Recruitment priorities for 2024

January 11th, 2024 | Industry News

To start the year right, Recruit So Simple has decided to look at one of the key priorities for employers and recruitment agencies in the next 12 months and to choose one sector to illustrate how things could be done differently. Sustainability is something that is often seen as more of a employer concern than an agency or HR issue, but at the base level, sustainability is in large part about creating a workforce that meets current need and can adapt and change – in other words, something that everybody working in recruitment should be focusing on. Here are some of the areas where change might help employers and recruiters demonstrate sustainability and here’s how one industry – travel – might do it.

Sustainable job descriptions – at present job descriptions tend to be transactional; focusing on what skills are needed and what pay is on offer. Sustainable job descriptions could include specific environmental awareness, for example recognising how a travel agency is moving towards carbon neutral status, making specific points about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and reaching into underrepresented communities by having vacancies translated into other languages and exhibited on community noticeboards as well as standard job platforms. In addition talking about specific disability friendly initiatives in a workplace or how home working can be built into roles can help demonstrate sustainability. Recruitment CRM software can track success in these areas, seeing how many applicants arrive from underrepresented sectors and how they progress through the recruitment process.

Sustainable hiring – the travel industry says that recruitment is still its biggest challenge, especially for high street retailers. Demonstrably better hiring practices include using saas recruitment agencies and recruitment website design to ensure a wholly paper free recruitment process. virtual interviews and virtual onboarding to reduce carbon footprint and encourage a company to be more sustainable, more cost effective and more agile. Digital hiring tools are important not just because they cut through the paper trail, but because in industries like travel where the perks and job satisfaction are important to successful recruitment, being able to innovate in such areas can allow a recruiter to reach the cream of the crop.

Sustainable technology – effective use of established technology such as social media to create a positive brand image is an outward facing achievement that reflects sustainability and can help to build the sense that a company is fit for purpose. This is important in an industry area like travel that has been negatively impacted by the influence of self-booking websites that seem to remove the need for intermediaries in the travel booking process. However, inward facing technology such as applicant tracking system uk that can call on sustainable criteria to find the best match between a vacancy and candidates also creates a positive sustainability boost for the recruiter/employer because rapid, successful matches boost the profile of the organisations and gives a sense that they are intuitive, responsive and able to achieve the right blend of role and candidate in a sector where many people are either entering through an apprenticeship process or bringing transferrable skills from other sectors, like retail, where they may feel under-supported.