New year, new opportunities: the essential recruiting trend of 2023

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Contents

• From short-lived trend to the evolution of recruiting: talent acquisition as a new path
• Classic recruiting vs. talent acquisition
• 3 fast quick wins for your talent acquisition
• An extra trend: short-form content as the new standard
• Conclusion: recruiting becomes more sustainable and more alive
• Frequently asked questions

TL;DR

The most important recruiting trend of 2023 is not a passing fad but the evolution from classic recruiting toward talent acquisition: a long-term, strategic way of winning people that reaches out to talent before they even apply and actively gets them excited about your company. This article shows three quick wins: use social media ads in a targeted way, strengthen your career page with testimonials, and design your job postings visually. Plus: why short-form video content is changing talent acquisition.

!Concept image for the 2023 recruiting trend: the shift from classic recruiting to strategic talent acquisition.

Author: Dominik Becker · Published: January 12, 2023

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The world of recruiting has changed at a rapid pace over the past few years, and 2023 will be no exception. Instead of holding on to long-standing processes that may no longer work, it is time to look outward and take new paths. Maybe you are also carrying one or two open positions into the new year, ones you are still looking to fill with the right candidate?

No surprise there. Slowly but surely we are realizing that classic recruiting is reaching its limits. The world of finding talent has become a different place. So we should take the focus off our internal processes and stop optimizing those workflows to death. What matters now is the view outward, into the world around us. Even if that means daring to act outside our comfort zone.

Let us take the chance now to close the book on old processes and look ahead together. What is the essential recruiting trend of 2023 if you want to keep winning great applicants for your company in the future?

From short-lived trend to the evolution of recruiting: talent acquisition as a new path

Trend. That sounds like a short-lived phenomenon that disappears as quickly as Clubhouse and the like. Like the "latest thing" that everyone has to join in on to stay competitive. But what lies ahead of us in recruiting is so much more than a passing movement.

So the so-called recruiting trend of 2023 is, to be honest, not really a trend in the narrow sense. It is more like the almost evolutionary next step of classic recruiting. Where does it lead? From a laborious, short-term search for applicants toward talent acquisition as a strategic element, so you win the right people both in the short and the long term.

Classic recruiting vs. talent acquisition

Classic recruiting and talent acquisition. Both approaches are aimed at attracting people. Yet there are striking differences that, especially right now, decide between success, failure, and your competitive edge in the candidate market.

Classic recruiting: the standard reaction

Your day-to-day work in classic recruiting is, in a way, an ad hoc reaction. A job in the company opens up, so the hiring machine gets fired up. You create standard job postings, publish them on job boards and on your homepage. And you wait. It is probably also the norm that after screening, you first collect the incoming resumes before the process moves on. Business as usual, people are creatures of habit. Once the position is filled, the activities are scaled back down.

So the whole procedure is rather short-term. You have probably already had the painful experience that this approach reaches its limits in the current market and does not always deliver the results you want. But there are alternative approaches that promise more success.

Talent acquisition: the modern way of winning people

Talent acquisition, on the other hand, is built on your long-term goals. It draws on all available recruiting channels and the tools of modern talent sourcing. Successful measures in talent acquisition include, for example:

• Social media ads and job postings that are not generic but aimed precisely at your target audience,
• employee referral programs or employee branding,
• special recruiting events such as hackathons,
• your talent pool, (which, by the way, also includes your own employees,)
• or a career page with comprehensive information that goes beyond the open jobs.

A key focus of talent acquisition lies on the processes BEFORE the application and the interviews, and it factors in how you come across to the outside world. It is all about the questions "How do we position ourselves as an attractive employer?" and "How do we attract talent and convince them of our company?" There is therefore a close link to your employer branding, which is a central cornerstone of your talent acquisition.

3 fast quick wins for your talent acquisition

Strategy and long-term thinking aside, of course you still want and need your talent as fast as possible. So we are sharing 3 fast quick wins that get your talent acquisition moving in 2023 (and beyond).

#1 Recruitment marketing on social media

When it comes to multiposting, you are probably a pro already. Publishing job postings on several platforms with a single click is simply incredibly practical. For 2023, though, you can set out to add social media ads to the mix for your most important positions.

Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Google, YouTube. You name it, you get it. A big advantage of this kind of advertising is that it gives you a whole new set of ways to reach the right talent.

#2 The evergreen: your career page

No, the age of career pages is not over. On the contrary: an individual career page is as important as ever for convincing talent to choose you. Anyone who cannot offer an appealing and informative career page is simply out of the running as an employer for many people. But by now it is no longer enough to just post jobs.

Use your career page, alongside job postings, above all for testimonials from employees in text, image, or video form. Nothing is as convincing as the voice of the people who already have insight into and experience of working at your company. The practical part: testimonials cost little, are easy to produce, and still have a huge effect. A nice side effect: you also engage your current employees and score points on internal recruitment marketing.

#3 A picture is worth a thousand words

We all know it: we scroll through a website; not much of the text sticks, but the images somehow managed to get a message across to us. Cleverly placed icons guide us through the text all the way to the colorful "Apply now" button. You can use this effect that visuals have on us for your job postings too. Skip the boring blocks of text and use icons, images, and CTAs that stand out in color in your job postings to guide talent toward applying.

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An extra trend: short-form content as the new standard

The movement that sits right at the top of the recruiting trends for 2023 is called "short-form (video) content." In principle we already know these short clips from many other areas of life, so why not use them in talent acquisition too? Anyone who gets active in this area now can gain an edge in winning people.

And "short" really means short. 60 seconds or less is the number to aim for. Because only when content is kept this short can it be consumed "on the side" and keep the full attention of your target audience.

What goes down especially well is authentic and imperfect content. So you do not need to hire a film crew. Grab your smartphone and walk through your halls and corridors. What comes out of it is real. Grab the relevant department for a short interview on the topic "3 things worth knowing about the role on the sales team" at their desk, or ask your employees about the headline "The top 5 reasons why I enjoy working at company XY."

So check before you post. Or: a near miss is still a miss

The pioneer of short video content is, of course, TikTok. Who has not seen the short clips there. But be careful: before you post on TikTok, think hard about whether the platform fits your company culture and whether you actually reach your target audience there.

If the talent you are looking for is not apprentices but rather engineering experts in senior positions, it could come across as a bit odd if you perform a funny recruiting dance on TikTok. And remember, the internet never forgets. So pioneer or not: when in doubt, better leave it. There are plenty of other ways to publish your short-form content elsewhere.

Since the summer of 2021, Google has been following suit and, with YouTube Shorts, also offers the option to post short videos. User numbers are going through the roof right now and have overtaken TikTok in the meantime. Here you reach a very diverse user group in which more than half of the users are over 35 years old. So the content here can happily be a bit more "grown-up." That makes a broad stage for your strategic recruitment marketing. YouTube Shorts can be a real hidden gem for your talent acquisition in 2023.

By the way: you do not necessarily have to put your video content online only. Why not simply send a short email with your clip to the members of your talent pool? That way you definitely reach your target audience.

Conclusion: recruiting becomes more sustainable and more alive

2023 will be different. We are rediscovering how to attract candidates and evolving from classic recruiting into sustainable talent acquisition. Our view moves from internal processes out into the world around us. In the process your search for talent becomes more alive as you lean into social media advertising, testimonials, and short-form (video) content. And not only that: as a pioneer you are a step ahead of the competition when you take the recruiting trends of 2023 to heart for your company. YouTube Shorts are a hot topic here, one you should definitely look into.

Feeling really motivated for talent acquisition in 2023 now? So are we. With our tips and tools we can start into a successful year together.