Top 15 Recruiting Trends for 2024

Top 15 Recruiting Trends for 2024:

1. Recruiting remote employees.

Since 2020, many businesses have transitioned from in-person to a hybrid remote workforce, paving the way for a new era of global remote hiring. The benefits extend beyond the company with cost savings, improved morale, and diversification of talent key factors driving this trend.

Recruitment firms have already seen a significant increase in the number of candidates seeking out remote work positions, or at least a hybrid system that can reduce their daily commute, provide more time to be with family, and ease the pressure of sustained social contact.

2. Candidate experience.

With the demand for skilled candidates often outweighing the supply, job seekers are becoming more selective when choosing which companies to apply to and are strongly influenced by employer brands, with candidate experience becoming an increasingly important factor.

3. Employer branding.

Before applying, job seekers are researching a business's reputation and brand. Therefore, employers are starting to see the importance of maintaining or improving their brand image. Just like with customers, future applicants will want to associate themselves with a business that is respected in their industry.

4. Tailoring recruitment for millennials and Gen Z.

While millennials already make up the largest part of the global workforce, 2024 will see more Gen Z candidates join the workforce. Tailoring recruitment strategies to these two generations is essential for businesses that want to attract and retain the future workforce.

5. Expanded benefits.

In 2022 and 2023, recruiters noticed a growing trend with candidates choosing companies that offered expanded benefits. Beyond medical and dental, today's employees are looking to their employers to assist with financial planning, saving for retirement, mental health support, and maintaining a work-life balance.

Expanding benefits can be an effective way for companies to recruit and retain employees in hard-to-fill roles.

6. Work flexibility.

Many businesses operate with a diverse team that includes a combination of full-timers, contractors, and freelancers. Because of the competitive labor market, more employers are offering creative benefits including flexible work schedules. This has helped to differentiate brands and create a more attractive workplace for potential candidates.

7. Hiring resilient personalities.

The global pandemic, war, economic instability, and political upheaval have affected many businesses and their employees. What businesses have come to realize is that employees with resilient personalities are vital to the stability and functionality of an organization.

In 2024, recruiters will be looking for ways to attract, identify, and hire candidates who remain strong in tumultuous times.

8. Diversity, equity, and inclusion.

While diversity hiring is nothing new, it remains a popular and growing recruiting trend in 2024. Inclusion, equity, and diversity practices have shifted into the spotlight and can strongly influence candidates' perception of an employer's brand and their decisions to pursue or disregard advertised job openings.

Employers will have to pay close attention to the language, variety of sourcing channels, and screening and evaluation practices they use, ensuring that these are unbiased. Prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion also offers businesses many other benefits, including improved employee happiness, productivity, retention, and loyalty.

9. Internal mobility.

In addition to enhanced and proactive external recruitment efforts to fill skills gaps, employers are also giving more importance to internal mobility and looking to the human capital they already have before initiating costly and time-consuming external recruiting drives.

In addition to being more cost-effective, offering development opportunities to current employees to fill skills gaps can improve employee satisfaction and loyalty, ultimately contributing to a stronger employer brand and giving your business a competitive edge.

10. Transferable skills.

In certain industries, it's becoming increasingly hard to find skilled individuals. In response, recruiters have started to look beyond the limitations of their industry to find talented candidates. This has resulted in a shift from experience-based hiring to hiring based on transferable skills.

Instead of looking for relevant previous work experience, recruiters will increasingly focus on transferable skills to help expand their talent pool. Transferable skills include problem-solving, adaptability, communication, creativity, financial literacy, and more. These skills are often referred to as soft skills.

11. Project-based contract hiring.

While freelance and contract work are not novel concepts in 2024, the increased adoption of these work models is a notable trend. With a heightened demand for more flexibility, independence, and a better work-life balance among workers, it shouldn’t be surprising that more than 40% of the U.S. workforce are contract workers.

Employers are also making more use of contractors and freelancers than before, with more than 90% of U.S. companies moving to a hybrid model of both full-time and freelance employees to bridge skills gaps. According to industry research, engaging in contingent talent is one of the most effective ways to address talent scarcity.

12. Artificial intelligence (AI).

AI in recruitment will continue to spread in 2024, changing the entire HR process. Offering a range of useful recruiting tools, including automated candidate sourcing, recovery, and matching, AI in recruitment continues to expand.

Learn more about how AI will change human resources.

13. Social media recruiting.

Harnessing the power of social media for recruitment is another growing trend that has paid dividends in 2023. This year, companies can expect to up their game with social media recruitment, spending more time and money on brand awareness, platform integration, and campaigns to target passive candidates.

14. Recruitment marketing.

This involves using common marketing practices in your recruiting process. With the help of effective marketing tactics, recruiters can find, attract, and nurture talented candidates. Essentially, you will market the business or job position to the candidate, inspiring them to apply to your business's job openings.

15. Data-driven recruiting.

With this trend, planning, and decision-making are based on data obtained through HR technology such as ATS and recruitment marketing platforms. This helps reveal important insights into which parts of your hiring strategy work well, and which parts need improvement.