3 Recruiting & Hiring Trends to Know for 2020

Like the very people companies are trying to recruit and hire, there is nothing static about what goes into identifying, attracting and retaining talent. It’s a dynamic and ever-changing sequence of critical touch points that must constantly be evaluated and refined based on what people are looking for and find attractive in an employer.

Certainly, there are some evergreen recruiting and hiring best practices, but this is what you need to know if you plan to hire top talent in 2020.

1. Lead with flexibility.
Welcome to ‘generation flex’ and the decade of increasing flexibility in the workplace. This trend will come in a variety of shapes and sizes as companies look to compete with top employers for much needed talent – all of whom are looking for more workplace flexibility. According to International Workplace Group’s annual Global Workplace Survey, increased flexibility is on the demand list for candidates in 2020. That is, more people are beginning to expect work perks like work from home options and alternate and compressed work schedules. In fact, nearly 80 percent of respondents of the Global Workplace Survey said they’d choose a job offer that came with flexibility over one that did not.

Takeaway: If you had a hard time filling open positions in 2019, recruit with flexibility as one of your leading selling points in 2020.

2. Broaden your search.
The talent pool, unfortunately, is not getting any deeper – at least not right away. In order to recruit and hire successfully in 2020, broaden your search to include non-traditional talent options. Look for people with skills that will easily transfer to the job you’re hiring for. Hire for growth, potential and culture, not just for education, past experience and hard skills. We know some hard skills can be hard to forgo but try thinking outside the box. For instance, a graduate with an engineering degree may not have been a typical first choice in the past for a finance job, but they ‘get’ numbers too.

Takeaway: Don’t let your job openings go vacant in 2020. Instead, look for non-traditional hires with great soft skills and potential.

3. Get technical.
Artificial intelligence, video technology and automation are not new trends when it comes to recruiting and hiring. Video recruiting, for instance, in lieu of time consuming in-person interviews, has been a longstanding trend for the better part of the last decade. But as 2020 gets underway, smarter recruiting will mean automating the steps of the process that don’t necessarily require a person. Things like initial screening and skills assessment, scheduling and other rote tasks will be done by some form of technology, freeing up recruiters’ and hiring managers’ time to focus on the more relationship-based steps of the process. In 2020, expect recruiting and hiring, like other areas of the business, to continue to be influenced by the increasing capabilities of technology.

Takeaway: Candidates are coming to expect a certain level of automation and efficiency in the recruiting and hiring process. If you aren’t already, embrace the available technology.