Top Recruiting Trends of 2023

Over the past few years, the recruiting playbook has evolved in many ways. From pivoting to virtual solutions at the height of the pandemic to adjusting to changing job seeker attitudes and priorities, talent acquisition teams that have been flexible and adaptable have seen better hiring outcomes. Now, amid an ongoing talent shortage and historically low unemployment rate, employers need to follow prevailing recruiting trends closely in order to compete.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment rose slightly in February to 3.6%, up from 3.4% in January. But this isn’t necessarily an indication of a shift in pattern. While the Congressional Budget Office has projected a 5.1% unemployment rate by the end of 2023, that’s still a long way off and employers need to address the talent market they are faced with now.

Here are 5 key recruiting trends that are helping talent acquisition teams meet their hiring goals this year.

#1 Engaging With Candidates Before The Application

When unemployment is low and available talent is scarce, candidates have the upper hand. And what top quality candidates want more than anything is the opportunity to talk with a recruiter or hiring manager before they fill out a lengthy, boring application form. Whenever possible, save the paperwork until later in the recruiting process. Instead, lead with opportunities for engagement, such as virtual recruiting events, online chat, or even a recruiting chatbot. When candidates know they can hop on a quick virtual event and ask questions that help them decide how interested they are in pursuing your open position, you’ll see higher candidate engagement and lower rates of ghosting in the early stages.

Try this Recruiting Trend: Try using your job ads to drive traffic to virtual recruiting events, rather than only directing them to applications. Many of our clients have found incredible success offering a hiring event as an alternative job ad CTA because candidates don’t feel like they’re investing time only to wait in the “application black hole.”

#2 Location-Independent Recruiting

When designing your overall talent acquisition strategy, it’s crucial to connect with candidates wherever they are and wherever they want. Some candidates are comfortable with or even prefer a completely virtual recruiting process. Others prioritize opportunities to meet face-to-face. The most effective recruiting strategies we’ve seen combine elements of both, whether that’s using virtual events for screening and moving to in-person for interviews, or simply using virtual tools for registration and interview scheduling to improve the efficiency of in-person recruiting events. With the right tools in place, you can create a recruiting process and experience that satisfies your candidates while simultaneously easing the burden on your recruiting team.

Try this Recruiting Trend: Promote all your recruiting events (virtual and in-person) and email/text messaging opt-ins on your organization’s career hub, social media accounts, and in email communications to your talent community.

#3 Leading with Convenience

Today’s job seekers prefer a ‘choose your own adventure’-style recruiting process. They want to decide when and how they will interact with potential employers, so that means the most effective talent acquisition teams will offer candidates lots of choices. This means offering recruiter office hours and virtual recruiting events on different days and times of the day, using tools that are mobile-friendly and don’t require an app download, and offering candidates the option of online chat via text, audio, or video.

Try this Recruiting Trend: Create a candidate journey flowchart for your careers hub that shows job seekers how they can shape their experience.

#4 Re-Engaging With Your Talent Community

We’re creatures of habit, so it’s common to always rely on new talent sourcing to find candidates—but this means you might be overlooking a valuable resource. Similar to the ‘shop your closet’ approach to avoiding new clothes purchases, re-engaging with candidates in your talent community helps you control spending while getting the most ROI on your past efforts and investments. To target candidates already in your community, host informational events that showcase your culture and values, such as Meet the Leadership or events featuring your Employee Resource Groups.

Try this Recruiting Trend: Craft regular emails to candidates in your talent community. Notify them of new openings that match their profile and invite them to recruiting events where they can learn more about your organization.

#5 Hosting One-And-Done Hiring Events

TA teams can save time and money, and reduce the chances of ghosting by using a recruiting model that accelerates hiring. This doesn’t mean skipping steps or ruining the candidate experience—it means using a more efficient model that moves candidates more quickly through the funnel. Many Brazen clients have collapsed their hiring timelines and are moving candidates from the awareness stage to an offer in a week or less with a strategy we call one-and-done hiring events. By conducting screening and interviews back-to-back, recruiters can hand off prequalified candidates to a hiring manager, who can interview them and make a same-day offer which, for many organizations, will be conditional based on meeting other pre-hire requirements, such as background and drug testing, or other assessments.

Try this Recruiting Trend: Train and prepare your hiring managers on the benefits of speed in today’s talent market, and provide scripts to help them evaluate candidates quickly and make conditional offers when appropriate.

Successful Recruiting In Challenging Times

While the trends above have evolved amid some pretty specific circumstances over the past few years, we see these strategies as flexible, scalable ways to navigate the challenging times ahead, too. The most crucial element is having the right technology to help you execute your recruiting strategies and deliver a stellar candidate experience, whether that’s entirely online, in-person, or some combination of the two

Brazen can help you host one-and-done hiring events. Want to learn more?
Let's talk. 

Like this post? Try these!

• Don't Let Your Application Form Narrow Your Talent Funnel
• How To Accelerate Your Hiring Process With Virtual Hiring Events
• 3 Types of Virtual Recruitment Events that Combat Low Application Rates

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