The job market has undergone significant changes in the past several years. Between COVID-19 forcing an en masse move to remote work; the Great Resignation bringing the US’s “quit rate” to a 20-year high; and the general troubles of cost-of-living increases; organizations have been rethinking their talent acquisition strategies and optimizing their hiring processes to attract the best talent.
Now—thankfully—it’s once again largely an employer’s market with more job-seekers than there are open roles. This has changed the workforce overall, and BPO trends in particular, causing many organizations and recruitment teams to once again reassess how they find new talent.
If you’re worried about keeping up, well, you’re not alone. Understanding the latest talent acquisition trends can help clarify what the market will look like in 2024 and beyond, as well as shed some light on why outsourcing work is more helpful than ever.
Read on for a breakdown of the six most impactful trends to watch in 2024.
To successfully strategize and plan for the optimization of talent management and potential candidates in the coming year, you need to understand how talent acquisition trends change both the market and the very talent they govern. When it comes time to hire potential candidates, this insight will provide a thousand-foot-view that will ensure better decision-making and more intuitive candidate fits over the long haul.
There are at least two very good reasons why, more and more, companies are opting to keep executive recruitment firms on retainer for their upper-level management and C-Suite roles.
First, handing off such a large and important search to professionals who have perfected the process just makes sense, saving your in-house HR team time, money, and trouble.
Second, and more importantly, executive search firms identify and connect with top-tier talent literally every day—meaning they’ve already built up extensive databases, networks, and personal relationships with qualified candidates. For instance, TDS Global Solutions’ executive recruitment team currently has access to the resumes and contact information of over 35,000 executives in the U.S. alone.
Working with an executive recruiting firm means tapping into a seasoned network of professionals who are well-versed in the nuances of executive roles and expectations. Such firms not only provide access to a vast pool of candidates but also bring a level of insight and expertise that ensures a more precise match between the organization's needs and the executive's skills and experience. The result is a more streamlined search process, saving valuable time and resources while ensuring that the candidates presented are of the highest caliber and best fit for the organization's unique requirements and culture.
The first of our talent acquisition trends to consider is the growing importance of DEI (diversity, equity & inclusion) in your hiring process. The basic idea here is that everyone deserves a seat at the table; but while many organizations have long claimed to believe this, their hiring practices, organizational structures, and pay scales have told a different story.
Today, organizations across the globe – but especially in the historically white-led and Eurocentric organizations of North America and Europe – are seeking to undo this undemocratic practice. It’s not just for looks, either: the majority of candidates want to see these changes.
According to a LinkedIn study, “76% of employees and job seekers said diversity was important when considering job offers” and “80% of survey respondents said they want to work for a company that values DEI issues.” Moreover, “60% of employees want to hear business leaders speak up on diversity issues.”
Accordingly, DEI seeks to restructure and reshape workforce planning so that diverse workforce initiatives genuinely change the internal makeup of the organization concerned. To further this aim, talent management will need to take into account the backgrounds and desires of those it hires from the get-go.
Remote work hit an all-time high during the heyday of COVID-19. According to Harvard Business Review (HBR), “Remote work spiked during the pandemic, from about 6% of full workdays in the U.S. to more than 50% in the spring of 2020. Since then, it’s steadily decreased and since early 2023 has hovered around 28%.”
While remote work has dropped by nearly half, it is still more than four times higher than it was before the pandemic, and many business leaders are pushing for a larger return to the office. As more and more companies demand that employees start working in person again, the job market is feeling the shift.
Recruiters, then, need to adjust—especially when it comes to filling executive roles. While executives are significantly more accepting of their in-office roles, recruiters and hiring managers are being sure that the top-level team members they’re hiring on can agree with this move away from the remote workforce and back towards traditional in-office employement.
Artificial intelligence is neither a fad nor a niche movement, but rather one of the most salient talent acquisition trends for all industries in coming decades. AI can streamline all stages of the hiring process, including:
The advancement in AI tools is allowing talent acquisition experts to dig through the global talent pool much more effectively. From creating job postings, to culling through applicants, AI techniques effectively sort the wheat from the chaff in a much faster, more efficient, and less biased way than when humans perform these tasks.
Naturally, there will always be a human role to play in the recruiting process, but AI will become an increasingly large piece of the pie vis-à-vis recruitment strategies. Of that, generative AI will play a hefty role, helping to create the content and postings that draw in the best applicants.
Rapid employee turnover is damaging in any organization, but especially so at the executive level. Even in an employer’s market, one of the best ways to decrease turnover is to ensure that your business is, simply put, a great place to work.
A growing trend we’re seeing is for human resources teams and talent acquisition leaders to spend more time promoting their organization’s strategies for building company culture when discussing the opportunity with candidates. This includes diving into the specific initiatives and action items that the company has laid out to build engagement, promote mental health, and help create a strong work-life balance for employees.
This may also include showcasing any emphasis the company has placed on internal mobility and hiring from within for lower-level roles. Organizations that help existing team members grow and advance in their careers tend to have higher retention rates. All of this would be appealing to a potential new hire on your executive team.
As more time-consuming and manual tasks become automated, the specific skills and talents that employees bring to the table become more important. Partly for that reason, and partly because it’s more cost-effective, companies are starting to prioritize employee skills over experience.
After all, who cares what kind of degree a computer “expert” has if they can’t use today’s tech tools? And why hire a data analyst with decades of experience if they can’t transmit ROI in the relevant metrics? Thus one of the most important talent acquisition trends of 2024 will be exactly what candidates have to offer, and not how good they look on paper.
The numbers bear this out: “Between 2017 and 2019,” says HBR in a different report, “employers reduced degree requirements for 46% of middle-skill positions and 31% of high-skill positions.”
As such, today’s talent acquisition teams will begin to focus more on what a candidate can do, rather than what degrees they’ve earned. Simultaneously, business leaders who are open to new opportunities will need to show they can perform now, not just in the past.
Global talent-hiring trends are, overall, clearly headed toward a new pattern of prioritizing good work, inclusive practices, healthy offices, and happy people over everything else. This will mean a shift back from the upheaval of COVID-19 to a steadier pace of work that includes more time in offices, increased diversity in hiring, and greater focus on real-world skills over shiny resumes.
Understanding these talent acquisition trends will help ensure that you continue to bring top talent on board at your company. If it seems like a lot to keep tabs on, you’re not alone. This is why is why so many hiring managers depend on expert recruitment services to fill their positions, oversee executive salary negotiation, and stay on top of those trends for them.
If you’d like to cut down the amount of time and angst your hiring process involves, TDS Global Solutions can help. Our executive recruitment services ensure you see only the best and most qualified candidates, making the hiring process effortless for those high-level positions. It’s a simple way to stay sane in this ever-evolving world, which is why more people use TDSGS every day.
If you’d like to learn more about what we do and how we can help you, please feel free to reach out today or schedule a call with our team.
