The Current and Future Recruitment Landscape

I write this hot off a trip down in London where I attended the Transform 23: The Future of Recruitment event at LinkedIn ’s UK head office. The event was about what Steve and I often talk about in terms of the changing landscape of recruitment.

All recruiters present at the event agreed that coming out of lockdown they had a great financial year. Confidence came back, people who had put their careers on hold were suddenly looking again – we at?Red Tiger Talent?were absolutely mad busy! Roll forward almost a year and we are still busy but at a more sustainable pace.

Things are changing and if you are recruiting into your organisation or are generally interested in what the recruitment landscape is changing to then read on. A lot of what I present here is based on?Microsoft’s work trend index?2022 and a lot of this we are actually seeing on the ground!

Big Growth in Green Jobs

Currently about 1% of global roles are in the green economy. I could not believe that stat (if I had to guess I thought it would be x15 higher) given the importance of the challenges our planet is facing given global warming. This sector is expected to grow exponentially as individuals, governments and companies have their green agenda moving rapidly up their priority lists.

I have seen it in the Economic Development Consulting sectors I work in where clients and candidates are all asking about roles that focus more on the green economy/energy and sustainability angles of economic policies.

Understand the Benefits that Generations Want

A key phrase I heard was that “hybrid working is not a benefit but now an expectation”. Again, due to COVID, the workforce got used to working from home and the shift that it created in people’s personal lives. The reality is that roles can be done remote but also people do want the office contact.

33% of core job skills will change in the next 5 years and this is now the number one reason candidates are moving roles (to gain skills). This now creates a skills-first hiring market which I will speak more about next.

Skills First Hiring

I have a few clients ask me for people with at least x years’ experience in the same role. The issues that I see with this is 1) you will reduce the talent you are looking at with this mindset, and 2) people will get bored in a role they can do with their eyes shut.

Skills-first hiring is less about experience but more about the skills that people can bring to the role. In my mind employers need, where possible, to think longer term about what they need and also how long it takes to get people “up to speed”. I have clients that it has taken months to convince that they need to change their expectations on candidates. If they had taken a longer-term view and hired the person with less experience but the right skills, that individual would be up to speed by that time – and then how do you quantify that given the project work that may have been turned down in that time.

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