The Top Recruiting Challenges and Opportunities 2023

Recruitment is never without its challenges, but 2023 is shaping up to be particularly tough. Workers want more from their jobs, and loyalty is at breaking point. It’s a candidate-centric hiring landscape, and the competition for talent is fiercer than ever.

To snap up the best hires, recruiters must now work harder and smarter to provide a positive candidate experience. Beating the competition means meeting today’s recruiting challenges head-on and taking full advantage of new opportunities.

At Tracker, we want to ensure the recruiters we work with succeed. So, grab a coffee, read our lowdown on today’s biggest hiring headaches, and learn more about the opportunities you can capitalize on to boost success in 2023.

What Are the Top Recruiting Challenges in 2023?

Vacancies are high, and talent is scarce. Attracting and retaining the right people is trickier than ever. Management consulting company, KornFerry, predicts that by 2030 more than 85 million jobs could go unfilled because there aren’t enough skilled people to take them.

The environment for recruiters is mega tough. 

The State of Staffing 2023 report by Staffing Hub, drawing upon the views of over 400 staffing professionals, revealed four main challenges for recruiters this year.

Challenge 1: Understanding What Motivates Employees in the Modern World

A lot has happened in the world in such a short time. From an employee perspective, a lot of soul-searching has been going on. A global pandemic disrupted the way we work, leading to the normalization of remote and hybrid working practices. The working-from-home experience has led employees to re-assess what’s important to them and the kind of employer they want to work for. 

While the pandemic was hugely disruptive, it created an opportunity for employees to take stock of their careers. Many no longer wanted in-person jobs. Company culture, better work-life balance and greater flexibility became more important priorities. 

Gartner states, “The pandemic and subsequent economic and political volatility have forced everyone to examine their choices about how they spend their time, energy and social capital.” Now, Gartner says, people want:

• Deeper connections in work, with family and the community
• Radical flexibility to feel autonomous in all aspects of work
• Personal growth
• Holistic well-being
• Shared purpose (through actions, not corporate statements)

The changing priorities of workers are something recruiters must get their heads around. Gartner’s insights explain: “People want acknowledgment and growth opportunities and to feel valued, trusted and empowered.”

Salary is also still important. Staffing Hub’s survey found the most common reason people look for a job is still higher pay – more than half (54%) of respondents cited this as their motivation for changing jobs.

Challenge 2: Finding and Matching Candidates

Finding top candidates is challenging, and meeting client needs is similarly tough. To win in the talent race, recruiters must understand how people are searching for new positions and get in first. Staffing Hub’s survey revealed that referrals (28%) and online job boards (24%) are the top places respondents found their current job. More than half of respondents (54%) said they plan to look for their next job on job boards.

Job boards will continue to feature as a critical resource for recruiters and that means posting on and monitoring them effectively.

The matching process must also go beyond trawling job boards, sifting resumes and setting up an interview. Recruiters must take into consideration the current wants and needs of candidates. This involves building deeper client relationships so recruiters can understand the firm’s culture. Soft skills, personalities and ethical considerations are becoming increasingly important for recruiters to understand.

In addition, capturing the attention of passive candidates, who comprise around 75 per cent of the workforce, will become an increasingly important focus for recruiters to counter the candidate crisis.

Challenge 3: Getting Candidates to Respond

In a candidate-centric market, keeping candidates engaged throughout the hiring pipeline is no easy feat. With job openings plentiful, it’s common for talent to drop out of the recruiting process and disappear into thin air. Annoyingly for recruiters, getting ghosted by candidates is a daily occurrence!

Candidates are being bombarded with offers, so effective engagement is vital. Clear and timely communication is imperative. Drawn-out processes and delays are a no-no. Responsiveness must come from recruiters. Candidates are likelier to stay in touch if they feel listened to and correspondence is impactful, personalized, quick and precise.

Automated communication is now crucial because it supercharges engagement, and potential candidates won’t wait around. An Applicant Tracking System tightens communications considerably. 

Take Tracker as an example – candidate engagement sequences are timed to perfection with automated emails and texts, follow-ups, and workflow nudges. Candidates are kept informed throughout the hiring process, and recruiters are pinged when a candidate hasn’t responded, meaning they can follow up quickly with another message or a phone call.

Challenge 4: Training Staff on Software

Now more than ever, recruiters must be on top of their game to maintain a competitive edge. Ironically, many recruiters are postponing upgrading outdated tech because they fear the disruption it will cause. One reason for delaying is training staff, which is envisaged as complicated, disruptive, and time-consuming.

Recruiting software has the potential to make life easier for recruiters and automate many tedious daily tasks. But recruiters are right to be cautious – software isn’t just about the features and won’t be effective if staff don’t know how to use it properly.

Change management isn’t easy when it comes to introducing new tech.

Training must be clear and offer simple instructions, examples, and demonstrations. Benefits and best practices must also be clearly explained so that staff know how to save time, improve efficiency, and enhance the quality of their work. Ongoing support is also imperative.

At Tracker, we want everyone to use our software from day one, and we also understand that people learn in different ways, so we provide various training and learning options.

The Top Recruiting Opportunities 2023

Technology and automation, building relationships with candidates and clients, and expanding into new markets were highlighted by Staffing Hub as the top opportunities for recruiters in 2023.

Opportunity 1: Technology and Automation

Recruiters can deliver better placements if they have more time to get to know candidates and clients. With a deeper understanding of each, they can make a better match. 

Recruitment tech is proving a game-changer in this respect. Incidentally, recruiters responding to Staffing Hub’s survey rated their Applicant Tracking System as the most valuable staffing software solution.

Consider Tracker’s CRM and ATS as an example to get the gist of the benefits. Tracker automates many manual tasks, so recruiters get the time to enjoy the job they love most – building relationships and nurturing potential clients and candidates. Tracker’s platform enables recruiters to manage candidates, clients and contacts seamlessly and effortlessly. 

Recruitment feature examples include Tracker’s Auto Match, which matches candidates to jobs automatically based on pre-configured matching criteria. Automated job board posting saves hours, and Tracker’s Watchdogs trawl job boards automatically overnight to scan for new candidates with specific skills.

Tracker’s Video Interviewing allows recruiters to create unlimited sets of interview questions which can be tailored and sent out to multiple candidates to record in their own time and on any device. Consultants’ time isn’t wasted, and videos can be reviewed instantly by the relevant people. Tracker’s video resumes also help clients to get a more rounded view of potential hires before they select people for in-person or video interviews. 

Data can be collected automatically, too, through event-triggered surveys and web forms. Tracker’s collaboration tools get teams working more effectively together. And automated communications triggered by events and workflows support optimal candidate-recruiter relationships, meaning candidates are less likely to go AWOL.

These are just some of the software features available to recruiters right now that can supercharge communications and enhance the placement process with zero or minimum touch, giving recruiters more time to focus on building relationships.

Opportunity 2: Building Relationships With Candidates and Clients

It’s hard not to acknowledge the importance of digital transformation in recruitment, but the secret to its success is maintaining the human touch. Tech doesn’t mean losing sight of what matters – building relationships with candidates and clients.

While many tasks can be automated, that doesn’t mean AI and chatbots will exclusively manage candidates. The tech revolution is exciting, but it’s not just about automation. There is a massive opportunity for recruiters to focus the human touch on the most valuable engagements. 

Eliminating outdated working processes and updating systems to maximize workflow efficiencies creates space for recruiters to listen, pay better attention to culture fit (something increasingly crucial for candidates), pick up the phone and be more responsive, and focus on making candidates and clients feel valued. 

Opportunity 3: Expanding Into New Markets

Talent scarcity is forcing recruiters to expand into new niches and tap into thriving markets. Changing priorities and behaviors amongst candidates also means recruiters must be more adaptable and creative.

In addition, the evolution of remote working makes the talent pool global. Any job that can be performed via computer or phone can be done anywhere worldwide! While some sectors have struggled to return to pre-pandemic growth projections, other industries are booming. Healthcare, Technology, Legal and Renewable Energy are just some of the fast-growth sectors recruiters could diversify into.

If there’s one thing recruiters already know, the labor market never stands still!

Take your recruiting practices to the next level and meet the challenges of 2023 head-on with Tracker. Get your demo now.