Forecast: The 4 Most Significant Recruitment Trends for 2022
The recruitment market has transformed substantially over the last two years, from the start of the covid-19 pandemic, to now in 2022. The pandemic shifted job markets, economies, and businesses. It cost millions of people their jobs and changed work culture and the global mindset towards work, particularly influencing employees’ expectations of their job roles, workplaces, and employees.
It also changed the value we place on work; remote working has allowed many people to spend more time at home with their families and given them more free time overall, meaning that work may be seen as less of a priority, or less meaningful than before. At the same time, employees want to see companies doing more for their workers, and have higher expectations for salaries, benefits, and so on. This is evident from ‘The Great Resignation’ of 2021. Having begun in the US, it has since been expanding globally and has seen a record number of employees quit their jobs. Workers who quit their jobs for new ones even earn more than those who stay in the same company for years, The Washington Post found last year.
Due to this, recruiting has become more difficult. Recruitment practices have had to evolve considerably as businesses make changes to accommodate the new expectations of the workforce and retain workers. Here are the four key trends we can expect to see in recruitment this year.
4 biggest recruitment trends predicted for 2022
1. Increase in strategic and passive candidate sourcing
Certain skill sets have become extremely sought after by companies over the past few years, in particular software development and other technical skills, to the extent that businesses are constantly competing for individuals with these skill-sets. Candidates with the necessary skills are increasingly sourced by recruiters who come to them rather than the other way around, and recruiters are sourcing potential hires who are passive candidates – that is, people who are not actively looking for a job. As there are many more passive candidates than candidates who are actively looking for a job, this widens the talent pool and increases the chance of finding needed skills. This trend will continue in 2022.
2. Diversity, fairness, and inclusion
Having equity and representation is highly important to companies, and recruiting with a focus on cultivating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace is a practice that isn’t going anywhere. For businesses, ‘ethnic’ diversity and gender diversity have become a must to promote greater global equity and inclusivity. McKinsey & Company also reported that companies with greater diversity outperform their competitors financially.
With building diverse workforces a high priority, there is even recruitment technology with software that includes filtering candidates for diversity, and such things are likely to continue to develop in 2022 and beyond.
3. Strong Employee Value Proposition (EVP) and positive company culture and business brand
Companies need to have a strong EVP in place for both prospective and current employees in 2022. Not only will this attract candidates, but it has also been found that strong EVPs increase employee retainment, reduce recruitment costs, and make for healthier company culture. EVPs lead to companies attracting higher-quality candidates as their employees are more likely to promote and advocate for their place of employment.
4. Technology for data and automation
Recruitment will increasingly involve data and automation technology to streamline and improve the recruiting process. Automated technologies can help recruiters to cut down the time needed to build recruiter-candidate relationships, for example, by automating communication with candidates. They also reduce the need for humans to perform busy work when recruiting candidates. Data analysis is hugely useful, enabling recruiters to track real-time insights and analytics to gain a deeper, truer picture of candidates’ abilities and the roles they would be best suited to, helping hirers to achieve optimum results for their clients.
The bottom line
Recruitment will continue to shift over the years with changing economies, business models, in-demand skills, social landscapes, and more, and while some trends will become obsolete, others will remain embedded in the recruitment process. We can expect that technology advancement will also continue to transform recruitment trends in the future, and what these will look like remains to be seen.
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