Category: Candidate Attraction

What Candidates Want: Key Research Findings [Infographic]

Posted on by akessler

At PeopleScout, we hear a lot of talk about the candidate experience. Most organisations understand the importance of improving how they engage with job seekers. Yet, our latest research shows that less than two in 10 candidates would rate their recent recruitment experience as excellent.

We audited the candidate journeys of over 215 organisations around the world, assigning each a Candidate Experience Quotient (CandidateXQ) score based on 40 key experience indicators, 15 of which are critical to the candidate experience. Then, we analysed these scores alongside data gathered from surveying over 2,400 job seekers globally. The results revealed a clear disparity between candidate expectations and their reality.

Check out this infographic to explore the key findings from the Inside the Candidate Experience 2023 Report.

Candidate experience infographic

For more global candidate experience insights, download the full Inside the Candidate Experience 2023 Report.

Inside the Candidate Experience: 3 Revelations from Our 2023 Report

Posted on by akessler

By Simon Wright, Global Head of Talent Advisory

When it comes to applying for and accepting new jobs, candidates have more options than ever before. Companies with poor candidate experiences will lose out on the top talent as employers battle for the best prospects.

So, how does the average candidate experience stack up against candidate expectations?

According to PeopleScout’s most recent research, less than two in 10 candidates rate their experience as excellent.

For the Inside the Candidate Experience 2023 Report, we used our proprietary Candidate Experience Diagnostic to audit the candidate journeys of over 215 organisations worldwide. Then we compared this to data gathered via a global survey of over 2,400 job seekers.

Research report

Inside the candidate experience 2023 report

Read the report

The findings reveal a significant gap between candidate expectations and the reality they face while looking for jobs, gathering information to support their decision, and applying.

Here are three surprises from our research:

1. Less than half of employers show information about the organisation’s mission, purpose or values on the career site

Yet, they’re in the top considerations for applicants when deciding to apply.

Your takeaway:

Candidates want fulfilling employment and a company that upholds their values—especially Gen Z and Millennial workers. In fact, one in five Millennials state that an organisation’s goals and mission are their top priority when considering a job. By not featuring this information on your career site, you’re passing up an opportunity to create an emotional connection with your candidates.

2. Just half (53%) of organisations provide an opportunity for candidates to register their interest or to sign up for job alerts

Even fewer (39%) prompted candidates to join a talent community.

Your takeaway:

Modern job seekers are more sophisticated than ever and are looking to grow a career, not just apply for jobs transactionally. In fact, on average nine months goes by between a candidate engaging with an employer and applying for a job. Maintaining a talent pipeline lets you build a relationship with your talent audience and ensures you get the best talent, not just those who are looking at the time a vacancy arises.

3. 44% of organisations did not provide an opportunity for candidates to give feedback on their experience

Plus, men are more likely than women to be aware of opportunities to provide and receive feedback during the recruitment process.

Your takeaway:

This is a major oversight for many organisations. If you’re not leveraging surveys to gather feedback from all of your candidates, you are passing up valuable insights that might help you enhance your employer brand, lower attrition and shorten your hiring cycle.

The candidate experience is a hot topic, and most talent leaders I speak with appear to recognise the value of improving the candidate journey. However, this research demonstrates that organisations still have work to do to live up to the standards of today’s job seekers. My hope is that our recent findings will mobilise talent acquisition teams to put real action behind their words and make bold moves to improve their candidate experience and speed up the pace of progress.

To get the full research and more actionable insights, download the Inside the Candidate Experience 2023 Report.

The Future of Work: 4 Key Factors That Will Shape the Workplace by 2030

Posted on by akessler

It’s no secret that the labour market has been volatile over the last several years, and talent acquisition teams have experienced a multitude of highs and lows. In our capacity as trusted advisors, PeopleScout analysed patterns in global workforce trends to help our clients create informed strategies for future-proofing their workforce by examining how these patterns may affect their workforce. While we can’t predict the future of work, we think there are four key factors will shape the world of work over the next decade.

1. Flexibility

Flexibility is here to stay, and it will apply to everything from where and how we work to the roles we do and who we do them for. There will be no hard and fast rules about working hours and shifts in the future.

As life becomes increasingly characterised by change, employees will need to be agile—always ready to reskill. Learning becomes a constant, and we may even find ourselves counting AI robots as our trainers and mentors.

Flexibility and upskilling will manifest differently from generation to generation, so organisations must facilitate working arrangements for different demographics. Over the next decade, the generation gap will widen and then gradually close as Baby Boomers begin to settle down to retirement by blending work and leisure. Millennials and Gen Z will bring their progressive perspectives to work.

10 Predictions for What’s NEXT in the World of Work

DESTINATION 2030

Read the Report

2. Fluidity 

Globalisation will enable much more cross-border, cross-company collaboration. Project teams will be established based on all sorts of factors, not just who’s in what department or which location. People will work with talent from all sorts of specialities as they move from project to project.

Technology helps to support our wellbeing as the lines between work and home become more blurred. But with new technologies come new laws, so security and compliance will also be strategically important, especially for organisations working at the cutting-edge of innovation.

3. Focus 

Organisational culture will become more important than ever before as people make career choices based on ethics, values and purpose above things like pay and benefits. More and more employees will choose to work for organisations that have a clear purpose and are committed to working in the most ethical, sustainable and socially responsible ways.

Technology also plays a role here, in helping people focus on the work that matters to them as automation takes over the mundane tasks. However, more AI and machine learning will make some roles redundant and create many others—generating even greater demand for technical, analytical and digital skill sets across sectors.

4. Forward-thinking 

Organisations will continue to compete when it comes to creating innovative new technologies and using those technologies in the most creative ways. But they’ll also be happy to pool some resources to create a better future for everyone. 

Issues like equality and climate change will continue to grow in importance, forcing organisations to find new and better ways of making social and environmental improvements at speed.

Onward, Upward and Who Knows Where

You may feel more prepared for some changes more than others as we approach 2030, but it’s safe to say that there will be plenty of surprises that will require creative thinking in order to stay resilient.

PeopleScout will be on the journey with you to support, challenge and inspire you—no matter what the future holds.

To learn more about how we came to these predictions and see our research findings, check out our Destination 2030 white paper.

Creating an Effective Employer Brand for Volume Hiring 

Posted on by akessler

It’s no secret that job vacancies continue to outnumber job seekers.  But what many employers focused on volume hiring don’t realise is that they already have one of the most effective tools for out-recruiting their competition at their disposal: their employer brand.

Investing in your employer value proposition (EVP) and employer brand is one of the best ways an organisation can differentiate and attract the volumes of candidates it needs without compromising on quality-of-hire. In this article, we share ways to make your employer brand work harder for your volume hiring needs.

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Employer Brand vs Consumer Brand        

At PeopleScout, we define employer brand and EVP as follows:

  • Employer brand: Your employer brand is the perception and lived experiences of what it’s like to work for your organisation.
  • Employer value proposition: Your employer value proposition, or EVP, captures the essence of your uniqueness as an employer and the “give and get” between you and your employees.

When an organisation’s brand is well-known, there is frequently an overlap in sentiment between the consumer and employer brands in the minds of the general public. What candidates expect from you as consumers will be very different from what they’re looking for as potential employees.

Your employer brand should showcase the characteristics that make a company a great place to work, as well as the benefits, career growth opportunities, work-life balance and company culture that help you attract and retain talent.

Understand Your Audience & Tailor Your Content

The key to an effective employer brand is to know your audience. Zero in on who your ideal candidates are by looking at the most successful employees in each role. Are there similarities in their work experience, motivators or personalities? For example, we helped a telecoms client create candidate persona profiles for their contact centre and found that many of their longest tenured employees were previously employed in beauty salons. These employees were applying their previous customer service experience to their phone and online customer interactions.

By shifting the mindset from getting candidates with previous call centre experience to getting applications from candidates with past customer service experience in salons, restaurants and hotels, we were able to help the client increase offer acceptance and reduce attrition.

Similarly broadening your target audience will help you hire at scale in today’s tight market, and understanding who is most successful in a role—what makes them tick, what motivates them—will help you lean into the aspects of your employer brand that will be most meaningful to them. That could mean playing up your flexible work shifts, growth opportunities or your organisational values.

Create a Positive Candidate Experience

Even if you receive an influx of applicants for a role, don’t sacrifice the candidate experience. Word of mouth is still alive and well, and candidates have no problem sharing their experiences (especially negative ones) on social media.

Investing in CRM tools to introduce more personalisation into your candidate communications can boost your candidate experience. Look for tools with texting and SMS capabilities to reach candidates where they already are. Texting is often more accessible for many hourly job seekers who are more likely to rely on their mobile devices for job searches and internet access.

Automating your screening and interview scheduling processes via text helps free up time for your recruiters and hiring managers to connect one-on-one with candidates and hold meaningful conversations that improve the candidate experience.

Your recruitment process should leave every applicant, regardless of whether they get a job with you, with a positive impression of your organisation. Candidates are often your customers, and the last thing you want is for your candidate experience to negatively impact your consumer brand reputation. An exceptional candidate experience is essential not only in engaging the talent you need today, but in establishing a strong employer brand that will serve you well into the future.

Get Tips to Optimize High-Volume Recruitment

Want more tactics for high-volume recruitment? Check out our ebook, 9 Strategies for Solving High-Volume Hiring Challenges.

Recession, Recruiting and Resilience: Creating Opportunities for Workforce Planning Success

Posted on by akessler

With signs pointing toward a global recession, employers are preparing their workforces for what’s to come. This may mean cutting back on their investment in talent acquisition, delaying HR projects or even reducing their workforce.

While economic uncertainty can lead to difficult decisions for employers, it’s also important to recognise the opportunity it provides. This may be the perfect time to assess the resilience of your workforce and invest in workforce planning to make it fare better in the long run.

Is your talent acquisition program resilient enough to weather the storm? Here are four questions to ask to find out where you stand.

1. Is your employer brand and EVP still relevant?

If you haven’t updated your employer value proposition (EVP) in the last 18 months, it’s probably out of sync with the market and what candidates want. Now is the time to sense check if it’s fit for purpose in 2023 and beyond. Does your employer brand work for a remote and hybrid workforce? Is it an authentic reflection of what you have to offer your employees?

Even if you’re not planning to hire actively in the near future, employer branding is also important for retention. Auditing and updating your brand will help you retain your current talent and ensure you’re ready to attract top talent in the future.

2. Is your hiring process working for remote and hybrid employees?

At the start of the pandemic, if you shoehorned your old in-person hiring process into your new hybrid or remote work reality and never looked back, it’s time to assess whether that’s really working for you. Remote work often requires a different set of skills than office-based work. Is your current process helping you assess those skills to achieve the quality-of-hire you need?  

Review the competencies and behaviours you need for each role to ensure they’re relevant for hybrid or remote employees. Now is the time to update job adverts and evaluate your assessment process to ensure they are in tune with the success factors that drive your business now—instead of those that drove success pre-pandemic.

3. Are you achieving your DE&I recruitment goals?

While you may not be actively hiring, now is a good time to engage with diverse communities to ensure candidates from underrepresented backgrounds make up a significant portion of your talent pipeline when you’re ready to ramp up hiring again.

Increase your visibility in diverse communities via campaigns or event sponsorships. Look into your diversity analytics to understand what’s working and what’s not when it comes to sourcing and hiring your target audiences.

4. Is it time to consider RPO?

Now is the time to re-evaluate how you’re going to market for talent, whether via an internal talent acquisitions team, staffing agencies, recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) or a hybrid model. Work with your procurement partner to scrutinise your spend and evaluate your options to streamline and minimise risk—including standardising with one global RPO partner.

Just because you’re not hiring at the same volume you were before, doesn’t mean outsourcing is out of the question. Project RPO engagements offer flexible solutions for targeted hiring needs. An RPO partner can also offer value-added talent advisory services like market insights, employer branding, assessment services and more. Plus, once engaged, your RPO partner will be on tap to hit the economic recovery running and scale up for your hiring surge.

An economic slowdown is not the time to put your talent acquisition strategy on the back burner. Use this time to take stock and get prepared so you’re ready to bounce back faster. You’ll be able to beat your competition and create a resilient workforce that’s ready for whatever the future has in store.

Want more insight into the future of work? Check out our ebook, Destination 2030: 10 Predictions for What’s NEXT in the World of Work.

Targeted Recruitment Marketing Campaign Delivers Talent for Global Theme Park Brand

Posted on by akessler
Targeted Recruitment Marketing Campaign Delivers Talent for Global Theme Park Brand

Targeted Recruitment Marketing Campaign Delivers Talent for Global Theme Park Brand

During a unique time in the market with remote and flexible work options becoming the norm, this multinational chain of family theme parks required help hiring for critical in-person roles including customer service, performers and lifeguards across two of its major U.S. theme parks. PeopleScout helped hire over 1,500 workers using recruitment marketing campaigns and our talent advisory expertise.

1,500+ + hires made in just six months across two locations
reduced drop-off by streamlining the application process
reduced drop-off by streamlining the application process
30,000 clicks from recruitment marketing ads across social media and online display networks

Situation

This multinational chain of family theme parks required help hiring a variety of roles across its California and New York resorts including customer service roles, performers and lifeguards.

Solution

PeopleScout conducted in-depth market research to determine the biggest challenges the client faced when recruiting for their theme parks and resorts. We identified remote work, “candidate is king” and higher pay as the three main challenges facing the client. Here’s how we solved each:


Challenge #1 — Remote Work:

More people want flexibility. Front-line and hourly positions are less attractive to candidates after the growth in remote work during the pandemic.

Our Solution: We leveraged the client’s “play” branding to emphasise the fun and rewarding aspects of working on-site at one of the theme parks. This was fed through into recruitment marketing creative and copy. 


Challenge #2 — “Candidate is King”:

With open positions outnumbering candidates for much of recent memory, today’s candidates know their worth, and the Great Resignation is proof that people are less willing than ever to settle.

Our Solution: By testing alternative job titles, improving job copy, and reaching out on different channels, we were able to widen our reach and pool of candidates. We strategically targeted candidates most likely to apply for the roles, such as those looking for seasonal or part-time jobs.

Challenge #3 — Higher Pay:

When faced with increased living costs, candidates are demanding higher pay.

Our Solution: The client was not in a position to raise wages for these roles. So, we got creative by restructuring job copy to better position the client’s competitive benefits. By quantifying these benefits and putting them front and centre on job postings and recruitment marketing materials, we were able to generate interest without raising wages.

Results

  • In the first six months, we were able to fulfil our goal of 1,336 hires in California & 190 in New York.
  • The client’s previous application had up to 22 sections where the candidate had to input information. PeopleScout optimised and shortened this candidate journey by employing a variety of channels including Indeed One-Click, Indeed Hiring Events and Talent.com. This reduced the application abandonment rate.
  • PeopleScout restructured job descriptions to create job advertisements. In other words, we rewrote the copy to focus on the value the client and the role have to offer their employees rather than what the client wanted from candidates.  
  • PeopleScout performed A/B tests to determine which job titles would help reach a wider pool of candidates. For example, we found that “Waterpark Attendant” received almost 300 applications in the first week, while “Lifeguard” received only 15.
  • Social outreach using Facebook, Instagram and Google Display Network resulted in 4.1 million impressions and 30,000 clicks across the California and New York audiences.

AT A GLANCE

  • COMPANY
    Multinational chain of family theme parks
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Talent Advisory
  • ANNUAL HIRES
    1,500+
  • LOCATIONS
    Over 10 theme parks around the world
Contact Sales

Promoting a Culture to Attract Digital Talent

Posted on by cspivack

By Robert Peasnell, Head of Growth, PeopleScout EMEA

It’s been a rough few weeks for Big Tech employees—from widespread redundancies and the end of home-working at Twitter through to 11,000 redundancies globally at Meta. Whilst there’s clearly a need to reshape both businesses, it’ll be interesting to see whether they remain the talent magnets that they once were.

Whilst recruiting has gotten easier for digital talent, it’s definitely not plain sailing. There are 45,000 jobs live today on LinkedIn alone for Software Developers in the UK.

According to Boston Consulting Group, 95% of digital talent want to work remotely at least once a week, and the vast majority want to work from home two or three days a week.

Plus, 68% would work remotely for a company based in a different country, and 55% who would move abroad for work.

What’s more, according to Sprout Social’s 2022 Index, company alignment with personal values is 74% more important to consumers than it was in 2021—and the same is true for employees.

Employers need to ensure that their EVP is authentic and nuanced for different employment groups and resonates with their needs.

Too many employers treat their social media presence like some individuals—providing an enhanced and retouched version of real-life, as opposed to an authentic and realistic view of the business.

We can’t all be Kim Kardashian. The greatest error is pretending to be.

Global Banking School: Increasing Offer Conversion to 87% for a Suite of Hard-to-Fill Roles

Posted on by akessler
Global Banking School: Increasing Offer Conversion to 87% for a Suite of Hard-to-Fill Roles

Global Banking School: Increasing Offer Conversion to 87% for a Suite of Hard-to-Fill Roles

Global Banking School (GBS), a higher education provider offering a range of sector-relevant courses, turned to PeopleScout for Project RPO to fill 35 professional and academic roles across eight campuses in London, Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds.

Roles filled through strong collaboration
Roles filled through strong collaboration
87% % Offer acceptance rate across all roles
Increased diversity within roles filled through targeted messaging and sourcing
Increased diversity within roles filled through targeted messaging and sourcing
Enhanced candidate and hiring manager experience
Enhanced candidate and hiring manager experience

Situation

GBS needed to fill 35 roles across a range of job families and levels, including professional and academic positions. They had a challenging timescale of just four weeks to go-live.

GBS was facing several challenges:

  • Some of the roles had been out to market several times, in some cases for up to a year, with little traction.
  • As an educational institution, face-to-face teaching is a vital part of the student experience, and therefore essential for the client. GBS needed this to apply to staff availability as well and wanted to avoid a two-tiered approach for academic and non-academic roles. This meant the client was unable to offer remote or hybrid working models. In a market where candidates have more choice around how and where they work, this resulted in a low interest from candidates.
  • Sourcing from other higher education institutions and universities meant the audience was hard to engage.
  • Hiring managers were disengaged due to high workloads. Plus, the previous recruitment processes were transactional and didn’t keep candidates engaged.
  • The hiring managers also had competing priorities, which meant the overwhelmed internal recruitment team were struggling to obtain the required information to fill the roles.

Solution

Our dedicated and skilled recruiters became an extension of the in-house team, optimising and managing GBS’s recruitment process from attraction to offer for a four-month Project RPO solution. PeopleScout managed each position in its entirety, from briefing through to verbal offer acceptance, including creating a sourcing and attraction plan for each role.

Our team seamlessly integrated into the organisation’s culture, mapping the end-to-end candidate journey in collaboration with hiring managers. PeopleScout very quickly became trusted colleagues with the in-house recruitment team, and through our consultative approach we offered recommendations based on our labour market research and feedback.

A dedicated PeopleScout recruitment marketer was brought in to reimagine the organisation’s messaging, job descriptions and attraction channels. GBS received a suite of copy, both bespoke to individual roles and templates which they could use into the future. Our recruitment marketing strategy included a social media attraction campaign featuring a one-click application.

On top of these attraction efforts, we directly sourced passive candidates to raise GBS’s profile in the market. Throughout the project, we gathered market feedback and tracked hiring metrics, presenting it through bespoke dashboards to guide hiring decisions. GBS received weekly analysis of market insights, salary benchmarks and candidate feedback.

Result

Our consultative approach to hiring and tailored strategies for each role resulted in:

  • An 87% offer acceptance rate.
  • An enhanced candidate and hiring manager experience.
  • Increased diversity within roles filled.

AT A GLANCE

  • COMPANY
    Global Business School
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Talent Advisory
  • ABOUT GBS
    Global Banking School (GBS) is a higher education provider with campuses across the United Kingdom. GBS offers a range of courses in banking, management and healthcare designed to enhance students’ career prospects in the financial services industry.
Contact Sales

Labour Market Trends Impacting Customer Services Hiring 

Posted on by akessler

By Andrew Weston, RPO Solutions Director, PeopleScout EMEA 

PeopleScout recently hosted a webinar with Personnel Today featuring a panel of talent leaders across the financial services, energy and retail sectors. These experts from Centrica, The White Company, Renewco and Newcastle Strategic Solutions discussed their challenges and approaches to hiring and engaging a customer-focused workforce in today’s labour market.  

Organisations like these are competing on customer experience. A consumer survey from PwC shows that the four most important factors for an exceptional customer experience are speed, convenience, knowledgeable help and friendly service. The key to excelling in these factors is happy, engaged employees. Organisations with highly engaged workforces are 21% more productive, outperform competitors by 147% and have customer loyalty rates 233% higher than companies without engaged employees. 

I joined our panel to discuss the current tight labour market and trends that are impacting talent acquisition. Here’s what I learned:  

Trend 1: Hiring for Potential 

As customer expectations have changed, so have the skills needed for top customer service talent. When we polled our audience during the session, they indicated that soft skills related to emotional intelligence are highly sought after. 

The most desired skills for customer service recruiting are communication, empathy and relationship building.

Several of the experts on our panel have implemented a culture-centric approach for attracting talent. Instead of assessing candidates based on previous work experience, candidates are assessed based on whether they possess the right skills, values and behaviours to be successful in the role. Interviews and assessments are being reimagined to be more focused on soft skills and higher purpose as talent leaders and hiring managers are embracing candidates coming from outside of their industry.  

Trend 2: Expanding Talent Pools  

With job openings outnumbering job seekers, organisations across sectors find themselves getting creative as they try to expand their talent pool. For some, this means looking into new talent audiences, like underrepresented group or military veterans, and putting programs in place such as apprenticeships to future-proof their talent pipeline.  

For many companies, the growth of remote work means that they’re looking outside of their physical contact centre locations to candidates across the country and even expanding to new countries. This requires an adjustment to your talent acquisition strategy to ensure your employer brand and recruitment processes are ready to handle dispersed talent.  

Trend 3: Adapting to Remote Work 

Remote work is impacting more than just where talent comes from, it also affects how organisations onboard and engage their staff. Especially in our current cost-of-living crisis, customer service representatives are fielding queries from vulnerable customers which can be especially draining. Talent leaders are getting creative in how they connect with staff to ensure a sense of belonging and wellness—regardless of where the employee is working.  

Some contact centres have even adjusted their operational structure to work in “pods” which ensures agents—both in the office and remote—get the support they need to solve customer queries efficiently. Before, managers and team leads could walk around the contact centre floor and see when agents looked stressed. Remote working has made it harder to monitor employee wellbeing. Customer-focused leaders are investing in employee wellbeing, from training managers to catch the signs of burnout to offering wellbeing support programs.  

These are just a few of the labour market trends that are impacting how companies hire and engage talent. Clearly, organisations are finding creative and bold ways to invest in their employees to maintain a resilient and customer-focused workforce. To hear more from our panel of experts, watch the replay on-demand. 

Destination 2030: A Roadmap for Talent Acquisition Leaders

Posted on by akessler

By Robert Peasnell, Deputy Managing Director, PeopleScout UK

It’s been a wild ride for talent acquisition leaders these last few years, as hiring slowed for most and then grew to record levels. As global economies still remain somewhat tumultuous, the one constant we can expect is change. 

With this in mind, PeopleScout undertook a piece of research, evaluating global workforce trends and looking to the future to see how these trends might impact the way we work. The result is our new white paper, Destination 2030.

Here are our top 10 predictions for what work and recruiting will look like in 2030 and tips that talent acquisition leaders can put into practice now to prepare for the future.

Buckle up and join us as we travel to the world of work in 2030.

1. Our Working Models Will Be as Diverse as We Are

Organisations and their employees will decide between them how, when and where people will work. The ways we define work will grow (think hybrid, part-hybrid or even nomadic…), and there’ll be no such thing as a 9-to-5 job.

How talent acquisition leaders can prepare:

With the growth of remote work, talent pools have become more globally dispersed. TA leaders who embrace global workforce planning in their talent acquisition strategy—taking a location-flexible approach—will give themselves a better chance at winning top talent. So, instead of looking for 20 FTEs in France, you could look for 20 French speakers anywhere in the world—vastly expanding your available talent pool.

TA leaders can augment their recruitment capabilities and reach by investing in recruitment process outsourcing (RPO). RPO partners offer single- and multi-country solutions that can help expand your geographic scope to target remote workers. Plus, RPO offers a consistent yet flexible process that can be nuanced to accommodate various cultures and candidate expectations.   

2. We Won’t Work, We’ll Contribute

Will the term ‘work’ even exist? Perhaps not. We will be measured by our contribution and the value we bring to the organisation. By 2030, success will be determined by meaningful output, not hours spent at a desk.

How talent acquisition leaders can prepare:

A recent study revealed that 93% of workers want a flexible schedule. Organisations that rethink working patters and adapt to the desires of their target candidate audience will gain a significant leg up when it comes to competing for talent going forward. This will require significant workforce planning on the part of a TA leader to ensure your organisation can maximise productivity while also keeping employees engaged and motivated.

3. Reskilling Will Take on New Importance

The pace of change means reskilling will be the norm. No matter how much expertise you have in one field, you could find yourself changing direction and developing a new skillset in a totally different field.

How talent acquisition leaders can prepare:

Going by the last 20 years, it seems inevitable that many of the jobs we’ll need in 2030 simply don’t exist yet. So, TA leaders can’t put off workforce planning as some far-off solution to future issues. It’s imperative you plan today for the talent you’ll need for the future—either through recruitment or through an internal training and mobility program.

Organisations who invest in reskilling and upskilling as a strategic initiative will boost their resilience for whatever future business environments have in store. Plus, it will have a positive impact on retention as companies that excel at internal mobility can retain employees nearly twice as long as companies that struggle with it.

4. Retirement Age Will Become Just a Number

Some of us will work hard and live frugally, so we can retire in our 40s. Most of us will work beyond the standard retirement age, taking on new roles, developing new skills and easing out of work slowly.

How talent acquisition leaders can prepare:

By 2030, all Baby Boomers will have reached 65, the typical retirement age threshold in many countries. Keeping older workers in the workplace will become a priority for organisations as talent pools shrink and skills gaps widen. This also means addressing any age-based discrimination that may be hidden in your recruitment processes. Amongst job seekers over 45, 53% believe age is one of the biggest barriers to finding a new job. Eliminating bias in the recruitment process will ensure your organisation can access this valuable talent pool and the experience they can provide.

Additionally, employers will need to adjust contracts as few in this generation will want to continue working in a typical full-time capacity. Making certain concessions and ensuring your DE&I program also supports generational diversity will ensure older workers can continue to contribute and will help soften the effects of impending mass retirement of Boomers. 

5. The Greatest Skill Will Be Learning

As new technologies emerge and old ones become obsolete, our work will demand different approaches and expertise. This constant evolution means we’ll be learning new skills. Things will change so fast that the future discussion will go beyond reskilling and upskilling to ‘learning to learn’.

How talent acquisition leaders can prepare:

Evaluate your assessment process to ensure it aligns with the outcomes you need from your roles—now and into the future. Judging candidates based on characteristics that help them succeed in your unique environment—rather than just on skills or experience—will help you unlock the potential of your new employees. Putting assessment activities in place that test for soft skills, like adaptability, will help create a culture of learning.

6. AI and Automation Will Create Jobs, Not Eliminate Them

Technology, powered by artificial intelligence (AI), will tackle mundane, highly complex and time-consuming work, freeing humans to focus on emotion-driven innovations. This will create a suite of new roles as well as cross-functional teams and agile working patterns.

How talent acquisition leaders can prepare:

Talent acquisition and HR leaders can experience the benefits of AI too! Talent technology platforms offer multiple opportunities to introduce more automation into your recruitment processes, allowing your recruiters and hiring managers to focus on developing better connections with candidates, bringing your process to life.

With AI sourcing, recruiters can let the tech do the mundane work of searching for qualified talent and focus on engaging candidates, offering guidance and positioning your organisation as an attractive place to work. Automation can be leveraged throughout the candidate journey to supplement interactions from your team, including text interviews, interview scheduling, sharing content, handling basic candidate queries and more.

7. Inclusion Will Be Everywhere

The fact that hiring for potential and the need to reskill are the key criteria any organisation looks for in 2030 pretty much eradicates unconscious bias. Organisations that to cling to outdated modes of attraction run the risk of missing out on valuable talent.

How talent acquisition leaders can prepare:

Hopefully, by now, everyone understands the importance of diversity and inclusion, if for no other reason than the economic benefits. It’s time for companies to really step up when it comes to diversity, equality and inclusion, especially because underrepresented groups are more likely to say that an employer’s diversity efforts make a difference in whether they decide to apply.  

While responsibility for diversity, equity and inclusion is shared across an organisation, talent acquisition leaders have a significant influence. Use that impact to help the business assess the maturity of its DE&I program. By pinpointing your current state and plotting out the roadmap to your desired state, your organisation can make strides in building a more diverse workforce.

8. Personalisation Will Drive the Need for Connection

Organisations will inspire unity, belonging and a collegiate spirit on one hand, balanced with hyper-personalisation on the other. While candidates and employees have a desire to be connected, they still want to be treated as an individual.

How talent acquisition leaders can prepare:

Modern candidates expect digital experiences, but also want the human touch from recruiters. So, how can you achieve personalisation at scale?

Leveraging talent technology can be a great way to attain this. This could be through a CRM tool that lets you notify individuals in your talent pools about positions that are a fit for their skills and goals, or an ATS that gives candidates a personlised portal where they can track the status of their application. Technology can help you combine personalisation with the power of automation so you can show you recognise each candidate as a person, not just a CV. 

9. Say Goodbye to Work Permits

Workers will become global citizens, working from anywhere for organisations based anywhere. In a single, 10-person start-up, all 10 people could work from completely different places.

How talent acquisition leaders can prepare:

One of the main benefits of RPO is ensuring their clients remain compliant in all the countries in which they’re operating. Most global RPO providers have offshore delivery centers that hold the necessary legal entities and licenses to hire in your chosen countries, so you don’t have to go through the effort or expense.

If you’re looking to expand your recruitment footprint, outsourcing may be an option to explore. Check out our ebook, Building a Business Case for RPO, to learn how to create buy-in and secure budget.

10. The Future is Bright

With Millennials at the helm, we can look forward to ethical and empathetic leadership and a holistic approach to wellbeing. Consumers and shareholders alike will put pressure on businesses to look after the planet as well as society—a welcome shift indeed.

How talent acquisition leaders can prepare:

By 2030, Millenials will make up the biggest generation in the global workforce, representing a massive 40% of all workers. As a whole, they are much more motivated by the difference they can make in the world than they are by how much money they can earn. So, it’s important that employer’s keep in mind that whilst success and status are definitely still in the mix, it’s the cultural fit, values and purpose that matter most for this generation.

Now is the time to assess your employer brand and EVP. Do they reflect your values and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) or Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts? Including these strategies as a visible part of your candidate attraction efforts will ensure you are seen as an employer of choice amongst the generation that will lead your business forward.

I’m sure you’re already thinking about budgets for 2023, and I hope you’ll consider some of these opportunities for investment. To learn more about how we came to the predictions and see our research, check out our Destination 2030 white paper.