Trends in talent acquisition: what’s changing

Companies have been working hard to adjust to new realities in recent years, such as the post-pandemic change in work practices and the entry of Generation Z into the workforce. Because workplace expectations are dynamic and subject to constant change, talent acquisition strategies must also be flexible and adaptable.

Companies and HR departments are continuously on the lookout for new talent acquisition strategies to help them locate and entice top people with less effort and time spent searching. We have looked at the predictions made by prominent HR tech platforms and company executives on future trends in talent acquisition. The year 2024 is quickly approaching, so let’s take a look at some of the most talked-about concepts and technological solutions.

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Talent acquisition trends to know about

The talent acquisition recruiter often serves as the initial point of contact between a company and job-seekers. The recruiter’s function has grown in importance as a means to provide the most favorable initial impression to candidates. The need for qualified recruiters increased by 63% between 2016 and 2019, with expertise in HR strategy and decision-making being the most in-demand areas of study.

In 2024, what will the most popular talent acquisition trends be? To keep up with the needs of the modern labor market and workplace, recruiting is digitizing and establishing procedures, much like the rest of the organization. Adapting recruiting strategies to match fluctuating demand is illustrated by the following.

Virtual recruiting

Seventy percent of the organizations claim to use some form of virtual recruiting or onboarding, with one in ten saying they do it entirely online. Virtual recruiting is here to stay, but with it comes new obstacles, such as how to give prospects a feel for the company’s culture and how to facilitate long-term in-person communication to assess compatibility. The goal of high-quality virtual talent acquisition experiences is to communicate the company’s culture to candidates the instant they see a job opening.

Human capital management (HCM) refers to the methods and strategies your company uses to find, hire, and keep employees. Talent acquisition recruiters are an integral part of this process. HCM is a system that helps you coordinate your employees with your company’s demands. When combined with remote employment, virtual recruiting is becoming an increasingly important part of HCM plans. Your company is no longer constrained to recruiting inside a certain radius of your offices or headquarters. On the other hand, you can ignore physical distance while searching for a qualified applicant.

Remote work

Some combination of in-person and remote work is, thankfully, not going anywhere. With over one-third of businesses expressing openness to recruiting remote workers from any part of the globe, geographical barriers will be even less of an issue when it comes to hiring this year.

Sixty percent of job-seekers are looking for more leeway in terms of when and where they put in their hours. Companies will stand out to job searchers if they provide remote work options, such as standing desks or noise-canceling headphones, as well as collaboration tools and opportunities to study and communicate remotely. 

Automation

Recruiters’ responsibilities are evolving due to the automation of many traditionally manual procedures brought about by candidate relationship management (CRM), application tracking (typically handled by HRMS), and digital interviewing platforms. HRMS enhances the work experience for all parties involved, including candidates, recruiters, and hiring managers. It may also assist with recruitment tasks such as managing resumes, setting up interviews, and keeping track of the entire process. The length of the talent acquisition recruitment process is one of the places that creates the greatest friction in the applicant experience. Recruiters may reduce time at the beginning of the process by employing HRMS solutions.

Artificial intelligence

Source applicants, evaluate resumes, and arrange interviews are all tasks that make use of AI technology. Some platforms use AI to sift through written interview responses, learning from data and utilizing algorithms to advance the most suitable applicants. Some 36% of recruiters believe AI will improve their careers, so it’s safe to say that they’re fairly optimistic about AI. They said that AI was used for things like job suggestions on employment sites, matching candidates, suggesting job descriptions, screening candidates with automated communications, and assessing applicant engagement. Artificial intelligence has great potential in several areas, including the elimination of prejudice from job postings. Job descriptions that include language that is discriminatory or gendered can be replaced by AI-powered authoring tools. Deloitte reports that after using these technologies, a consumer goods business had a 30% increase in quality candidates and a software company had a 50% increase in speed of filling positions and a 28% increase in the number of women applying.

Virtual assistants

More applications are being converted and more potential leads are being generated by chatbots utilized in the talent acquisition process. One way chatbots might be useful is by allowing prospects to learn more about the company before applying. This way, human recruiters can spend less time addressing queries like these. There was a 95% increase in conversion to leads, a 40% increase in application completion, and a 13% increase in clicks on job requisitions on career sites with chatbots compared to those without. How to apply, application status, benefits, salary, and role-specific search inquiries are some of the most common queries asked to chatbots by applicants. When it came to using chatbots for talent acquisition, Marriott International was an early adopter. These chatbots, driven by AI, direct users to available roles and provide them with appropriate material to learn more about them.

Analytics for the future

Finding, attracting, and ultimately hiring top talent to increase output is an important part of every recruiter’s job description. On top of that, you may make informed predictions about which candidates will excel in specific positions. To make even more educated guesses, though, predictive analytics provides the data that supports such conclusions. To foretell the future, it compiles facts from the past and present. Using information gathered from many sources, such as your HRMS, resumes, and job descriptions, predictive analytics may help you make educated guesses about potential candidates. Fit with the company’s culture, retention rate, aptitude for skill acquisition, and level of engagement are some of the factors it could monitor. Thousands of people apply for a single job opening at JP Morgan. The organization uses machine learning algorithms to categorize the resumes and make them more useful to recruiters in their search for qualified candidates. In positions with a high turnover rate, machine learning may help determine which candidates have a better chance of being interviewed and ultimately recruited, as well as which ones tend to remain on the team. Although computers do not make the final recruiting choices, they can provide valuable recommendations that recruiters may use.

Empathy

A modern leadership idea is to foster an environment where workers are encouraged to consider the feelings and needs of others. Those responsible for hiring and onboarding may learn a lot about candidates and new employees by empathizing with them. The “vanishing recruiter” problem is all too often; it occurs when a recruiter abruptly stops responding to prospects’ messages, even after the first interview, with no apparent reason. Prospective workers will have a far more positive impression of the business if empathy is infused throughout the hiring process for all applicants, not just the hired ones. When you consider that 77 percent of recruiters have employed someone who wasn’t their first choice for another job, you can see how critical this is.

Adaptability and flexibility

Recruiters need to be agile in 2021, which means they can change and adjust their business rapidly. Hiring contractors and temporary workers is a common trend in human resources that allows for more flexibility. Maintaining company operations while adjusting to budgetary and revenue fluctuations is possible with this strategy. The majority of CEOs (almost 70%) plan to increase their use of contract and temporary labor this year. As an example, Alphabet City Beer (ABC Beer Co.) was able to swiftly develop and operate its e-commerce because it utilized freelancers to support its transition to a largely online business.

Online Staffing

The use of LinkedIn for recruiting purposes is now utterly outdated. However, to locate and attract top-tier applicants, recruiters are expanding their reach and using social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and others. Outside of LinkedIn, 78% of recruiters anticipate an uptick in talent acquisition activity this year. Social recruitment is, unsurprisingly, achieving enormous gains among younger generations, even if email and phone still rank highest as effective talent acquisition recruitment techniques. With an increase from 18% in 2017 to 37% now, Instagram is becoming an increasingly popular channel for recruiters to utilize.

For example, Verizon is using Instagram in innovative ways to attract candidates for highly sought-after positions like software engineers and developers. “Think you can crack this code?'” the telecom company captioned an Instagram post with a challenging problem. Then you should apply to be a software developer at Verizon right now.

Online seminars

Without job fairs, a valuable route for attracting early talent and skills required for geographic expansions will be eliminated. Webinars may seem a bit dated in comparison to Instagram, but they are still a great way to build brand recognition and attract qualified candidates for open positions. Webinars will be utilized by companies in a manner that generates favorable identification and linkages with the brand. An example of this would be a webinar that the International Atomic Energy Agency put on for females thinking about working in the nuclear industry. Talks included updates on ongoing initiatives and professional guidance from the presenters.

Internal Recruiting

Many companies have made internal recruitment a key talent strategy after realizing the many advantages it offers in terms of lowering recruiting costs, increasing employee retention, and locating competent candidates. Internal hiring has increased by 10% since 2015, according to LinkedIn statistics. Curiously, internal recruiting isn’t being handled by recruiters. Instead, most employees find out about positions through internal posts, personal connections with hiring managers, or word of mouth. Businesses with a more proactive attitude include Schneider Electric. In response to statistics showing that almost half of departing employees were unable to get a suitable internal position, the business introduced an AI-driven internal mobility platform. Workers may get recommendations for full-time positions, projects, training, mentorship opportunities, and more by creating a profile that details their goals, talents, and interests.

Encouraging diversity, equity, and inclusion

Companies and job-seekers alike place a premium on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) commitments; in fact, one-third of recruiters report that candidates are asking about DEI. More and more, recruiters are making diversity in recruiting a top focus. A mere 13% felt the same way in 2017, but by 2021, that number had jumped to 22%. Some companies, like Starbucks, are integrating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) recruiting targets into larger strategic plans. One example is Starbucks’ inclusion and diversity objectives, which aim to achieve 40% representation in retail and manufacturing jobs by 2025 and 30% representation at all corporate levels for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). Beginning in FY21, it will connect DEI metrics to CEO pay.

Company reputation

When businesses work to establish and keep a favorable reputation as an employer, they are engaging in employer branding. Attracting top talent, retaining current staff, and differentiating a firm from the competition are all goals that may be achieved via branding. Establishing a culture that encourages employees to be authentic is crucial for companies aiming to be seen as top employers. This may result from highlighting the company’s principles and purpose or via staff advocacy campaigns. Branding has a multiplicative effect: it boosts productivity and the bottom line by attracting top talent and making current workers happier in their work. Investing in employer branding is crucial for firms to stand out and attract top talent in today’s competitive employment market.

Technology & software

When it comes to all of these changes, the talent acquisition team’s use of technology will be crucial for organizations to identify people quickly and efficiently. As the U.S. economy adds six million jobs by 2029, recruiters will encounter even more hurdles due to changing market conditions. These obstacles include promoting hard-to-fill posts, managing an effective recruiting pipeline, and other similar concerns. Human resource management software may facilitate change and drive a more effective hiring procedure. Recruiters may rely on modern HCM solutions to streamline resume management, interview scheduling, and information sharing with applicants and hiring managers. This allows them to spend less time on manual activities and more time on strategic initiatives. In addition, the program allows you to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) like time-to-fill and others, so you can demonstrate to upper management and leadership the financial effect of your efforts.

Immediately implement these changes for talent acquisition!

As time goes on, talent acquisition patterns evolve. There are a lot of unknowns right now since the globe is still trying to recover from a pandemic. There is no one correct solution to the problem of recruiting since recruiters are always finding new and improved ways to do their work. When it comes to recruiting in 2024, experimentation is king. As more and more jobs become available online, candidates are looking for ways to boost their self-esteem and find fulfillment in their work. 

As a result, recruiting is shifting to focus more on the individual and their needs. Employers are increasingly turning to recruiting tools to gain a deeper understanding of prospects and make data-driven decisions when seeking to attract them. Companies are more competitive than ever before, and job hopefuls have more agency than ever before in deciding the kind and collaborators of their work. If you’re a recruiter looking for the right candidate, you may use these patterns to your advantage. Because 2024 is all about trying new things, feel free to execute a better talent acquisition strategy if you can come up with one.

Companies have been working hard to adjust to new realities in recent years, such as the post-pandemic change in work practices and the entry of Generation Z into the workforce. Because workplace expectations are dynamic and subject to constant change, talent acquisition strategies must also be flexible and adaptable.

Companies and HR departments are continuously on the lookout for new talent acquisition strategies to help them locate and entice top people with less effort and time spent searching. We have looked at the predictions made by prominent HR tech platforms and company executives on future trends in talent acquisition. The year 2024 is quickly approaching, so let’s take a look at some of the most talked-about concepts and technological solutions.

Talent acquisition trends to know about

The talent acquisition recruiter often serves as the initial point of contact between a company and job-seekers. The recruiter’s function has grown in importance as a means to provide the most favorable initial impression to candidates. The need for qualified recruiters increased by 63% between 2016 and 2019, with expertise in HR strategy and decision-making being the most in-demand areas of study.

In 2024, what will the most popular talent acquisition trends be? To keep up with the needs of the modern labor market and workplace, recruiting is digitizing and establishing procedures, much like the rest of the organization. Adapting recruiting strategies to match fluctuating demand is illustrated by the following.

Virtual recruiting

Seventy percent of the organizations claim to use some form of virtual recruiting or onboarding, with one in ten saying they do it entirely online. Virtual recruiting is here to stay, but with it comes new obstacles, such as how to give prospects a feel for the company’s culture and how to facilitate long-term in-person communication to assess compatibility. The goal of high-quality virtual talent acquisition experiences is to communicate the company’s culture to candidates the instant they see a job opening.

Human capital management (HCM) refers to the methods and strategies your company uses to find, hire, and keep employees. Talent acquisition recruiters are an integral part of this process. HCM is a system that helps you coordinate your employees with your company’s demands. When combined with remote employment, virtual recruiting is becoming an increasingly important part of HCM plans. Your company is no longer constrained to recruiting inside a certain radius of your offices or headquarters. On the other hand, you can ignore physical distance while searching for a qualified applicant.

Remote work

Some combination of in-person and remote work is, thankfully, not going anywhere. With over one-third of businesses expressing openness to recruiting remote workers from any part of the globe, geographical barriers will be even less of an issue when it comes to hiring this year.

Sixty percent of job-seekers are looking for more leeway in terms of when and where they put in their hours. Companies will stand out to job searchers if they provide remote work options, such as standing desks or noise-canceling headphones, as well as collaboration tools and opportunities to study and communicate remotely. 

Automation

Recruiters’ responsibilities are evolving due to the automation of many traditionally manual procedures brought about by candidate relationship management (CRM), application tracking (typically handled by HRMS), and digital interviewing platforms. HRMS enhances the work experience for all parties involved, including candidates, recruiters, and hiring managers. It may also assist with recruitment tasks such as managing resumes, setting up interviews, and keeping track of the entire process. The length of the talent acquisition recruitment process is one of the places that creates the greatest friction in the applicant experience. Recruiters may reduce time at the beginning of the process by employing HRMS solutions.

Artificial intelligence

Source applicants, evaluate resumes, and arrange interviews are all tasks that make use of AI technology. Some platforms use AI to sift through written interview responses, learning from data and utilizing algorithms to advance the most suitable applicants. Some 36% of recruiters believe AI will improve their careers, so it’s safe to say that they’re fairly optimistic about AI. They said that AI was used for things like job suggestions on employment sites, matching candidates, suggesting job descriptions, screening candidates with automated communications, and assessing applicant engagement. Artificial intelligence has great potential in several areas, including the elimination of prejudice from job postings. Job descriptions that include language that is discriminatory or gendered can be replaced by AI-powered authoring tools. Deloitte reports that after using these technologies, a consumer goods business had a 30% increase in quality candidates and a software company had a 50% increase in speed of filling positions and a 28% increase in the number of women applying.

Virtual assistants

More applications are being converted and more potential leads are being generated by chatbots utilized in the talent acquisition process. One way chatbots might be useful is by allowing prospects to learn more about the company before applying. This way, human recruiters can spend less time addressing queries like these. There was a 95% increase in conversion to leads, a 40% increase in application completion, and a 13% increase in clicks on job requisitions on career sites with chatbots compared to those without. How to apply, application status, benefits, salary, and role-specific search inquiries are some of the most common queries asked to chatbots by applicants. When it came to using chatbots for talent acquisition, Marriott International was an early adopter. These chatbots, driven by AI, direct users to available roles and provide them with appropriate material to learn more about them.

Analytics for the Future

Finding, attracting, and ultimately hiring top talent to increase output is an important part of every recruiter’s job description. On top of that, you may make informed predictions about which candidates will excel in specific positions. To make even more educated guesses, though, predictive analytics provides the data that supports such conclusions. To foretell the future, it compiles facts from the past and present. Using information gathered from many sources, such as your HRMS, resumes, and job descriptions, predictive analytics may help you make educated guesses about potential candidates. Fit with the company’s culture, retention rate, aptitude for skill acquisition, and level of engagement are some of the factors it could monitor. Thousands of people apply for a single job opening at JP Morgan. The organization uses machine learning algorithms to categorize the resumes and make them more useful to recruiters in their search for qualified candidates. In positions with a high turnover rate, machine learning may help determine which candidates have a better chance of being interviewed and ultimately recruited, as well as which ones tend to remain on the team. Although computers do not make the final recruiting choices, they can provide valuable recommendations that recruiters may use.

Empathy

A modern leadership idea is to foster an environment where workers are encouraged to consider the feelings and needs of others. Those responsible for hiring and onboarding may learn a lot about candidates and new employees by empathizing with them. The “vanishing recruiter” problem is all too often; it occurs when a recruiter abruptly stops responding to prospects’ messages, even after the first interview, with no apparent reason. Prospective workers will have a far more positive impression of the business if empathy is infused throughout the hiring process for all applicants, not just the hired ones. When you consider that 77 percent of recruiters have employed someone who wasn’t their first choice for another job, you can see how critical this is.

Adaptability and flexibility

Recruiters need to be agile in 2021, which means they can change and adjust their business rapidly. Hiring contractors and temporary workers is a common trend in human resources that allows for more flexibility. Maintaining company operations while adjusting to budgetary and revenue fluctuations is possible with this strategy. The majority of CEOs (almost 70%) plan to increase their use of contract and temporary labor this year. As an example, Alphabet City Beer (ABC Beer Co.) was able to swiftly develop and operate its e-commerce because it utilized freelancers to support its transition to a largely online business.

Online staffing

The use of LinkedIn for recruiting purposes is now utterly outdated. However, to locate and attract top-tier applicants, recruiters are expanding their reach and using social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and others. Outside of LinkedIn, 78% of recruiters anticipate an uptick in talent acquisition activity this year. Social recruitment is, unsurprisingly, achieving enormous gains among younger generations, even if email and phone still rank highest as effective talent acquisition recruitment techniques. With an increase from 18% in 2017 to 37% now, Instagram is becoming an increasingly popular channel for recruiters to utilize.

For example, Verizon is using Instagram in innovative ways to attract candidates for highly sought-after positions like software engineers and developers. “Think you can crack this code?'” the telecom company captioned an Instagram post with a challenging problem. Then you should apply to be a software developer at Verizon right now.

Online seminars

Without job fairs, a valuable route for attracting early talent and skills required for geographic expansions will be eliminated. Webinars may seem a bit dated in comparison to Instagram, but they are still a great way to build brand recognition and attract qualified candidates for open positions. Webinars will be utilized by companies in a manner that generates favorable identification and linkages with the brand. An example of this would be a webinar that the International Atomic Energy Agency put on for females thinking about working in the nuclear industry. Talks included updates on ongoing initiatives and professional guidance from the presenters.

Internal recruiting

Many companies have made internal recruitment a key talent strategy after realizing the many advantages it offers in terms of lowering recruiting costs, increasing employee retention, and locating competent candidates. Internal hiring has increased by 10% since 2015, according to LinkedIn statistics. Curiously, internal recruiting isn’t being handled by recruiters. Instead, most employees find out about positions through internal posts, personal connections with hiring managers, or word of mouth. Businesses with a more proactive attitude include Schneider Electric. In response to statistics showing that almost half of departing employees were unable to get a suitable internal position, the business introduced an AI-driven internal mobility platform. Workers may get recommendations for full-time positions, projects, training, mentorship opportunities, and more by creating a profile that details their goals, talents, and interests.

Encouraging diversity, equity, and inclusion

Companies and job-seekers alike place a premium on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) commitments; in fact, one-third of recruiters report that candidates are asking about DEI. More and more, recruiters are making diversity in recruiting a top focus. A mere 13% felt the same way in 2017, but by 2021, that number had jumped to 22%. Some companies, like Starbucks, are integrating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) recruiting targets into larger strategic plans. One example is Starbucks’ inclusion and diversity objectives, which aim to achieve 40% representation in retail and manufacturing jobs by 2025 and 30% representation at all corporate levels for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). Beginning in FY21, it will connect DEI metrics to CEO pay.

Company reputation

When businesses work to establish and keep a favorable reputation as an employer, they are engaging in employer branding. Attracting top talent, retaining current staff, and differentiating a firm from the competition are all goals that may be achieved via branding. Establishing a culture that encourages employees to be authentic is crucial for companies aiming to be seen as top employers. This may result from highlighting the company’s principles and purpose or via staff advocacy campaigns. Branding has a multiplicative effect: it boosts productivity and the bottom line by attracting top talent and making current workers happier in their work. Investing in employer branding is crucial for firms to stand out and attract top talent in today’s competitive employment market.

Technology & software

When it comes to all of these changes, the talent acquisition team’s use of technology will be crucial for organizations to identify people quickly and efficiently. As the U.S. economy adds six million jobs by 2029, recruiters will encounter even more hurdles due to changing market conditions. These obstacles include promoting hard-to-fill posts, managing an effective recruiting pipeline, and other similar concerns. Human resource management software may facilitate change and drive a more effective hiring procedure. Recruiters may rely on modern HCM solutions to streamline resume management, interview scheduling, and information sharing with applicants and hiring managers. This allows them to spend less time on manual activities and more time on strategic initiatives. In addition, the program allows you to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) like time-to-fill and others, so you can demonstrate to upper management and leadership the financial effect of your efforts.

Immediately implement these changes for talent acquisition!

As time goes on, talent acquisition patterns evolve. There are a lot of unknowns right now since the globe is still trying to recover from a pandemic. There is no one correct solution to the problem of recruiting since recruiters are always finding new and improved ways to do their work. When it comes to recruiting in 2024, experimentation is king. As more and more jobs become available online, candidates are looking for ways to boost their self-esteem and find fulfillment in their work. 

As a result, recruiting is shifting to focus more on the individual and their needs. Employers are increasingly turning to recruiting tools to gain a deeper understanding of prospects and make data-driven decisions when seeking to attract them. Companies are more competitive than ever before, and job hopefuls have more agency than ever before in deciding the kind and collaborators of their work. If you’re a recruiter looking for the right candidate, you may use these patterns to your advantage. Because 2024 is all about trying new things, feel free to execute a better talent acquisition strategy if you can come up with one.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)