Are We Entering the Era of Soft Skills? 11 Recruiting Trends to Watch For
Welcome to Recruiter Q&A, where we pose employment-related questions to the experts and share their answers!
Today’s Question: What recruiting trends do you expect to see taking off in 2020? How can recruiters and employers start preparing for these changes in the labor market now now?
These answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization composed of the world’s most successful young entrepreneurs. YEC members represent nearly every industry, generate billions of dollars in revenue each year, and have created tens of thousands of jobs.
1. Culture, Above All Else
A positive company culture has moved from a nice-to-have to a must-have. In 2020, it will be important for businesses to focus on fostering strong company cultures. Workers today want to know about the companies they work for, and they are less likely to stay if they cannot get behind the business’s overall vision. Thus, culture has a significant impact on a company’s ability to recruit and retain top talent.
You might see more organizations focusing on soft skills rather than technical skills when hiring. Organizations could be looking for folks who possess skills like organization or empathy, depending on what the business’s particular needs are. Other companies may want to consider this strategy, as it might result in more effective hires.
It’s clear that the best way for a business to rank high on a search engine is to create great content. Businesses need talented content creators who know how to optimize content for SEO. It’s likely that there will be a steady demand for content writers, editors, and other creatives.
More employees are working from home than ever before, and I expect we’ll see a sharp increase in remote workers in 2020. I think business owners can prepare for this change by making sure their businesses can operate in remote office spaces. If not, start researching chat channels, project boards, and other software you’ll need to make the change.
Businesses often take the approach that they are a big family and everyone working together is closely connected. Recruiters can capture the magic and benefits of a family by working off of referrals from other employees. When companies hire based on the opinions of their existing top talent, they usually hire skilled people who will uphold their “family” values.
Because technology is changing so rapidly, the nature of business itself is also changing in every industry. While employers were once discouraged from seeking out individuals with drives toward entrepreneurship and personal advancement, these very traits are now highly desired. People with the ability to see new opportunities and create solutions to new problems will be highly valued as the technological revolution continues.
As remote work becomes more popular, more traditional companies will have to loosen up a little bit with their rules and regulations. Unless you’re paying a lot more money, it can be hard to top the benefits of working remotely. To attract the best people, you may have to make some sacrifices, such as letting people work from home on certain days of the week.
In 2020, more organizations will look to their existing employee pools to fill new positions. They’ll look at their internal talent before venturing out into wider pools of candidates. If there’s already talent on the team, you might as well use it — and more companies will soon realize this.
AI is already used by many recruitment firms and websites to screen candidates’ resumes and cover letters for relevant keywords, phrases, and experiences. Now, however, companies are starting put AI to more sophisticated uses, such as assessing video interviews. As this kind of AI gains traction, more and more companies will jump on the bandwagon. Be prepared to use AI to find the best candidates for your firm.
Today, it’s not uncommon for businesses to hire remote workers from around the world or to have customers in different time zones. As a result, businesses will need to value people who have soft skills such as social skills and interpersonal communication skills. Such skills are essential because these distributed businesses need to be able to help customers and work with partners from anywhere. Language skills will also be important.
11. A Combination of Hard and Soft Skill Recruiting
When recruiting, many businesses focus on the hard skills of potential hires, like particular degrees or certificates. In 2020, however, we can expect more companies to be searching for candidates that possess important soft skills like adaptive thinking, social intelligence, virtual collaboration, and more. Hard skills may get candidates the job, but soft skills help them keep it.
