Recruitment professionals and hiring leaders are at an exciting junction. On the one hand, the rise of gen AI has fundamentally reshaped the talent landscape in numerous ways. On the other, they have been given the onus of navigating these challenges by creating new strategies and approaches to attract, hire and retain top talent. Understanding what today’s talent acquisition (TA) leaders prioritise and predict for the future can give us a window into the future of work and hiring.

To get these insights, LinkedIn Research surveyed 1,453 recruiting professionals in management seniority roles or higher, along with 498 hiring managers from 23 countries. These responses, coupled with LinkedIn’s Talent Drivers monthly survey of 16,688 members and behavioural insights from billions of data points generated by 1 billion members across 200 countries, make this one of the most expansive reviews of the impact of AI on hiring. In this article, we discuss some of the most prominent findings of ‘The Future of Recruiting 2024’ by LinkedIn Talent Solutions.

Nearly eight out of 10 talent leaders in India are optimistic about AI in recruitment, and globally, 27% say that they are experimenting with Gen AI in their work. Globally, this expectation of AI supercharging the recruitment function is based on the biggest intended benefits, such as ease in writing job descriptions (57%), automating recruiting tasks (45%), reducing daily mundane tasks (42%), improving productivity (41%) and easier candidate engagement (35%).

Recruiters also envision Gen AI elevating the role of talent acquisition within organisations by advising businesses on strategic issues. The significant importance of talent leaders in finding, retaining and training the right workforce will put the spotlight on recruiters like never before. However, along with the use of gen AI, recruitment will continue to be driven by humans as candidate engagement and experiences will become the focus areas. As a result, in India, talent acquisition professionals with the right mix of soft skills, such as communication (73.3%), analytical skills (65%), problem-solving (48.9%), leadership (44.5%) and management (37.5%), will set great recruiters apart.

Another in-progress shift aided by gen AI is the transition to a skills-based approach to hiring. This new hiring paradigm will prioritise skills and abilities to meet the evolving talent needs of organisations, thereby focusing more on skills-based hiring, upskilling and internal mobility programmes. As a matter of fact, 70% of TA professionals globally believe they need to work closely with L&D professionals to tackle skills shortages.

Defining and hiring for future talent needs

With 67% of recruitment professionals in India stating that their organisations are assessing the talent and skills needed to keep pace with the rise of AI, there will be increased pressure on TA leaders to close the skill gap as the talent pool for AI skills is very small. This will also help prioritise other essential elements shaping the future of recruitment in India such as quality of hire (97%), employer branding (96%), people analytics (94%), upskilling/reskilling employees (92%) and candidate experiences (89%). Implementing these new frameworks will necessitate audits of existing hiring processes to design objective and evidence-based candidate assessment processes free from biases and based on clear evidence.

For example, tracking complex data points that go beyond job performance and include variables listed below will help organisations measure the quality of hire:

• Team fit: Is the new hire improving the team’s agility? Is the team more capable of getting work done?

• Culture add: Some employers consider whether a new hire’s values align with their organisation’s principles and mission.

• Productivity: Is the individual meeting their productivity targets?

• Retention: How long an employee stays at the company can be an important indicator of quality of hire, though other variables influence a worker’s length of stay.

To prevent talent shortages and help organisations implement innovative talent acquisition strategies, agility will become the most crucial strength for recruitment teams. Unsurprisingly, 97% of India’s recruiting professionals say they are focusing on being agile to adapt to hiring needs, changes in the labour market and the organisation’s goals. This agility will also make the recruitment process increasingly cross-functional, as TA professionals will be expected to work seamlessly across different stages of the hiring process. Globally, with a 30% increase in skills similarity across all recruiting roles over the last five years, it will become easier for recruiters to pivot from one functional area to another as needed.

Karthikeyan Subbaiah of Ephicacy shares, “By leveraging LinkedIn Talent Solutions, we have witnessed an Impact in hiring passive candidates in North America and India, where hiring has grown by 60 and 30% respectively. We have also built  an effective pipeline for future hires for niche and super niche skills, attracted talent beyond boundaries and branded the organisation effectively with the target audience.”

Rebuilding the workplace to attract the Gen Z talent

Recruitment professionals will become advocates of flexible work policies as they will experience the negative impact of full or mostly in-office work policies in the form of reduced talent pools, fewer applicants and increased competition. Numerous surveys, including LinkedIn’s vast user data, show that the demand for flexible work is here to stay. Additionally, the importance of flexible work in employee value proposition has been steadily increasing, particularly among Gen Z job seekers. However, there is a significant mismatch in India; while 20% of job applications are remote, only 11.2% of job postings are remote. Hiring professionals receiving first-hand feedback from candidates are expected to demand flexible work and influence policy-makers.

Similarly, as Gen Z’s share in the workforce increases, it has emerged as the second-largest challenge for recruiters, only after competition from other companies. Hiring professionals realise that they need to revamp many parts of their existing recruitment frameworks, which explains why 57% of them globally are predicting an increase in investment in employer branding. Compared to other cohorts, Gen Z employees in India are 42% more likely to prioritise skill development. Similarly, they are more concerned about career advancement and work-life balance than others.

Preparing for the future: Taking the first step

The report contains several helpful and actionable strategies for employers and TA professionals to manage transformations effectively:

• Experiment with AI responsibly: Explore new hiring ideas and approaches using AI, but create a set of guiding principles to ensure ethical data usage. Staying on top of the evolving legal and compliance landscape is also essential.

• Design skills-first hiring frameworks: Advocate skills-based hiring and use gen AI tools to find talented candidates while championing upskilling and internal mobility programs to fill the talent gap.

• Audit your hiring process: Perform a thorough review to identify current shortcomings in your hiring process and implement objective, evidence-based candidate assessments.

• Tear down HR silos: Redesign HR processes to ensure higher cross-functional collaboration and stay on top of your company’s business performance and strategic goals. Employers and senior leadership can help design a comprehensive playbook for different scenarios to decide apt responses and invest in building the skills of the TA team.

• Study market trends related to flexible work: Use candidate data and feedback to demonstrate the talent cost of rigid return-to-work policies. Show the positives of flex work to make your case to business leaders.

• Understand what makes Gen Z unique: Make your employer branding authentic, build memorable candidate experiences, and spend time understanding Gen Z’s unique attributes to create a multi-generational workforce that thrives.

The speed of changes that have swept the recruitment landscape has inverted many long-established norms in the industry. The only way for TA professionals to build the workforce of the future in such uncertainty is to develop a growth mindset, be willing to learn new skills and harness new technology effectively.

Read the full ‘The Future of Recruiting 2024: India Edition’ report.