputation before they apply (LinkedIn). Businesses plagued with a bad reputation find it hard to attract new talents and retain hired ones. Based on surveyed job seekers, 50% said that they wouldn’t work for a company that has a bad reputation—even if they’ll receive a higher salary (HR Daily Advisor, 2019).

The effect of an employer’s brand is real and compelling. A robust talent brand helps in building a dynamic workforce and influences a brand’s success. An employer brand dictates if strong candidates will join you or your competitor.

Employees actually never stop asking for more from their organizations even after being hired. Aside from career growth opportunities, they want to know that they’re working for a company they can be proud of. It’s no wonder why employer branding will likely be a top recruitment trend for the years to come.

2. Companies increasingly rely on HR automation

Around 72% of employers predict that elements of their talent acquisition will be automated within the next decade (CareerBuilder). Integrating HR automation allows companies to cut up to 17% in hiring costs and 26% in HR staff hours.

At the core of this trend are innovative recruitment automation solutions. In fact, automation and other digital recruitment trends have been around for a while. However, the new class of such HR automation tools transcends those of earlier generations.

Vendors now offer integrated HR recruitment platforms that include HRIS, recruitment marketing tools, and the best applicant tracking software.

How does automation help in recruitment?

HR automation tools are increasingly used by recruiters in their tasks. These integrated technology solutions help to find, attract, engage, nurture, and convert candidates to become applicants. By automating the hiring process, these tools help streamline recruitment, making it more efficient and faster.

An increasing number of firms are using AI in their recruitment processes as well. A recent survey found that 50% of firms use AI to source and screen candidates, in addition to using it to schedule them for interviews (Modern Hire).

Businesses that still disregard the advantages of recruitment automation tools are likely to lose their candidates to tech-savvy competitors. On average, HR managers lose 14 hours a week, manually completing tasks that could be automated. That’s a considerable waste of time and productivity (Career Builder).

And to further ensure you’ll get ahead of your local competitors, go for the best HR software.

Most Popular Applicant Tracking Software

1. BambooHR is an applicant tracking and HR software that sees you through the entire employee life cycle, from hiring, onboarding, preparing compensation, and building work culture.
2. SmartRecruiters is an enterprise-grade recruiting software built to attract and hire great talents.
3. Workday is a robust ERP system that provides HR, planning, and finance solutions in a single platform. I
4. Submittable is a simple and secure applicant management solution that can easily review and select the best submissions.
5. Greenhouse is a recruiting and applicant tracking software built for structured hiring processes.

3. Data-driven recruiting and HR Analytics

The use of data-driven metrics is one of today’s hottest recruiting trends. These powerful tools are new types of recruiting strategies where HR makes hiring plans and decisions based on data. Sources of these data include other technology tools like ATS and recruitment marketing platforms.

HR analytics enables users to gain insights into which areas of their recruitment strategies function well or otherwise. It also allows them to find out how to increase retention and perhaps evaluate skill gaps. When recruiters can easily identify areas for improvement, appropriate changes can be quickly made.

How effective is people analytics-based recruitment?

Can this trend be just a case of using a popular tool without knowing its actual use? A study by Deloitte revealed that 71% of companies have been found to prioritize people analytics. However, only 9% understand how talent management enhances their firms’ performance (Deloitte).

The proper use of HR analytics has been proven to enhance a number of key hiring metrics. These include quality-of-hire, cost-to-hire, and time-to-hire.

Businesses are turning to data-driven recruiting to drive their overall talent lifecycle. Organizations use people analytics to help them continuously enhance their recruitment strategy. These measures include skills gap analysis, workforce planning, assessment, engagement, and retention.

HR analytics use can be further optimized when utilized with efficient talent management software.

4. Organizations are hiring for soft skills

5. Creation and maintenance of talent pools

Using talent pools could be the missing recruitment strategy you’ve been searching for. The truth is, dynamic organizations are turning to their own talent pools to successfully hire the best talents today. This is especially helpful in curbing talent recruitment concerns brought about by COVID-19 such as remote onboarding and remote hiring (Workable, 2020). 

In a highly competitive talent market, businesses must search from every possible source to address their skills shortage. And the best approach is through internal and external talent pools.

The traditional recruitment approach had been the focus of external hiring. But in today’s ballooning skills deficit, businesses simply have no choice but to search broadly outside and within their workplaces.

Offering your own staff current vacancies helps to further increase their company loyalty. Just make sure it’s a promotion (Cleverism, 2020). Simply making horizontal or vertical transfers without any corresponding increase won’t do much good.

What are the benefits of talent pools?

Although talent pools are becoming popular nowadays, recruiters have been using them for a long time. However, it’s only recently that businesses understand how to properly use them to their advantage.

As today’s labor market experiences a skills deficit, talent pools offer companies an effective way to address their labor needs. With competitors constantly providing irresistible offers, businesses simply can’t afford to lose any current talent.

Building and nurturing a warm talent pool of external and internal candidates is the best way to retain talent. Companies increasingly build talent pools:

• to help cut recruitment costs,
• to shorten the time-to-hire and entire hiring cycle,
• to identify quality candidates for future needs.

6. AI-powered head-hunting advances

Artificial intelligence has penetrated the HR hiring environment, and the initial outcomes are promising. Recruitment vendors and HR managers agree that AI technology is never meant to replace recruiters. It’s designed to vastly improve their roles.

Unlike people, AI doesn’t have any biases when screening and selecting new hires. But having such a highly objective recruitment process does take time to achieve. It depends for the most part on robust machine learning programming to minimize biases and to allow better candidate-job matching.

HR software vendors are also increasing their use of AI for candidate evaluation purposes. This entails the use of candidate data, NLP, and pattern recognition for gaining valuable insights into candidates.

How valuable is AI in HR processes?

The entry of AI into the recruitment space involves two major purposes. These are to leverage automation by removing manual tasks and improve the candidate experience. The use of conversational chatbots is becoming a popular AI deployment in recruitment. These chatbots can now effectively engage candidates at the various contact points during the hiring journey.

At present, HR chatbots can do the rigorous task of pre-screening candidates with ease. They can monitor employee issues using real-time analytics and use sentiment analysis to solve these issues. They’re also becoming a staple in onboarding activities and employee online learning programs.

7. Reliance on social recruiting grows

One of the most popular recruitment trends today is social recruiting (Recruiter). This HR strategy pertains to the various ways of using social networks for finding, attracting, and hiring talents.

Early on, who would have thought social media will become a powerful hiring channel? Aside from the extensive and easy access, social media-based recruiting offers the opportunity for one-on-one engagement. This approach makes candidates feel they’re valued and cared for. Moreover, during the Coronavirus outbreak, many people turned to social media to satisfy their need to stay connected and informed. This makes social media channels a highly important place for companies to connect with job seekers. 

With the vast advantages it offers, social recruiting has become one of the top 2019 recruitment trends. And looking at today’s social media statistics, this trend is likely to continue in the years to come.

Is social recruiting effective?

The popularity of social platforms as a recruitment channel is evident in the number of companies using them to find candidates. A full 94% of professional recruiters are on social media to post jobs and network with their extensive community (Betterteam, 2021).  Moreover, 59% of employees said that their company’s social media presence was one of the reasons why they chose to join their organization. 

It’s simply clear that if you don’t use these channels, you’re allowing your competitors to out-recruit you. But social recruiting doesn’t only involve posting job vacancies on your company’s social account.  You can do so much more with these channels.

You can use your free or premium Facebook or LinkedIn accounts to search for promising candidates. Once you’ve reached them, you can easily engage them towards building a relationship with your brand. Later, you can invite them to apply for your job vacancies.

By the way, essential to successful social recruiting is having reliable social media management software.

8. Recruiters are embracing the new hiring CRM

Another type of CRM is making it big in the business scene. This time, it involves the HR recruitment space, and it’s called candidate relationship management. This CRM is becoming one of this year’s top recruitment trends. 

This new recruitment strategy was specifically created to solve one of today’s most serious problems in HR–talent attraction. CRM is a strategic approach since 90% of HR professionals say today’s talent acquisition trends are mostly candidate-driven. 

Candidate relationship management had been found to be effective when applied to three levels. These are with existing candidates, with previous candidates, and with potential candidates.

What is this new HR-based CRM?

Recruitment marketing methods are increasingly used nowadays through recruitment marketing tools. These robust tools allow HR practitioners to easily implement CRM strategies in a candidate-centric approach. 

As a result, this strategy significantly streamlines and automates the hiring process. Treating candidates as valuable “internal customers” elevates every hiring aspect to new heights. Thus, recruitment quality and outcomes become much improved.

Using this new CRM as a recruitment tool offers various hiring solutions. For one, it can be used for making engaging email campaigns. These can effectively provide interesting and relevant content to potential candidates.

CRM helps a lot in building stronger relationships with qualified candidates. It facilitates the expansion of HR talent pools as well.

9. Candidate experience now a key recruitment factor

Candidate experience pertains to the total perception of a candidate about an organization’s recruitment process. This key candidate element is now increasingly being used by companies in their recruitment practice. 

This new factor helps in improving the hiring process, as well. Candidate experience combines several aspects. These include candidate attitude, behavior, and feeling during the hiring process.

A recruitment experience motivates 97% of candidates to refer to other candidates (TalentLyft, 2020). Over 50% of candidates would even share their positive experiences via social media. A poor hiring experience will result in adverse outcomes for the company.

How powerful is candidate experience?

The majority of business owners report that candidate experience can impact buyer purchasing decisions. A negative hiring experience would compel over half of candidates not to purchase a company’s products or services (CareerArc).

Cases of the adverse effects of a bad candidate experience are many. A notable one is that of Virgin Media, which measured that poor candidate experience costs them as much as $5.4 million a year (LinkedIn).

The three key elements of building an awesome candidate experience are:

• Segmenting candidates types and selecting which hiring journey addresses specific expectations.
• Adjusting your candidate experience approach to align with your corporate goals, culture, and values.
• Building a consumer-centric candidate experience and assessing the efficiency of your methods.

10. The rise of the proactive recruiter

Yesterday’s recruiters’ role is different today and tomorrow. Armed with efficient technological tools and know-how, they’re more empowered to better engage with candidates and colleagues.

By shifting from reactive hiring methods, they’re now proactively sourcing from outside and internal talent pools (LinkedIn, 2019).

These accessible, easy-to-use HR technologies are key to streamlining and accelerating the hiring workflow. Such innovative tools enable hiring managers and recruiters to have closer relationships as well. The resulting transparent, simple workflow helps to eradicate constraints to excellent talent pool management and internal candidate mobility.

Talent acquisition competition intensifies

With their enhanced capabilities, today’s strategic recruiters must thrive in a highly competitive talent market. And it’s becoming a totally distinctive environment for business enterprises.

In today’s talent market, 90% of the S&P 100 firms are hiring for 37 similar, in-demand jobs (IBM, 2021). And those 37 sought-after jobs comprise around half of the job postings of S&P 100 firms.

Strategic recruiters search outside and inside their companies to fill vacancies. They know that untapped talents abound internally. They’re proactively developing internal mobility and career paths, too.

How can companies optimize remote recruitment?

With the rise of remote work, companies increasingly need to optimize their recruitment processes to attract, assess, and onboard candidates effectively in a remote environment. Adapting recruitment strategies to this format ensures a smooth hiring experience and helps build a positive employer brand.

• Utilize Video Interviews and Virtual Assessments: Video interviews have become essential for remote recruitment, offering face-to-face interaction while eliminating geographic limitations. Companies can incorporate virtual assessments, such as job simulations or technical tests, to evaluate skills in real-time.
• Enhance the Virtual Candidate Experience: From initial contact to final interviews, companies should ensure a seamless and positive experience. This includes setting clear expectations for each step, offering real-time support, and providing feedback after interviews.
• Optimize Communication and Collaboration Tools: A smooth remote hiring process depends on tools like Zoom, Slack, and project management platforms. Ensuring that these tools are integrated and accessible allows teams to collaborate effectively, reducing delays and improving response times.
• Build a Strong Virtual Onboarding Program: Successful onboarding helps new hires feel connected and informed. Companies can develop a structured virtual onboarding program with clear timelines, team introductions, and resources to familiarize hires with the company culture and expectations.
• Leverage Data Analytics: Remote recruitment generates valuable data that can provide insights into the effectiveness of the hiring process. By analyzing data on candidate engagement, response rates, and time-to-hire, companies can adjust their approach to enhance efficiency.

What do these recruitment trends mean to you?

These trends offer a wealth of applications for candidates and businesses. As companies search for talents in the midst of emerging technologies and uncertainties in the time of a pandemic, knowing effective strategies gives them a considerable edge over competitors.

These 10 hiring trends show how technology, social media, and the global health crisis have impacted the recruitment process. These essential tools enhance the capabilities of HR professionals. Technology is meant to support, not to replace human recruiters.

No matter what hiring strategy or technology is trending, the ultimate objective remains the same. Businesses must attract the right talent in a way that enhances the candidate experience.

It’s crucial to note that technological support occurs at every stage of the hiring journey. These sophisticated HR tools will continue to advance in the years to come. Aside from these latest trends, it’s also good to know the leading career trends that’ll likely shape tomorrow.

Key Insights

• Employer Branding: A compelling employer brand is crucial for attracting and retaining top talent. Businesses with strong employer brands receive 50% more qualified applicants and reduce hiring costs.
• HR Automation: Automating HR tasks can cut hiring costs by 17% and reduce HR staff hours by 26%. Advanced HR automation tools integrate with HRIS and ATS, streamlining the recruitment process.
• Data-Driven Recruiting: Using HR analytics improves key hiring metrics such as quality-of-hire, cost-to-hire, and time-to-hire. Only 9% of companies understand how to leverage people analytics effectively.
• Hiring for Soft Skills: The demand for soft skills is rising, with an expected shortage of 29 million soft skills by 2030. Soft skills like collaboration and problem-solving are increasingly critical.
• Talent Pools: Building and maintaining talent pools help businesses address skill shortages, reduce recruitment costs, and shorten the hiring cycle. Both internal and external talent pools are essential.
• AI-Powered Headhunting: AI technology enhances the recruitment process by automating tasks and improving candidate experience. AI tools are used for pre-screening candidates, monitoring new hires, and onboarding.
• Social Recruiting: Social media has become a powerful recruitment channel, with 94% of professional recruiters using it. Social recruiting offers extensive reach and one-on-one engagement opportunities.
• Hiring CRM: Candidate relationship management (CRM) helps attract and engage talent by treating candidates as internal customers. CRM tools streamline the hiring process and improve recruitment quality.
• Candidate Experience: A positive candidate experience is crucial, impacting company branding and bottom line. Businesses need to segment candidate types and align recruitment processes with corporate goals.
• Proactive Recruiter: Today’s recruiters actively source talent both internally and externally, facilitated by advanced HR technologies. Proactive recruitment helps in career development and internal mobility.

FAQ

1. What is employer branding and why is it important? Employer branding refers to a company’s reputation and popularity as an employer. It is important because a strong employer brand attracts more qualified applicants, reduces hiring costs, and helps retain top talent. A compelling employer brand integrates employee engagement with branding to support efficient candidate attraction and retention.
2. How does HR automation benefit the recruitment process? HR automation benefits the recruitment process by streamlining and speeding up tasks, reducing hiring costs by up to 17%, and cutting HR staff hours by 26%. Advanced HR automation tools integrate with HRIS and ATS, making it easier to find, attract, engage, nurture, and convert candidates into applicants.
3. What is data-driven recruiting and how can it improve hiring practices? Data-driven recruiting involves using HR analytics and data metrics to make hiring plans and decisions. It improves hiring practices by providing insights into recruitment strategies, identifying areas for improvement, and enhancing key metrics such as quality-of-hire, cost-to-hire, and time-to-hire.
4. Why are soft skills becoming more important in recruitment? Soft skills are becoming more important in recruitment due to the increasing skills deficit. As many repetitive jobs are being automated, employers value soft skills like collaboration, problem-solving, and communication, which are essential for adapting to changing workplace demands and ensuring positions are not easily replaced by automation.
5. What are talent pools and how do they help in recruitment? Talent pools are groups of potential candidates that a company can draw from for current and future hiring needs. They help in recruitment by providing a readily available source of qualified candidates, reducing recruitment costs, shortening the hiring cycle, and addressing skill shortages, especially during disruptions like the COVID-19 pandemic.
6. How is AI transforming the recruitment process? AI is transforming the recruitment process by automating repetitive tasks, improving candidate experience, and enabling better candidate-job matching. AI tools, such as chatbots, are used for pre-screening candidates, monitoring employee issues, and facilitating onboarding activities, making the recruitment process more efficient and effective.
7. What is social recruiting and why is it effective? Social recruiting involves using social networks to find, attract, and hire talents. It is effective because it offers extensive reach, allows for one-on-one engagement with candidates, and leverages the widespread use of social media. Many recruiters and candidates are active on social media, making it a powerful channel for recruitment.
8. What is candidate relationship management (CRM) in recruitment? Candidate relationship management (CRM) in recruitment is a strategy that involves treating candidates as valuable internal customers. It uses recruitment marketing tools to engage and nurture relationships with candidates, streamlining and automating the hiring process, and improving recruitment quality and outcomes.
9. Why is candidate experience important in the recruitment process? Candidate experience is important because it shapes candidates’ perception of an organization’s recruitment process. A positive candidate experience leads to higher candidate referrals, better employer branding, and improved recruitment outcomes. Negative experiences can harm a company’s reputation and affect its ability to attract top talent.
10. What does it mean to be a proactive recruiter? Being a proactive recruiter means actively sourcing and engaging talent both internally and externally, rather than relying on reactive hiring methods. Proactive recruiters use advanced HR technologies to streamline the hiring process, build closer relationships with candidates, and facilitate career development and internal mobility, ensuring a steady pipeline of qualified talent.

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By James Anthony

A senior FinancesOnline writer on SaaS and B2B topics, James Anthony passion is keeping abreast of the industry’s cutting-edge practices (other than writing personal blog posts on why Firefly needs to be renewed). He has written extensively on these two subjects, being a firm believer in SaaS to PaaS migration and how this inevitable transition would impact economies of scale. With reviews and analyses spanning a breadth of topics from software to learning models, James is one of FinancesOnline’s most creative resources on and off the office.