As a top-rated virtual hiring event platform, we hear the challenges from the organizations and employers that host events on our platform every day.  

The future of hiring is expected to continue evolving and becoming increasingly digital and data-driven.  Here are some of the trends shaping the future of hiring:

Virtual and remote hiring– The trend of remote work will likely increase the demand for virtual hiring processes, including virtual interviews and assessments. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) – AI will play a larger role in the hiring process, from resume screening to candidate matching and predictive analytics.

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) – Companies will continue to prioritize DEI in their hiring processes, including using technology to address bias in recruitment and increasing outreach to diverse candidate pools.

Employee experience – The focus will shift from traditional HR practices to creating a positive employee experience, from the hiring process to onboarding and beyond.

Talent communities – Companies will create and engage with talent communities to build relationships with potential candidates, improving their ability to attract and retain top talent. 

Overall, the future of hiring will likely prioritize technology, flexibility and candidate experience in order to attract and retain top talent in a highly competitive job market. 

Let’s drill down to some of the top trends we see as 2023 kicks off.

Smart Hiring and Retention Challenges –  The ‘Great Resignation’ spurred on by Covid might be behind us, but workers continue to leave the workforce in larger than expected numbers.  October of 2022 saw 4 million Americans quit their jobs, which left 10.3 million open positions.  The gap between available jobs and available workers continues to grow, meaning retention is the best strategy to avoid the competition for new hires. 

Limiting turnover has become more important than ever.  The days of ‘letting an employee go’ because so many others were ready to fill that role are gone.  Creating a workplace culture that builds trust and helps employees grow in their careers has always been a smart strategy, but now it has become a necessity.

No matter how much you limit turnover, adding new employees will always be part of a growing company’s needs.  Smart hiring includes tactics that are non-traditional like hosting virtual career fairs, and virtual hiring events. These events open your organization to anyone who is interested, and not limit yourself to a pool of candidates in your area.   Virtual hiring events became mainstream during the pandemic and now, nearly 80% of recruiters prefer virtual to in-person.  The same can be said for busy job candidates who most likely have a full-time job but are weighing their options and can more-readily attend a virtual event.  Make sure you have a virtual hiring event platform as part of your hiring strategy to attract and hire the best talent possible.

The Need for Flexibility – another Covid influenced dynamic is the new remote workforce.  Employers toyed with the idea of letting employees ‘work from home’, but it never took hold.  Post pandemic, it remains a very common and viable option as many workplaces have roles that are as productive and effective from home as in office.

The latest report shows that 48% of the workforce will continue to work remotely or in a hybrid fashion.  Being able to offer this type of work will be a great competitive advantage over the 52% of the workforce that requires workers to be in the office.  A great strategy is to support a remote or hybrid workplace now, so that you can attract the best available talent and be prepared in the event of another disruption.

Skill Gaps and Shortage of Talent – as difficult as finding the right hire already is, shortages in skills and talent are increasing the challenges.  Skills like construction and tech are having an extremely difficult time finding qualified candidates, and the pipeline is not filling up anytime soon.

The answer is internal training and dedicating resources for employee development and growth.  The days of finding skilled and experienced workers are few and far between.  Your best strategy is to hire based on the character traits and work ethic you are looking for and build on the employees skills by training them for your organization.  Offering this type of opportunity will create another strong competitive advantage over employers that do not offer this.

This ‘growth-mindset’ replaces the days of a person working in the same department their entire lives.  Give employees opportunities to learn, mentor, be mentored and apply their skills in other positions.  You may take an average employee and turn them into a star, simply by giving them the support to grow and find their best fit in the organization.

Employee Well-Being – along the lines of creating a great work culture is focusing on the well-being of employees.  The term ‘Quiet-Quitting’ relates directly to the pervasive attitude workers have that they are only going to give so much to their jobs.  This can be a larger problem in workplaces that don’t provide genuine support for their employee’s well-being. 

Make sure your employees know that you appreciate their effort and are vested in their personal well-being.  Flexible work schedules, childcare support, mental health support, physical and emotional well-being programs are all part of the mix.  The more you can invest in the employee’s well-being, the better they will feel about themselves, the company and the more likely they will want to stay with your company.  

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion or DEI – is not a trend, it is a way of the workforce that is here to stay, and rightly so.  Companies can no longer avoid the topic or force employees to adapt to a ‘my way or the highway’ mentality.  From the smallest companies to the largest corporations, those that embrace individuality will attract and hire the best available talent, since everyone wants to be accepted and appreciated.

This can’t be done without a concerted effort, taking time every day to communicate the company’s policy, to encourage team building events, to celebrate the diversity that exists within your organization.  If your attempts are seen as superficial, it will do more damage than good.  Make sure you have a sincere and consistent message, and that your employees know your company is there for them.

Greater use of Virtual, AI and Automation – technology is always evolving, and another product of the pandemic is how quickly employers and employees had to adjust and adapt to new technology.   Software like Zoom and Microsoft Teams is now an everyday event, and the best companies continue to evolve and add virtual platforms that improve communication, efficiency, productivity and workflows.

When it comes to hiring, virtual events have proven to be much more efficient and, in many ways, more effective than in-person events.  The new trend is moving towards hybrid events, that offer in-person and virtual access.  Clearly the employers that embrace and invest in the best technology and automation will have the best chance for success.  A virtual hiring event platform like Premier Virtual completely automates the follow-up process to be able to track hires from your events.  It’s innovation like this that separates the best from the rest and position your company to attract the best talent.

Holistic Digital Transformation – taking the last point one step further, building profiles of the ideal customer, worker, workflow and expected results will create a very clear picture of what they company stands for, and how they will deliver that to their customers.  A holistic approach will never lead to a fixed rigid business model, but rather one that can adapt to change, and creates value through different kinds of partnerships.

By approaching your business in this way, your employees have a greater sense of what is expected of them, and that makes it easier to define the kind of employees you need to keep that going.  When a company can support this transformation with digital tools, data and supporting infrastructure, the vision and mission will be pervasive, and the culture will attract and retain the best talent.

Transforming HR through Tech and Data – as we’ve touched on through AI and Virtual, HR needs to come out of the stone age and embrace today’s technology.  There are many excellent platforms that help in every phase of hiring, and many employers continue to resist and prefer to do things’ the old way’ or sticking with the status-quo.

When it comes to tech, companies are turning to cloud computing, virtual platforms, collaboration technologies, and digitization to improve HR operations and the employee experience, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.  Don’t wait until the right time because it will cost you another competent new hire. The time to upgrade your technology is now, at all costs!

The challenges in hiring will remain extremely high in 2023 due mostly to the labor shortage, but if you can work on getting ahead of these 8 trends, you will create a competitive advantage that can be the difference between meeting your staffing challenges, or not.