New Year, New Strategy: Optimize Your Recruiting Efforts for 2023
With layoffs impacting the start of 2023, many companies are still planning for a coming recession and battling high inflation. But what does this mean for your 2023 recruiting efforts?
Evan Sohn, CEO of Recruiter.com, hosted a webinar with Bianca Sitzer, Global Strategic Partnerships at Deel; Lisa Simon, Senior Economist at Revelio Labs; and Jonathan Benelli, Senior Sales Director at hireEZ to discuss what 2023 will look like for recruiters.
Keep reading to learn about what these recruiting experts predicted for the 2023 job market.
Looking Back At 2022
In 2022, 150,000 tech jobs were lost, which is only anticipated to get worse into the beginning of Q1, with Amazon and Microsoft announcing thousands of planned layoffs.
However, some of the recruiting trends in 2022 will help inform the direction of the job market that 2023 will take. Sitzer reminded listeners that global hiring was a popular trend and will continue to be in 2023. Countries like the UAE, Netherlands, Estonia, and Spain started new programs to help attract and retain talent.
Simon said that the layoffs that happened at the end of 2022 were a reaction to the over-hiring in 2021. Unfortunately, recruiters were disproportionately impacted by the reductions. However, even though the job market will still be competitive and tight, recruiters are one group quickly recovering and finding new jobs.
Benelli said that 2022 had two distinct halves regarding the job market. Job seekers had the upper hand in the first half of the year.
“Tech hired into a recession, and earnings fell flat,” said Benelli.
Because of this, the second half of 2022 dealt with layoffs as companies prioritized profitability over growth. But what does all of this mean for the 2023 job market?
Looking Forward to 2023
This might make it a challenging year for recruiting, and some of the strategies might shift.
Sitzer predicted that companies would become leaner with fewer job openings and positions, but many companies will tap into a global talent pool to save money and access new talent pools. In addition, with new HR tech coming onto the scene, recruiters and HR professionals will also utilize this to help them reduce recruiting costs.
She also predicted that many job seekers would apply mainly for remote jobs. As a result, companies will need to evaluate their working environment to attract and retain top talent.
Simon had similar predictions, but she mentioned that employers would likely focus on employee retention because of how costly it is to hire employees. In fact, according to SHRM’s latest data, it costs around $4,700 to hire a new employee, which can be a cost that employers can’t deal with during a recession.
According to Simon, retaining employees will be the cheapest way to keep talent, so some focus will be on investing in good leadership and company culture. In addition, employers will have to listen to their employees and find new ways to offer benefits to keep their employees.
Benelli echoed some of the same sentiments. He predicted that much of the tech talent laid off at the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023 would be redistributed to other industries, especially healthcare.
The demand for talent will still be challenging this new year, and the competition will be tough as companies compete for that talent. Another thing that will make it difficult for companies to recruit talent is that many of them offered the highest salary possible when recruiting during the Great Resignation.
Because these perks and salaries are maxed out, companies will look at other perks that will attract and retain talent.
Sohn also predicted that many tech employees would move into other industries, making this the perfect opportunity for other companies to snag some top talent. With legislation potentially changing around non-compete laws, this could make it even easier for talent to go to other companies.
He also mentioned that rather than measuring the number of new job openings number, HR professionals should look at quit rates. The current quit rates are higher than before the pandemic, which means that people are still looking for new jobs, even if many companies have slowed down hiring.
What Actions Can Your Company Take?
These trend predictions can help set your recruiting strategy for the new year. In addition to these predictions, the panelists also gave actionable tips to implement into your strategy.
Benelli recommended generating an on-demand pipeline of talent. In addition, he suggested creating a reward system based on KPIs and metrics to incentivize and retain employees. This is one way that companies can attract and retain top talent during a challenging economic environment.
Simon also said that 2023 would be all about keeping employees. To do this, companies should build an internal talent marketplace. The businesses that invest in their employees will find it easier to retain that talent and be able to upskill and hire internally if they need to open a new position.
Sitzer predicted that budgets would shrink, and HR leaders would have to find a way to do more with less. Because of this, HR leaders should be thinking about how they can optimize and streamline these efforts. One way to do this is to leverage global talent pools and build pipelines.
Sohn echoed these predictions saying that the cost of hiring is going to be the most important thing for businesses. Vacancies will cost companies a lot of money when trying to cut their budgets.
They’ll need to develop a hiring and retention strategy. However, this might also mean that companies will look for more affordable recruiting strategies for the talent they aren’t able to retain.
Optimize Your Recruiting Efforts for 2023
One thing to take away from this webinar is that companies will need to optimize their recruiting efforts for 2023. Not only will they have to be strategic about the positions that they hire for, but they’ll need to be competitive to win top talent, and they’ll need to stay within a tight budget.
If you’re wondering how you will be able to compete in this talent market while also staying within budget, Recruiter.com has you covered. We have affordable and flexible recruiting solutions that allow you to work with some of the best recruiters on the market.
Check out our services today to set yourself up for success in 2023.