2020 and 2021 both brought history-shaping events that heavily affected our daily lives and careers alike. The pandemic posed challenges the modern world has never seen before, keeping our society under pressure for months and months, making everyone dependent on their internet connection and home office environment. In recruitment, we have seen several trends emerge during this period: the rise of remote work, higher focus on personal benefits, increased concerns over employee fluctuations… Recruiters are facing severe talent shortages and engaging in talent wars to find and attract candidates. Meanwhile, companies either fight to keep their employees at all costs or decide to let some of them go to be able to keep the business afloat. Recruiters must keep up with the latest trends to remain competitive in this field of business, continue to attract candidates and represent firms with aligned values. This article will take you through all our predictions for the upcoming year!

Networking will be even more important

Social recruiting gradually became more and more important in the last few years, peaking in 2021. The majority of the white-collar jobs a company recruits for is not even advertised online or anywhere. Most firms have an internal recruitment team or work with a separate agency to discover the best candidates for a certain position. Online presence is one of the basic requirements now, just as a well-thought-out portfolio and recommendations. People who have wider circles reach further, receive better opportunities, and generally find more satisfying roles for themselves.

Hiring outside of the company was previously a significant recruitment trend. However, talent shortages lead to internal staff recruitment. Some businesses even established referral programs, where current employees are encouraged to refer people they know for an open position. This means pre-screened candidates and less risk for the hiring managers, and a highway for people into a world that would be closed any other way. We predict this tendency to grow further in importance in 2022.

Remote working will become a requirement

The covid pandemic has increased the speed of the transition to remote work, even in places where it was not even present before. The swift, forced process is starting to be normal now, and instead of being viewed as a problem, people are starting to notice the underlying opportunities it provides. Geographical barriers are no longer an issue. Many businesses are hiring fully remote workers, regardless of their physical location. This leads to wider talent pools and greater flexibility. For many people, being offered to work remotely is a requirement during a job search. Companies who lack the ability to offer such will slowly shrink their potential talent pools and might even run out of candidates eventually. We expect to see a great divide in the new year, between people that can’t wait to go back to their old desks and see their colleagues every day, and the ones that found comfort at home. This will most likely reflect on recruitment processes as well.

Hiring for culture fit rather than hard skills could be a winning strategy

Soft skills are strong drivers of productivity, cooperation and communication. They are also much more challenging to recruit for than hard skills because they are much harder to teach. As the recruitment industry answers the call for good workplace culture, job flexibility, diversity and inclusion from employees, soft skills are becoming significantly more important than previously. We have advised countless businesses to try to hire for talent, even in our region, which is notoriously fixated on educational achievements rather than experience or motivation and drive. We have noticed that companies are starting to notice that a great team is the most important asset of a business, and employees who work well together will bring greater success than a set of people with great knowledge but lack of teamwork skills. We expect this trend to spread even further, maybe in the form of integrating motivational map analyses in the hiring processes next to team-fit interview rounds.

Employer branding will have a key role in the competition for talent

We have already mentioned that talent pools are either becoming bigger or significantly smaller. Regardless of which is happening for a specific company or role, employer branding will either make or break the deal. One thing’s for certain, each serious applicant thoroughly researches a company on the internet before they apply for a job. They want to know the company mission, values and culture, and if they align with theirs, they are more likely to want to work for you. Employer branding has a significant impact on recruitment, including reducing turnover and resulting in better fits for the team.

Now, employer branding is a difficult thing. It requires a curated online presence, recommendations, great employee experience and so on. Companies are coming up with more and more creative ways to impress their target hires, and the competition holds great challenges for everyone wanting to keep up the pace.

Focus on Diversity and Inclusion has an increasing importance

Speaking of employer branding and values, true diversity is one of the most important features candidates look for. Cultural diversity is not just a catchy phrase, it is actually known to drive innovation and creativity and increase productivity. Diversity and inclusion strategies in recruitment have been on the rise and will continue to become more prevalent in 2022. There are also new roles emerging, with the sole responsibility to objectively assess talent within the organization, and ensure the diversity of the community. We are noticing that there’s an increasing number of businesses who phrase their job postings in a way that it is clear that discrimination of any kind is foreign to them. As people now recognize that diversity actually profits a business, we expect to see a rise in connected roles and more focused attention on the topic.

As the world continues to change, recruitment and selection trends also adapt. New technologies and advanced recruitment practices will surely shape the future, and we can’t wait to see it!