When you’re trying to manage a talent acquisition team, keeping up with hiring trends can feel like another full-time job. The good news is that people at companies like LinkedIn, Randstad, Aptitude Research, KPMG, and Accenture have full-time jobs fielding studies and publishing research. To save you the time of reading the reports and figuring out what’s most important, we reviewed the latest research and gathered 23 statistics from studies published in the first half of 2023. Let’s take it away—and tell you our takeaways.
Talent acquisition’s seat at the table
- 77% of talent leaders say their talent acquisition strategies are more about total value creation for the company than about achieving cost savings, jumping 32 points in 2023 from just 45% the previous year.
- 87% of recruiting pros say TA has become a more strategic function over the past year.
- 70% of TA pros say the team can claim a seat at the proverbial table. (LinkedIn)
Takeaway: With more TA leaders than ever claiming a seat at the table, they must stay abreast of trends to keep generating value for the business by hiring the right people who can build the company’s future.
Need for cost efficiency & agility
- 53% of in-house recruiting pros predict their recruiting budget will decrease or stay flat in the coming year. (LinkedIn)
- 77% feel their strategy is more focused on agility this year, an increase of 11 points since last year. (Randstad)
Takeaway: With flat to declining budgets, companies must invest in technology that helps enable agility.
Tech consolidation on the horizon
- On average, a company invests in more than ten technology solutions for its recruitment function.
- 32% of those seeking to replace point solutions say they are doing so because they want to consolidate providers. (Aptitude Research)
- Gartner predicts that by 2025, the recruiting landscape will consolidate, resulting in 20% fewer point solution vendors in the marketplace. (Gartner)
Takeaway: Companies that invest in solutions that consolidate functionality are ahead of the game.
Automation & AI
- 60% of companies have increased investment in automation technologies in the past year. (Aptitude Research)
- 68% of hiring professionals surveyed in February 2023 said they were “very hopeful” or “cautiously optimistic” about the impact of generative AI on recruiting. (LinkedIn)
Takeaway: Automation and AI are the future, and companies that invest in them will have a leg up on competitors.
Linking employer brand, candidate experience, and ROI
- 60% of in-house recruiting pros predict their employer branding investments will increase this year. (LinkedIn)
- More than half of large organizations are using approaches to recruitment marketing that include multi-channel touch points like InMail, email, and SMS (57%), employment branding campaigns (57%), recruitment events (57%), and social media recruitment (54%). (Gem)
Takeaway: Employer branding and recruitment marketing are no longer nice-to-haves but must-haves. Those who aren’t investing in these talent attraction strategies will be left behind.
- Only 41% of large organizations and just 28% of smaller organizations assess recruitment marketing ROI/attribution. (Gem)
- 61% of organizations surveyed reported they are only rarely or sometimes able to define and measure the ROI of HR Technology systems. (Aptitude Research)
Takeaway: Despite investing in recruitment marketing and new HR technologies, companies need help determining ROI. They need systems that can help them do so.
Data-driven hiring
- More than two-thirds of large organizations track metrics like time to hire, source of hire, and offer acceptance rates.
- Less than half track new hire retention, passthrough/conversion rates, top-of-funnel activity, or time in stage.
- Less a third track cost per hire, quality of hire, and hiring manager satisfaction. (Gem)
Takeaway: While businesses are good at tracking operational metrics, there is an opportunity to track business-centric metrics to demonstrate the value of TA.
Trust at work
- 77% of workers trust their employer to do what is right. (Edelman)
- 77% of global workers feel a company’s values and purpose (including sustainability, diversity, and transparency) are important when selecting an employer. (Randstad)
- More than half of companies list Services and Customer Service (over Product Capabilities and Price) as key criteria for selecting talent acquisition systems. (Aptitude Research)
Takeaway: Trust is important in both candidate relationships and company-vendor relationships.
Enterprise digital transformation
The wave of business transformation over the last several years has included an increase in digital investments that yielded positive effects.
- A KPMG survey found that 99% of executives report a positive return on digital investments. (KPMG)
- Accenture research found that by activating the growth combination of data, technology and people, companies stand to gain a premium of up to 11% on top-line productivity—the ultimate driver of profitability and revenue growth. (Accenture)
Takeaway: Making investments in digital solutions generates ROI and improves productivity.
Learn the trends backing up the data
Undoubtedly, technology is helping companies adapt to this new world of recruiting. Key challenges in the coming years will be deciding which technologies to deploy, which ones to sunset, and how to keep people using them in ways that truly deliver business value. If you’re intrigued by what you read here, there’s more.
These stats are just snippets from our latest eBook, Global Hiring Trends 2023: How Talent Acquisition Can Adapt and Thrive in 2023 and Beyond.
Download it today to learn more about six key trends with insights from 14 hiring experts. You’ll also receive five checklists to help you make better technology decisions.
