As employee demands and desires shifted as a result of the pandemic, employers have had more than two years to reconfigure their recruiting strategy. So why are so many still struggling to make it work?
For now, there’s no sign of hiring slowing down: 93% of employers are doing some form of hiring in 2022, up from 82% in 2021, according to job insights platform Monster. But recruiter confidence has fallen from 95% in 2020 to 91% in 2022.
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“It’s just a different world than it was when you would start in the mail room at a company and retire there 40 years later,” says Eric Sydell, EVP of innovation at career insights platform Modern Hire. “Providing flexibility, digital access, remote work and new experiences are going to be more important today.”
Seventy-three percent of job seekers would only apply to a company that has similar values to them, according to Glassdoor, and 25% would actively turn down a job offer if it didn’t allow the option to work from home, CareerBuilder found.
Sydell spoke with Employee Benefit News about recruiting, where it’s been, where it is and where it’s going — and most importantly, how employers can come out on top.
What are some of the biggest recruiting trends we’re seeing today?
The biggest thing we hear from clients is that there is a lack of candidates — they don’t have the same volume as they did before the pandemic. Through most of my career, which is 20 years or so, most companies have had more candidates than they can handle. We’ve seen that changing a bit, and now our clients are focusing more on recruiting and sourcing operations and trying to get candidates into their funnel. There’s plenty of research that’s found that when a civilization goes through a pandemic, it prompts people to reevaluate who they are and what they want to do. We’re seeing a lot of that happening here with the Great Resignation.
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Simultaneously, you also have the rise of technology like Zoom and other online interviews and assessments. You can now effectively cast a very wide net to reach out to people who don’t necessarily even have to work in an office, they can work remotely. We now have a whole employment process that collects information about a person who lives half a world away.
How have the needs of employees changed?
They’re looking for things that are more flexible that maybe speak to their passions more. They’re looking to not be locked down in a corporate job that is going to suck the soul from them — and organizations are reevaluating what their positions have to offer and really thinking it through the lens of these candidates in the post-pandemic world.
How have the needs of employers changed?
There’s been a shift toward things like learning agility and digital readiness, and being productive in a remote environment. But honestly? A lot of companies are just looking for warm bodies and hoping that people will stay around long enough to get some value after they’re done training. Where are the biggest disconnects between employees and employers? Companies need to have employment processes that are friendly to candidates and fair, but most companies aren’t doing those things. There’s no silver bullet to make all those things happen. Companies have to do some hard thinking to reconfigure what their jobs and hiring process look like.
