Recruiters keep adapting to job candidate preferences

With all the challenges facing employers these days, recruiters are definitely an important component of talent management.

And yet they’re facing their own challenges, judging by a recent survey.

While salary is cited as the most important factor to employees looking to join an organization, 45% of recruiters said their own companies are not increasing salaries to account for rising inflation.

And 53% of in-house recruiters predict their recruiting budget will decrease or stay flat this year, according to a LinkedIn survey.

As a corporate recruiter, John Vlastelica says he used to be proud of closing a candidate for a less-than-market or less-than-approved offer.

“Now I’m embarrassed that I did that. That new hire becomes an immediate flight risk who can be poached with a better offer. We owe it to the business to share that perspective as we collaborate and co-create our company’s compensation and offer philosophy.”

Tech layoffs make recruiting a challenge

With recent tech giants announcing layoffs recently, this is also having an effect on the recruiting landscape, according to Steve Knox, vice-president of global talent acquisition at Ceridian in Toronto.

“A lot of organizations are really struggling with what are their hiring needs going to look like. That, in turn, creates a lot of uncertainty with the candidate and so what we’re finding now is a lot of candidates are a little bit reticent about looking for new work,” he says.

“I’m finding candidates now are a little bit more cautious about accepting new roles out of concern that maybe will be part of these layoffs. And so, a lot of times, they’re just staying put, and they’re happy to sit where they are now until they can weather the storm.”

Focus on flexibility, skills, DEI

Fortunately, job candidates are looking for more than pay, such as work-life balance, flexibility and DEI efforts.

“Compensation is always top of mind, of course; I think that’s table stakes that people want to retain the compensation they have,” says Knox.

“But the number one question that we’re finding with candidates is that key question around flexibility — the ability to work remotely and just making sure that there’s that stability in terms of coming into a new role and ensuring that they’re going to have a meaningful, valuable career.”

An increased focus on skills is also important for attracting candidates, as 75% of recruiters said it will become a priority at their organization in the next 18 months.

“What you’re seeing is a lot of companies right now are removing any reference to years of experience and any of their requirements… so no longer do you see people asking for 20 years of experience. Instead, it’s ‘Demonstrate specifically what skills you have to do this job,’” says Knox.

As well, other requirements around education are disappearing, he says, which will positively affect DEI efforts, he says.

“Many companies realize a skills-based approach also supports a TA [talent acquisition] strategy as well because many DEI candidates are individuals who have not been fortunate enough to be able to go to university or to have had that coaching and mentoring to gain those years of experience, and so all of those aspects are strong evidence as to the skills-based approach to recruiting that we’re seeing.”

Shifting role for recruiters

With talent shortages at top of mind for many organizations, the role of recruiter is shifting, found the survey as 87% of professionals believe they are having more of a strategic impact in the company.

“Recruiting professionals have never been able to make a bigger impact than right now. You used to be able to say, ‘These hires helped our company.’ Now you can say, ‘I changed the make-up of our company, I changed where we work, I changed what we look for and I changed how we hire,’” says Brett Baumoel, vice-president of Global TA, Engineering at Microsoft.

For recruiters, developing new soft skills will become more important, as communication (78%) and relationship building (73%) will be the top two areas to improve upon, according to the LinkedIn survey of 1,611 recruiting professionals in 20 countries between October and November, and 20,396 LinkedIn members polled in December about their preferences around hiring.

The role of recruiting is changing and it’s no longer a case of choosing the best candidate, says Knox.

“Negotiating skills is absolutely critical, particularly in this aspect of looking at recruiting as really a sales role. When you think about it, recruiters are selling jobs to candidates. And on the flip side, they’re selling candidates to hiring managers and so that ability to have effective negotiating skills on both sides of the negotiating relationship that you see both from a candidate and the hiring manager perspective are going to be absolutely critical,” he says.

Generative AI for recruitment

Generative AI tools will also play an increasing role in recruiting, found the report, as 74% of recruiters are hoping to use it to automate tasks, while 67% plan to use it to find candidates.

While these new tools can benefit candidates, recruiters are trying to figure out “How do we use ChatGPT in terms of informing and educating candidates on roles that they might be suitable or applicable for them?” says Knox.

While AI can help, the human touch still matters, according to a recent survey.

“For the foreseeable future of recruiting, humans will still play an essential role. Humanness still matters, especially for hard-to-fill jobs and the core of that is empathy. A good recruiter brings the opportunity and company to life beyond what a person can see on a website or job description,” says Glen Cathey, senior vice-president, workforce advisory and digital strategy at Randstad.