Even though the labor market is cooling off slightly, it’s still going strong in many parts of the world.  What does that mean?  It means that candidates now have a greater say than ever on the companies they wish to work for.  They will compare all aspects of the companies and choose the one that strikes them as the best company.  Below, we will talk about some of the major global trends happening right now that companies need to make sure they’re on top of.

1.Diversity and Inclusion

Diversity in hiring is when the hiring process is unbiased and based on the candidate’s different perspectives and merit.  This is when the hiring decision is not influenced by factors unrelated to how they will perform in the workplace, whether these factors be social and ethnic backgrounds, religion, gender, age, etc.  Real diversity in the workplace is when candidates are considered for the value they will add to firms—their characteristics, perspectives, and preferences, etc.

Many people do not understand what diversity hiring truly is and have adverse feelings towards it.  They feel that hiring managers hire diverse candidates for the sake of diversity.  This is untrue: Diversity hiring is supported in the workplace because it protects qualified and diverse candidates from hiring managers’ biases and stereotypes.  It prevents them from being ignored or accidentally discriminated against throughout the hiring process.

Inclusion, on the other hand, is how the employer retains the diverse candidate in the workplace.  The employer needs to create a work environment that welcomes different ways of thinking and different perspectives.  It needs to allow all employees to be able to contribute without thinking about the backlash that could happen or about their opinions being shot down.

Diversity and inclusion go hand in hand and both are important for a company to keep attracting quality candidates.

To read more about improving your organization’s diversity and inclusion practices, read the article on What’s New with Hiring Trends: Diversity and Inclusion.

2.Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG)

ESG is the consideration of environmental, social, and governance elements when making a decision.  Throughout the pandemic, more attention was placed on ESG by companies, consumers, and governments alike.  As factories closed to ensure the health of workers, we realized how much we truly impacted the environment when our workforce was in full effect.  The world started talking more about global sustainability as “challenges such as flood risk and rising sea levels, privacy and data security, demographic shifts, and regulatory pressures, are introducing new risk factors for investors that may not have been seen previously.”  People are looking to see which companies are leading the trend and are creating change in this world.

According to CFA Institute, “Investors are increasingly applying these non-financial factors as part of their analysis process to identify material risks and growth opportunities.”  Investment professionals are now considering ESG because it gives them a better understanding of the companies that they plan to invest in.  So companies who want higher valuations and want to attract more qualified candidates should start thinking about incorporating ESG into their company.

3.Use of AI in Recruitment

Technology implementation across business practices is exponentially growing as organizations realize the added value that technology can bring.  Manual processes are being replaced with more efficient and more accurate technological processes.  One such technology that is gaining more attention from the world of hiring is the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI).  AI is increasingly being used in the recruiting process so that unconscious human biases won’t seep through and influence a hiring decision that could be unfair to candidates.

Companies like Interviewer.AI use artificial intelligence to screen candidates and help you sift out a pool of talented candidates.  The AI software goes through each candidate’s resume and matches the words within the resume to the job description to see their fit.  Then, candidates are invited to take an asynchronous video interview and are ranked based on how they score.

This ranking is completely transparent, and hiring managers can see exactly how and why candidates are ranked the way they are.  In this way, hiring managers can spend their time focusing on the candidates at the top of the rankings instead of wasting hours going through each candidate’s file manually.  This is a great way to ensure that all candidates are fairly considered with no biases and that their applications aren’t lost amidst the many applications.

4.Growing Importance in Employer Branding

As mentioned above, candidates now have a lot of choice in where they want to work, and this may cause longer hiring timelines and talent shortages for companies who are trying to hire qualified candidates.  According to a study conducted by Employee Cycle, “It wouldn’t even matter if they receive a higher salary, 75% of candidates say they wouldn’t work for a company with a bad reputation.”  Read that again.  75% of candidates.  That’s a high percentage of candidates that could be deterred from applying to your company because you don’t have a strong-enough employer brand.

Think about your company’s employer branding.  What’s the company culture like?  Is there preferential treatment within the company?  Important information about the employer brand needs to be clearly communicated to the public so that candidates who are looking can choose your company out of the rest of the companies.  The company’s brand reflects the company’s mission, values, and culture and is a great way for job seekers to find the answer to their questions about fit.

Solidifying the company’s brand is relatively easy.  Employers should regularly update the company’s profiles on social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.  Remember to also actively respond to reviews and share major updates about the company.  The most important thing is to make sure that all your replies and posts seem authentic.

5.Expanding Hybrid/Remote Work Model

As COVID restrictions are easing up in most countries, trends for remote work, hybrid work, and in-person work are shifting.  For some companies, there is a shift to full-time remote work (i.e. Airbnb).  For others, work is returning to in-person offices.  In early 2022, Microsoft conducted a study and found that “50% of leaders say their company already requires, or plans to require, full-time in-person work in the year ahead.”  However, companies do realize that employees want flexibility and, throughout the pandemic, got a taste of how hybrid work could be better for them.  Some companies are offering full-time hybrid options, as opposed to pre-pandemic, where such a thing would never be heard of before.

Interviewer.AI is a technology platform purposely built to support Recruiters and HR teams in finding top talent for their companies. Interviewer.AI is a state-of-the-art video recruiting software that uses AI (Artificial Intelligence) to screen in advance and shortlist the candidates that meet the criteria set. HR teams use the software to make the recruitment process more efficient and shorten the hiring cycle.  Learn more about how Interviewer.AI can help your business.

Increase your hiring team’s efficiency using a combination of resume scoring, skill assessment, and asynchronous video interviews. 

Hannah Ng is from Boston College studying Finance and Business Analytics.  She is currently an intern for Interviewer.AI.

Besides work, she is also very interested in hair styling and is responsible for her family’s hairstyles as a hobby.