The 10 most important labour market and recruitment trends for 2023 (part 1/3)

What are the most important labour market and recruitment trends for 2023? In three articles, labour market expert Geert-Jan Waasdorp looks ahead. ‘I see tentative steps in the right direction.’

Geert-Jan Waasdorp on December 02, 2022 Average reading time: 4 min
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The 10 most important labour market and recruitment trends for 2023 (part 1/3)

Do you want to be able to recruit successfully in 2023? Then it’s not just down to having the right set of in-house recruiters, but also how you organize the process. In the current labour market, it appears as if crisis and panic are the constant variables. But if nothing is certain anymore, let recruitment be the oasis of peace, since it is the best-equipped field that knows how to deal with constant uncertainty. My ten predictions for 2023 are just about that. It’s about whether you need to set up a professional recruitment apparatus, whether you’ve got an agency or corporate background.

#1. Make your problem bigger

Who wants the best solution to short any type of labour market tightness? Then first greatly enhance your recruitment problem. Yes, you heard right. Make it bigger. Don’t think about the next quarter, think about the next three years. Instead of 25 people (small problem, you need to recruit 300 people (great challenge). And if turnover is disappointing or more people are needed, the required amount can increase to 500 people in 3 years. Now those 25 people look like peanuts, don’t they?

Absenteeism has skyrocketed in the Netherlands, according to the Dutch Bureau for Labour Market Statistics (CBS).

That scarcity isn’t going anywhere – partly due to absenteeism doubling over the past 10 years and because people want to work fewer hours.

The next question is: How do you solve that? Your story needs a different tone-of-voice. It needs to be a story wherein a lot of new recruits are needed, which is an extremely difficult challenge resulting in potential jeopardies for your business. That scarcity isn’t going anywhere – partly due to absenteeism doubling over the past 10 years and because people want to work fewer hours. All of it makes the recruitment problem even more challenging.

The framework of European labour markets will not really change in the forthcoming year, 2023. It’s a situation where you can’t rely on governments for stop-gap solutions; change must come from within the market itself. And that marker is currently one wherein the candidate is placed firmly in the driver’s seat. Employers and intermediaries who carefully listen and respond to that sentiment will be winners in 2023.

#2: Think of the Talent Value Chain

While we’ll continue to talk about shortages, there’s certainly no shortage of data in recruitment. With solutions like Eightfold, Gartner, Giant, Horsefly, Jobdigger, KellyOCG, LinkedIn and Randstad around, talent intelligence is a booming industry employing thousands of smart brains around the world. In his book Talent Intelligence: Use Business and People Data to Drive Organizational Performance, author Toby Culshaw defines it as ‘leveraging the power of Talent Intelligence (TI) to make evidence-informed decisions that drive business performance by using data about people, skills, jobs, business functions and geographies.’

By having a grip on external and internal data (or: HR analytics), the talent available on offer is traceable, approachable, accessible, and easy to recruit. By also having insight into internal and external demand (with Foresight, for example), you also get a grip on the predictability of your needs. Being able to translate this information into strategy, together with the right vision, is the foundation for any type of recruitment success.

Why wouldn’t you appoint a Talent Intelligence Expert within your team?

Source: The Future of Talent Institute – Kevin Wheeler

Kevin Wheeler once listed all the information you need to master the Talent Value Chain. Because, as Wheeler succinctly put it: “Whoever dominates or controls the supply chain wins the war for talent”. So, why wouldn’t you appoint a Talent Intelligence Expert within your team? Someone who keeps track of the supply (external), the demand (internal), the competition (the market) and has a grip on fluctuations (internal and external). Someone who keeps an eye on the costs of ‘empty seats’, freelancers and all other trends. This role fuels the entire recruitment process. It’s not something extra to put on a plate of one of your recruiters – even if you have the right dashboard in place. The right data is just the starting point.

#3: Automate and collaborate

Anything you can automate, you should automate. This way you have more time and attention for the most important stakeholders: the candidate, the hiring manager and the board. Under no circumstances can or should you automate the recruiter, as this role has only become more business-critical (and there is also a great shortage of good recruiters). Embracing automation separates the boys from the men, from data-driven vacancy intake to the proper onboarding of new employees. But beware, less is more. It is better to master a few tools very well than many tools not at all or only to a limited extent. Everything revolves around the control of the tooling you have and that is where things often go wrong.

I expect that many traditional competitors within the labour market will work together to recruit talent in the market.

In addition, I expect that many traditional competitors within the labour market will work together to recruit talent in the market. Why shouldn’t a large retail chain start a platform for stock fillers or cashiers together with several supermarket chains, searching for the exact same talent? Taking one agency or one commercial platform as the basis for that could solve many talent issues in those sectors. It’s a situation a candidate would thrive in. I think these are all tentative steps in the right direction.

This article is part of a three-part series written by Geert-Jan Waasdorp, the CEO and founder of Intelligence Group, the European market leader in talent intelligence. Stay tuned for parts 2 and 3 which will be published in the coming weeks.

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Geert-Jan Waasdorp

Geert-Jan Waasdorp

Entrepreneur and Investor at Intelligence Group, Academie voor Arbeidsmarktcommunicatie, Werf&, Arbeidsmarktkansen, Recruitment Accelerator en Recruiteverywhere.com
Geert-Jan Waasdorp has been active in the world of job market communication and recruitment since 1999. He started his journey as an analyst, and grow into an entrepreneur, business owner, investor and innovator. Waasdorp is a guest speaker, blogger and author of several books on recruitment and employer branding.
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