Top 15 Recruiting Trends for 2023

Top 15 Recruiting Trends for 2023:

1. Proactive recruiting.

Amidst a growing skills gap and the increasing difficulty to find suitable talent fast, more and more recruiters are beginning to resort to proactive candidate engagement — a recruitment practice that has in the past been primarily used to source candidates for C-level positions — to find talent for roles at all levels.

2. Employer branding.

Before applying, job seekers are researching a business's reputation and brand. Therefore, employers are starting to see the importance of maintaining or improving their brand image. Just like with customers, future applicants will want to associate themselves with a business that is respected in their industry.

3. Candidate experience.

With the demand for skilled candidates often outweighing the supply, job seekers are becoming more selective when choosing which companies to apply to and are strongly influenced by employer brands, with candidate experience becoming an increasingly important factor.

As recruiters rely more on technology to streamline the recruitment journey for candidates, adding a human touch to the experience is something that should not be overlooked. A trend to watch in this respect is the personalization of tech experiences to avoid candidates feeling disconnected or treated like just another data entry.

4. Diversity, equity, and inclusion.

While diversity hiring is nothing new, it remains a popular and growing recruiting trend in 2023. Inclusion, equity, and diversity practices have shifted into the spotlight and can strongly influence candidates' perception of an employer's brand and their decisions to pursue or disregard advertised job openings.

Employers will have to pay close attention to the language, variety of sourcing channels, and screening and evaluation practices they use, ensuring that these are unbiased. Prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion also offers businesses many other benefits, including improved employee happiness, productivity, retention, and loyalty.

5. Work flexibility.

Many businesses operate with a diverse team that includes a combination of full-timers, contractors, freelancers, and interns. Because of the competitive labor market, more employers are offering creative benefits including flexible work schedules. This has helped to differentiate brands and create a more attractive workplace for potential candidates.

This is an appealing benefit for independent workers who like the fact that they can work anywhere they want, and whenever they want. Technology has been a huge enabler of this growing trend, helping to connect teams from all over the world.

6. Artificial intelligence (AI).

AI in recruitment will continue to spread in 2023, changing the entire HR process. Offering a range of useful recruiting tools, including automated candidate sourcing, recovery, and matching, AI in recruitment continues to expand.

Learn more about how AI will change human resources.

7. Internal mobility.

In addition to enhanced and proactive external recruitment efforts to fill skills gaps through, employers are also giving more importance to internal mobility and looking to the human capital they already have before initiating costly and time-consuming external recruiting drives.

In addition to being more cost-effective, offering development opportunities to current employees to fill skills gaps can improve employee satisfaction and loyalty, ultimately contributing to a stronger employer brand and giving your business a competitive edge.

8. Collaborative hiring.

Including your entire team in the recruiting process could help you build a substantial pool of qualified candidates that are more productive and loyal to the business. This new trend has caught the attention of many businesses, resulting in an increase in referrals and employee referral programs.

9. Recruitment marketing.

This involves using common marketing practices in your recruiting process. With the help of effective marketing tactics, recruiters are able to find, attract and nurture talented candidates. Essentially, you will market the business or job position to the candidate, inspiring them to apply to your business's job openings.

10. Transferable skills.

In certain industries, it's becoming increasingly hard to find skilled individuals. In response, recruiters have started to look beyond the limitations of their industry to find talented candidates. This has resulted in a shift from experience-based hiring to hiring based on transferable skills. Instead of looking for relevant previous work experience, recruiters will increasingly focus on transferable skills to help expand their talent pool.

Transferable skills include problem-solving, adaptability, communication, creativity, financial literacy, and more. These skills are often referred to as soft skills.

11. Talent pools.

Building a talent pool database gives recruiters and HR Managers easy access to qualified and talented candidates. Talent pools don't only consist of candidates that have simply applied for jobs. They also include candidates that were sourced, referred, and joined your team through the inbound method, as well as former employees.

An increasingly popular method for staying in touch with potential candidates and attracting top talent to fill vacant positions quickly is to maintain a talent network on your company's career site.

Learn how to build a talent pool with these five simple steps.

12. Data-driven recruiting.

With this trend, planning and decision-making are based on data obtained through HR technology such as ATS and recruitment marketing platforms. This helps reveal important insights into which parts of your hiring strategy work well, and which parts need improvement.

13. E-recruitment.

Also referred to as online recruitment, this trend refers to using the web, software, and other technology to attract, assess and hire suitable candidates. As technology advances, the recruiting process will become simple and more efficient. The online recruitment method includes social media recruiting and the use of software, such as Applicant Tracking and HRIS.

14. Project-based contract hiring.

While freelance and contract work are not novel concepts in 2023, the increased adoption of these work models is a notable trend. With a heightened demand for more flexibility, independence, and a better work-life balance among workers, it shouldn’t be surprising that more than 40% of the U.S. workforce are contract workers.

Employers are also making more use of contractors and freelancers than before, with more than 90% of U.S. companies moving to a hybrid model of both full-time and freelance employees to bridge skills gaps. According to industry research, engaging in contingent talent is one of the most effective ways to address talent scarcity.

15. Attracting Gen-Z.

While generation-Z is currently filling internships and entry-level positions, it's important to look to the future and invest in this new generation. Generation Z is slowly making its way into the workforce, with over 60 million young and talented job-seekers expected to enter the U.S. job market in the coming years.