LinkedIn Report: What Candidates Want, What Companies Need, and What’s Changing

Welcome to the Great Reshuffle: a moment in the talent market when everyone is rethinking everything. As employees reconsider where they work and why, employers are recalibrating their business models, talent needs, and company culture. With all these swirling changes, it’s easy for talent professionals to feel disoriented — but if you can get your bearings, this moment also offers plenty of opportunities.

LinkedIn’s latest report, Talent Market Drivers Since the Start of COVID, aims to help by shedding light on the biggest changes in the job market since COVID-19 began, highlighting:

• What matters most to candidates and how their priorities are changing
• How demand for certain roles has skyrocketed since the start of COVID
• Which skills professionals are learning in order to meet market demands

You might be tempted to think that all these recent changes are only temporary, that once the pandemic is fully behind us everything will snap back to the way it used to be. 

But according to LinkedIn’s chief economist, Karin Kimbrough, “it’d be a mistake to focus too much on pre-pandemic norms and assume we’re going back there.” While the supply and demands of the talent market do tend to be cyclical, she says, that doesn’t mean we’ll return to the pre-COVID status quo. “I don’t think we will,” says Karin, whose commentary is featured throughout the new report. “The future is going to be totally different.” 

The pandemic won’t be with us forever, but its impact on the talent market will be felt for years to come. Read the full global report here, explore regional versions, or read on below for an overview of what’s changing — and what you can do to make the most of the Great Reshuffle. 

What talent wants: Here’s how candidates’ priorities have changed since COVID began

While it’s always smart to understand what your candidates want from a job, it’s particularly critical when the talent market favors job seekers, as it does right now. 

“Companies need to recognize that the power dynamic has changed,” Karin says. “Candidates are being much more selective about where they work, and workers are more vocal about what they want.”

So, how have candidate preferences changed during the pandemic? Flexibility is the fastest-growing priority for candidates considering a new job, growing 12% more important from April 2020 to June 2021, according to survey data from over 100,000 LinkedIn members around the globe.

Now here’s some good news and some bad news. 

The good news? Companies have already done a commendable job of offering flexible work arrangements, according to Glint survey data on how employees rate their employer’s performance. Out of the six most important priorities for candidates, companies are delivering most on flexibility. 

The bad news? Companies seem to be falling short where it matters most: work-life balance. While flexibility saw the biggest increase in importance during the pandemic, the most important priority overall is work-life balance — and it’s only becoming even more important in the age of hybrid work. And yet out of the top priorities, work-life balance is where companies are getting the worst marks from their own employees. 

“Companies can sometimes conflate flexibility and work-life balance,” Karin says. “But they’re very different, and they’re not equally controllable by the company.” She points out that while flexibility can be mandated with a quick policy change, “work-life balance is something that requires a kind of consent from both the employer and employee — and it’s often the worker who has to navigate those boundaries themselves.” 

In other words, creating a culture that encourages work-life balance is way more difficult than allowing employees to work remotely. Given how much candidates care about work-life balance, companies who are creating explicit boundaries to address work-life balance can get a real leg up.

What employers need: The roles that have become increasingly in demand since the early days of COVID

One thing is clear: Companies are very hungry for talent. 

“We’ve seen a substantial increase in the number of job posts on LinkedIn,” Karin reports. That growing demand is creating an imbalance in the talent market and is why job seekers are enjoying greater negotiating power now. “There’s been this sudden influx of available jobs,” she says, “but the number of job seekers hasn’t caught up.”

This stark reversal is perhaps most clearly seen when we look at demand for recruiters, a natural early indicator of overall hiring demand. In the first months of the pandemic, hiring freezes were widespread and recruiters were being laid off en masse. Just one year later, demand for recruiters had skyrocketed by 7x — to far above where it was pre-COVID — as companies scrambled to rebuild their workforces in a volatile environment. 

Diving deeper into our demand data, two big trends emerged: First, digital transformations mean even more competition for digital talent. Second, there’s a major increase in demand for in-person service roles. 

Application developer roles saw the single greatest growth from the start of COVID, as many companies were forced to reimagine their business with a digital-first approach.

“All companies had to adapt to survive, so the pandemic really accelerated digital transformation,” Karin says. “Sectors like retail, travel, and entertainment had to rapidly evolve and adopt new technologies and skills, just to keep their businesses running.”

The other key trend we see is the dramatic rise in demand for in-person roles — retail specialists, for instance, had 12x more job posts in the second quarter of 2021 compared with the same period in 2020. “We’re seeing renewed interest in in-person and frontline roles amid strong hiring comebacks,” Karin says. 

“In many ways, employers have been ahead of workers in their renewed confidence,” she says, “which has caused some friction in the supply-and-demand dynamics of the talent market. Many workers are still reluctant to return to in-person roles, whether due to COVID exposure concerns or higher pay in more pandemic-resilient industries.” 

To entice people back into these frontline roles, companies may want to consider improving compensation — the second-most important priority for candidates considering a new job. “For in-person roles during COVID, there’s an added element of wanting to be compensated for a perceived risk,” Karin says. “Companies would be remiss if they didn’t consider whether they can improve compensation in those cases.” 

Of course, not all businesses are in a position to pay more. For those that can’t, Karin says, “creating an attractive career path for employees can be a way to bring in talent for those high-demand roles.” Small businesses, for instance, might spell out how a new hire can advance their career, build new skills, and rise within the company.

What’s being learned: The skills people are learning to meet the demands of the talent market 

Finally, let’s look at how the talent market is equipping itself with new skills in response to market demands. The most popular courses on LinkedIn Learning over the past year can provide a good snapshot of where people are spending their development time. These include courses taken by individuals building their skills on their own, as well as courses used by businesses to upskill their employees on company time. In other words, popularity reflects both what people are learning on their own accord, as well as what their employers want them to learn. 

Learners have been particularly focused on inclusivity and communication skills over the past year.

The single most popular course was Unconscious Bias, taught by Stacey Gordon. Other courses on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), like Communicating about Culturally Sensitive Issues and Confronting Bias: Thriving Across Our Differences, also topped the charts.

These classes aim to promote a workplace culture of diversity and inclusion — an increasingly important factor for candidates. In fact, an inclusive workplace was the second-fastest growing priority for candidates since COVID began, growing by 7.3%. 

“Workers are looking for companies that feel inclusive, that are representative of who they are and representative of the broader society,” Karin says. While learning about bias isn’t a sufficient solution in and of itself, the fact that over 600,000 learners have watched this course signals that people are investing time and taking action to foster belonging. “This has been a real watershed moment,” Karin says, “particularly for the U.S., in thinking about how to tackle this problem and create more inclusive workplaces.” 

Another theme that emerged from the most popular courses was a clear emphasis on communication, with Communicating with Confidence and Speaking Confidently and Effectively both landing in the top five most-watched courses. 

“You often hear about how digital skills are in hot demand and on the rise,” Karin says, “but there's also a growing need for soft skills like communication to effectively navigate an increasingly hybrid workplace. Expect soft skills to continue to play a bigger role in the new world of work.”

Whether you’re hiring for these skills or helping your business develop them internally, it’s important to recognize that the talent market is putting a premium on inclusivity and communication. 

Final thoughts 

While the talent market always ebbs and flows, many of the changes we’re seeing today are unlikely to be undone. Hybrid work is here to stay, digital transformation is accelerating, and people are building durable new skills and capabilities for the future.

We’re just beginning to see how the world of work will be transformed by the Great Reshuffle. But once the dust finally settles and the pandemic is far behind us, those companies that rose to meet this moment will reap the rewards in the talent market.

Find all the data discussed here and more in LinkedIn’s Talent Market Drivers Since the Start of COVID report. 

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