Leaders and professionals in the human resources and talent acquisition landscape certainly have a lot to think about as we head into 2023.
The pandemic is gradually moving out of sight and out of mind, but the fallout is still highly visible in the work, health, and wellbeing of employees. Moving forward in this changed labor market is going to be dependent on how adaptable and compassionate recruitment can be. Here are some prevalent recruiting and hiring trends to bear in mind as we built out talent acquisition strategies for the year ahead.
Recruitment Trends to Watch Out For in 2023
Advertised Salary Ranges on Job Postings
A lot of job seekers, and recruiters, will be interested to see how the new pay transparency laws will affect recruiting in 2023.
New York City joined Colorado, Washington, and Rhode Island in requiring salary to be included in new job postings, and California will require the same starting in January. Although some companies have sought ways around the law by posting large salary ranges (such as Citi Bank’s infamous $0-$2M job posting), pay transparency will give more power to job seekers as they navigate a competitive marketplace.
Although some companies may see a reduction in the number of applicants to a new role, those in the hiring pipeline should be less likely to drop out due to compensation concerns. Higher pass-through rates could be a huge win for recruiting teams in 2023 as they seek to lower time-to-hire. Greater transparency around pay and benefits offered also benefits candidate experience and, by extension, employer brand.
Changes in Job Board Monetization
Connected to increased job applications, recruitment marketing is likely to see some upheaval in 2023 as Indeed moves back to a Pay Per Application (PPA) model rather than Cost Per Click (CPC). This is one trend to watch as traditional job boards, like Indeed, adapt their business model to compete with Google’s updated job search functionality by aggregating job postings from many different career sites and sources. It’s unclear what the final impact will be on Indeed’s business, but recruiting teams that leverage marketing channels, and programmatic job advertising agencies, will be rethinking their strategies in 2023 to account for these updates.
Job Insecurity and Layoffs
Layoffs were a big theme in 2022 and may continue into 2023 as economic uncertainty challenges business performance. Although external recruiting may continue to soften, companies have already shifted towards retaining key employees by improving their internal mobility processes and internal succession planning. Recruiting teams may find themselves increasingly sourcing from current employees to find the best candidate for a new role, supported by Talent Intelligence tools that quickly map internal talent to highlight skill gaps.
Reliance on People Data
Another likely trend in 2023 will be the increased use of analytical tools and teams as HR functions learn from over-hiring in the last few years — a key contributor to recent layoffs.
Requisition prioritization for net-new roles and backfill requests will likely come under more scrutiny as CFO’s work to manage headcount costs against revenue forecasts. Organizations that develop a long-term, data-driven recruiting plan aligned with their headcount strategy should outperform their peers in the coming year as proactive recruiters fill critical roles faster with less overhead.
Hiring Trends to Watch Out For in 2023
With almost 100,000 layoffs across the technology sector in 2022, hiring trends may shift to other critical sectors in the New Year.
Urgent Fills in Sectors with Labor Shortages
The CHIPs act has led to large investments in rebuilding critical manufacturing infrastructure, especially around semiconductor manufacturing. Demand will be high for roles ranging from skilled machinists to experienced executives.
Supply chain disruption has a large impact on the economy, and labor shortages have continued to add risk to the sector. We’re also likely to see more focus on filling key supply chain roles in 2023. A third sector that is likely to continue to see focus will be healthcare, especially as nurse shortages continue to worsen as experienced providers retire or leave for other career paths.
Employee Responses to In-office Work
A large unknown impact of remote working over the last 2+ years is its aftermath. What will happen as more companies implement Return to Office (RTO) plans?
Returning to an office is likely to adversely affect underrepresented minorities and working mothers who have benefited from flexibility in their schedules. We may see a huge exodus of employees who are forced to choose between commuting for several hours each day or work-life balance at companies that offer remote-first or hybrid working opportunities. The effect this will have on the retention of current workers and the available talent pool of qualified candidates willing to take in-office positions remains to be seen.
Source: Statista
Contingent Workforce Uptake
With all of these changes and continued economic uncertainty, organizations may also start to leverage more contract and part-time positions to fill short-term needs without committing to full-time hiring overheads.
This could be a huge win/win as companies can be more surgical in solving their needs with great talent while employees have more options for managing their working schedules and employee experience. With layoffs overwhelmingly affecting recruiting teams, contingent work is a model that has been popular for some time and may be used more frequently in 2023.
Naturally, some automation or software support in the form of a freelance management system is beneficial in this type of workforce management.
How Technology will Affect Hiring and Recruitment in 2023 and Beyond
Talent Intelligence
One of the newest developments in HR technology is the use of Talent Intelligence. Talent Intelligence tools are recruiting tools designed to help organizations identify and recruit top talent by providing them with data-driven insights and recommendations. Many include the ability to:
- Search and filter internal and external candidate data in order to find qualified prospects for new roles, including existing employers for internal mobility opportunities.
- Track and analyze recruitment metrics more effectively in order to find, fix, and improve time, cost, and quality of hire.
- Set up automation to streamline various aspects of the hiring process. This increases recruiting capacity and allows more roles to be filled with less headcount.
Other features may include artificial intelligence for sourcing, resume parsing, candidate matching, and integration with job boards and other recruitment platforms to support the recruiting team.
Onboarding Tools
Another standout technology is improved onboarding capabilities to help companies integrate new hires in a remote or hybrid work environment.
To create a consistent experience, companies can now use templated workflows (hosted in onboarding software) to assign orientation sessions, training, and introductions to the company's policies and procedures. Many platforms also connect new employees with key colleagues, and a mentor or buddy to help them acclimate to their new role, company culture, and work environment.
Candidate Assessment
With a potential shift back to increased inbound recruiting rather than outbound sourcing we may see increased use of pre-hire assessment tools in the recruiting process. These tools are used by companies to evaluate job candidates before making a hiring decision. Evaluations traditionally involve written tests, skills assessments, personality tests, soft skills assessments, and even physical fitness tests.
New tools are focused on reducing the amount of time needed to complete these tests and can include job simulations to assess a candidate's readiness to perform in their role.
Outdated Recruiting Practices to Leave Behind in 2022
Inconsistent Assessment and Hiring Processes
Many organizations are still using informal and unstructured hiring processes in which candidates receive an inconsistent assessment for a role. Hiring teams should have a structured hiring process in place for 2023 for several reasons:
- A structured hiring program helps to ensure that the hiring process is fair, consistent, and objective, which can help to minimize unconscious hiring bias and ensure that the best candidates are selected for open positions.
- Structured hiring programs also provide a clear and standardized set of steps for the hiring process, which can make the process more efficient and reduce the amount of time and effort required to identify and recruit the best talent.
- Additionally, structured hiring programs can provide valuable data and insights that can help companies to improve their recruitment processes and make more informed hiring decisions with predictive analytics.
Overall, using a structured hiring program can help companies to attract and retain top talent, which can ultimately lead to improved business performance. A formalized applicant tracking and hiring strategy should therefore be a top priority for companies that do not yet have one in place.
Unmonitored Candidate Referral Programs
Candidate referral programs, in which employees are incentivized to refer their friends and contacts for open positions at their company, can help companies tap into networks of potential candidates that they might not have otherwise been able to access.
Although this can increase the diversity of the applicant pool, much depends on the diversity of existing employee networks. Often these referral programs can also reinforce existing biases and result in a less diverse candidate pool, as employees are more likely to refer to people who are similar to themselves.
To maximize the positive impact of referral programs on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), it's important for companies to have robust diversity and inclusion policies in place and to monitor the effectiveness of their referral programs on an ongoing basis. This should be an important factor for recruiting functions in 2023. Diversity hiring tools, overlaid with employee referrals can help monitor DEI and ensure hiring is diverse.
Prioritizing Quality of Quantity in Recruitment Practices
As HR professionals look to rebuild recruiting capacity in 2023 after hiring freezes and layoffs, they should move away from a focus on ‘coin-operated’ recruiting and seek recruiters that can be true business partners.
Rather than focusing on how many roles a recruiter can fill each month, consideration should fall with how the recruiting strategy benefits the company. Recruiting and HR leaders should prioritize recruiters who possess:
- Strong communication skills to effectively communicate with both candidates and hiring managers in order to identify the right competencies and person fit for open positions.
- Strong organizational skills to effectively manage their time and prioritize tasks in order to effectively handle a high volume of candidates and vacancies.
- Strong problem-solving skills to quickly and effectively solve problems that arise during the hiring process.
- Strong relationship-building skills to build strong relationships with both candidates and hiring managers with a special focus on establishing trust and rapport.
- Knowledge of industry and market trends to understand and adapt to conditions that may impact the hiring process.
