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8 Experts Share Trends that will Shape Recruitment in 2022

It's no news that the past two years have dramatically changed the job market affecting employers, recruiters and candidates worldwide. At the beginning of 2022 recruiters are as busy as ever, so what does the rest of the year have in store for recruitment?
8 Experts Share Trends that will Shape Recruitment in 2022

To investigate the most significant trends ahead of us we surveyed recruitment experts, experienced recruiters as well as talent executives from companies like Veriff and DAO Maker.

We asked one question: "What's one trend that will shape recruitment in 2022?"

The answers were as varied as were the people we spoke with, but candidate experience and automation were the most mentioned topics. From (future) employee experience to data science and "eduployment", read on to find out which trends our experts predict will mark the year we are in.

Before we dive in, here's the list of experts we spoke to:

Jan Tegze, Author, Full Stack Recruiter
Kristiine Kukk, Head Of Recruitment, Veriff
Dominic Rohde, Head of Talent, DAO Maker
José Kadlec, Trainer, Keynote Speaker, Author & Founding CEO, Recruitment Academy
Helen Pärli, CEO, Trainer & HR Consultant, SMARTFUL Growth OÜ
Gordon Lokenberg, CIO, Sourcing Specialist, Trainer & Recruiter, The Lokenbergs
Alla Pavlova, Interim Tech Talent Sourcer
Mark Deubel, Tech Recruiter, Engineer, Podcast Host & Speaker, MADE

Jan Tegze, Author, Full Stack Recruiter


2022 will be about company culture and employee experience. Good company culture will be the key to attracting the best available talent. By creating a workplace culture that celebrates recognition, organizations will attract and retain top talent. And to recruit that talent, embracing a flexible workplace culture will be essential! Organizations will also need to address the pain points in the employee experience to increase hiring success. Investing in excellent employee experience can make staff feel happier, motivated, more productive, and improving the current employee experience helps employees feel recognized and satisfied within their job roles. When employees are happy at work and see the opportunity for career progression, they're less likely to leave the business.

That is why 2022 will be all about employee wellbeing!

Kristiine Kukk, Head Of Recruitment, Veriff


In some ways 2022 continues where the previous year left off- with a significant shortage of people to hire. With a lot of companies hiring on a large scale, competition is bigger than ever. There has never been such a deficit of even us, recruitment professionals!

In order to stand out from the crowd of other amazing employers, recruitment teams need to work strategically to get the right people.

The one thing that can tell your company apart from others is a well thought out employer brand and eye-catching campaigns.

2022 is no year to hope and assume that people already know you and love you, it’s a year to make sure you have set aside a juicy budget for employer branding and at least one dedicated employee focusing on it.

Dominic Rohde, Head of Talent, DAO Maker


I think automation of sourcing, job description writing, scheduling and things like that will definitely increase. Software that gathers team members' network data will probably become popular. All to save time, cut costs and increase speed.

José Kadlec, Trainer, Keynote Speaker, Author & Founding CEO, Recruitment Academy


Last month I received a message from a driver in Singapore who up-skilled to a reputable recruiter through our Recruitment Academy. The typical example of so-called eduployment which I see as one significant trend in recruitment. With the scarcity of professionals on the market the key advantage is not only to find them but to create them.

Companies are starting their own academies to nurture the community of niche professionals and have the exclusive chance to hire them first.

We've created for example GoodCall Microsoft Academy where we re-skill workers for Microsoft technologies. This puts a big burden on recruiters who suddenly need to be more familiar with marketing techniques and social selling methods before they can even hire some candidates from the academy attendees.

Helen Pärli, CEO, Trainer & HR Consultant, SMARTFUL Growth OÜ


We can see that there is an increasing need for sourcers and recruiters.

I can hear HR people sharing that finding a recruiter is becoming as hard as finding a developer.

This means that we need to work even smarter - we need to automate as many steps throughout the process as possible in order to make more time free for the recruiters to build relationships with potential candidates.

Automation also supports improvement of the candidate experience. It helps us take the extra mile with very little effort. These extra activities will combine into a WOW that is much needed to stand out from the rest and to close the deals.

Gordon Lokenberg, CIO, Sourcing Specialist, Trainer & Recruiter, The Lokenbergs


The trend that will shape recruitment in 2022: Recruiters being trained in finding the right people using a "data science" approach.

Alla Pavlova, Interim Tech Talent Sourcer


Talent acquisition (TA) teams will become more data-driven.

There is a lot of data that can be gathered and processed such as talent mapping, sourcing channel effectiveness, candidates’ feedback, time to hire, conversion rates and other pipeline stats.

By analyzing this data TA teams will learn how to improve quality and speed of the recruitment as well as better manage stakeholders’ expectations. Besides, such data can be used as a basis for automation. We might see new roles in TA teams. There will be more collaboration with data analysts and developers of software tools for recruiting.

Data-driven approach will help to eliminate misalignments between hiring managers and recruitment teams. It will improve overall transparency and productivity of the recruitment process.

Mark Deubel, Tech Recruiter, Engineer, Podcast Host & Speaker, MADE


When we talk about the trend in 2022 that will shape recruitment it’s actually something we often forget. Human relations with candidates. Or better said, being human!

In 2022 we’ll see a shift of focus from candidate experience to candidate relations. Especially in the current market, a good offer is not enough to attract a candidate, and a shift clean process isn’t either. Making an offer is about a change in their lives and people are getting more conscious about the value of their life due to the global situation.

People get approached by recruiters everyday, and when it’s not personal, people won’t respond. Success in 2022 is about being personal and human in your approach, but it doesn’t stop there. The next step is to actually build a relationship, and actually understand the motivation of the potential candidate, as they are looking at a job in a different way nowadays.

2022 will be about being human (again).

Wrapping up


Identifying trends and using them to develop future plans is what many successful businesses and individuals do to stay ahead. We hope this post has given you food for thought about what's next in recruitment and how to use it to your advantage.

Which trend do you think will be the one that shapes this year's recruitment?
Tell us on LinkedIn.

Finishing off with a huge thank you to everyone who contributed to this post! 😊