Talent acquisition trends for 2023

Many factors are fuelling the labour market in Australia and New Zealand. Ramifications from the pandemic combined with economic uncertainty have impacted hiring for businesses across the world.

To help companies understand the current hiring climate better, SmartRecruiters released their ANZ Hiring Trends: What You Need To Know report. Discussed was the talent market and the two trends that are driving it.

SmartRecruiters highlighted that Australia and New Zealand are attractive destinations for backpackers as the countries are relatively isolated from other parts of the world. With this in mind, it’s not surprising that migration is a big fuel for the labour market.

As tourism picks up across ANZ, many are hoping that the labour market picks up with it. SmartRecruiters said: “KPMG found lifting net overseas migration by a total of 265,000 over the next five years would boost the Australian economy by up to $35 billion.”

To prepare for this, there are two trends that recruiters should be aware of:

Trend 1: Powering a better candidate experience with technology

SmartRecruiters highlighted that talent is the number one concern of business leaders in Australia. According to the report, 77 per cent of talent leaders said ‘talent acquisition, retention and re/upskilling to meet a more digitised future’ is the top challenge for the year.

To help ease this pressure, organisations are looking to tech. By providing skilled workers with the latest tech you’re able to automate processes and make recruitment much more efficient, said SmartRecruiters.

“The organisations automating engagement at scale are seeing higher candidate conversion through the funnel and increased hiring velocity while building direct relationships with talent,” said Sam Hannaway, APAC solutions lead at SmartRecruiters.

“They’re playing the long game of recruiting and playing it to win.”

SmartRecruiters said that those who are investing in this tech are improving their candidate experience and those who do not utilise these innovations will be left behind by competitors.

Trend 2: The next wave of enterprise digital transformation

According to SmartRecruiters, digital transformation follows talent as the top challenge for business leaders in 2023.

In fact, 46 per cent of leaders said that ‘digital transformation & optimisation, and extracting organisational value against it’ is the top challenge for the year.

The report said that employers have shot themselves in the foot over recent years by not properly utilising human capital management (HCM) technology and leaving it out of the decision-making process.

Gareth Flynn of TQSolutions commented: “Employer immaturity in adequate people tech and analytics is preventing companies from engaging and retaining talent in historically tight labour markets.”

According to SmartRecruiters, the most effective companies are utilising this software while also making sure that accessibility is a top priority: “Those that have adopted a design-thinking mindset put candidates and employees who use the tools at the centre of their efforts.”

By making the systems that staff use user-friendly, you are promoting efficiency.

The way forward for ANZ talent leaders

To prepare for the future of work, SmartRecruiters said you need to ‘future-proof’ talent acquisition. This can be achieved by implementing a system that is:

• Usable: simple to use for hiring managers, candidates, recruiters, and admin
• Flexible: tools for any requisition, workflow, geography, or budget
• Connected: integrated with HRIS and point solutions, centralised insights

Rich Lewis-Jones, regional vice-president at SmartRecruiters APAC concluded: “If you’re trying to be everything to everybody, you can’t be the best at anything.

“SmartRecruiters strives to be the best at core recruitment processes, and we’re delighted to work with both local and global best-of-breed partners. As new challenges happen and new categories emerge, our customers have access to a host of solutions to address their evolving needs.”