What are the latest recruitment trends?

Whether you’re a business or hiring manager looking to increase your headcount, or a job seeker who wants to understand more about the current landscape of the recruitment industry and hiring process, here are some of the latest 2024 Recruitment Trends for businesses looking to hire new talent!

Artificial Intelligence (AI) during the recruitment process

For better or for worse, AI is being pushed across a lot of recruitment and HR platforms.

From ATS platforms to AI writing assistant tools – it’s important that users understand how to use the AI tools properly to optimise the recruitment process, while still ensuring any messaging sent continues to fit their own brand and business requirements.

There is a large amount of low-quality AI-generated content appearing on platforms such as LinkedIn.

If you’re using AI prompts that feature on software such as LinkedIn Messaging, it is recommended that you read carefully over the message or content that is produced before sending it out. We would always recommend editing messages, ads or writing to make it personal to you,

While Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) can bring many benefits such as time efficiency, customisable screening, and automated rejections or advancements – ATS algorithms could reject highly talented candidates because of just one missing word on a CV, this issue is known as keyword mismatch and could result in businesses missing out on highly talented candidates.

Low-quality AI is also an issue from the candidate side, with many recruiters finding Chat GPT-generated AI answers that have been directly copied and pasted to pre-screening questions. Candidates should be aware that this is very easy to spot when AI has been used in answers, so it’s best to answer pre-screening or online interview questions in their own words.

Conducting Remote Interviews

The rise of remote interviewing came along with the increase in remote working after the Covid19 pandemic.

However, remote working has its challenges. Presenting yourself in a professional manner can be more difficult if you’re unable to interview from a quiet location, with stable internet connection, and without any interruptions. Many of these issues can often be difficult to control.

Unless a job is fully remote, it’s typically a good idea to do a first-stage video-call interview and move a second-stage interview to in-person.

Prioritising the candidate Experience

We saw The Great Resignation trend occur as a result of people weighing up their feelings about their jobs, their meaning at work, and their life goals.  Ever since, the candidate experience has been a key topic when it comes to retaining staff and attracting new employees.

It’s important for organisations to focus on creating a positive candidate experience, from easy-to-navigate careers pages, clear communication throughout the hiring processes, having a structured onboarding process, and creating a positive working atmosphere.

Ensuring diversity and inclusion during recruitment and after 

Diversity and inclusion are other areas of key focus for HR leaders, which is also directly impacting recruitment.

Research has shown that businesses that are inclusive with a diverse workforce tend to be more profitable than businesses without a diverse workforce. So, it’s important that recruiters and talent acquisition can attract a diverse range of candidates.

However, it’s important that diversity and inclusivity doesn’t just stop at the initial hiring process. Creating and promoting a positive and inclusive workforce culture throughout the day-to-day running of an organisation is also important in order to ensure employees feel valued, respected and motivated at work.

Tailoring Recruitment to Younger Generations

Millennials currently make up half of the workforce, and are expected to make up over 75% of the workforce by 2025. With Gen Z also continuing to enter the workforce, it’s important to know what these generations are prioritising when searching for their next opportunity.

Research has shown that Millennials are looking for more opportunities to develop both their hard and soft skills. In comparison to previous generations, Millennials tend to value companies with strong ethics, or that contribute to society in some form also.

In a study conducted by Deloitte, it was discovered that Generation Z ranked empathy as the second most important quality in a boss, while bosses ranked it fifth – showing a lack of understanding between what bosses think Gen Z want vs what they actually want.

This isn’t just the case for this particular topic, but there’s a rather big misunderstanding between what senior leadership think Gen Z want vs what they actually want across a multitude of topics. It’s important for businesses to research what Gen Z is looking for in order to attract them to work for your company.

Prioritising Employer Branding and Employee Advocacy

Employer branding is when companies create and maintain a positive image for their reputation as an employer.

A large part of employer branding is employee advocacy. Prioritising employee happiness, workplace culture and providing competitive benefits is likely to achieve this.

Employee advocacy involves current employees talking about your business in a positive light, whether that’s via the company’s official marketing promotions, on third-party sites such as Glassdoor, or more casually via word-of-mouth to family and friends.

Employee advocacy can significantly increase your brand image, improve employee retention, and attract high-quality candidates when looking at hiring for new positions.

Having a happy and inspired workforce can also result in referrals from your employee’s network, with job applications from employee referrals being 20 times more likely to turn into a new hire than general applications.

If your employees think where they work is a great place to work, then they’re more likely to refer people within their network when there are new jobs opening.