5 Bold Predictions About Recruiting in 2023

If nothing else, the coming 12 months promise loads of uncertainty. But I also believe that 2023 will be the year that talent-related decisions — layoffs, hiring sprees, return to office, hybrid work, internal mobility, salary transparency, etc. — will impact the bottom line and consumer decision making like never before.

The enormous challenges facing talent professionals also represent enormous opportunities. The companies that treat their employees well — nurturing their creativity, fostering their well-being, developing and redeploying their skills — will be the ones that safely navigate the obstacles in the marketplace and find success.

Here are my five predictions for what talent teams will see in 2023:

Prediction No. 1: Recruiters will leave the industry for good 

I’m sensing a fundamental shift in our recruiting industry. With the past couple of roller-coaster years and now more recruiting teams being laid off again, I predict we will see people leave recruiting for good, which will cause a further talent shortage when the market picks back up and once again, recruiters are in high demand as we’ve seen in cycles before.

Since the pandemic began in early 2020, some recruiters have been laid off three or more times. I don’t blame folks for not wanting to return to this kind of ongoing turbulence. The talent pool for talent acquisition has recently been very tight, so the need for retaining and developing recruiting talent has never been more important. I worry that if 2021 seemed a tough market in which to hire recruiting talent, the years ahead could prove even tighter. 

Prediction No. 2: Talent acquisition teams will brandish their creativity 

With teams needing to do more with less and visual communication becoming an in-demand skill, I predict you’ll see talent acquisition teams tapping into their creativity more and more to differentiate, problem solve, and attract — especially to help hire Gen Z. We’ll be ready and we’ll BeReal.

And even though hiring will be slowed or paused all together in many places, companies will be doubling down on their recruitment marketing and employer branding efforts to be ready when the market picks back up. This will create an ideal opportunity for recruiting teams to be upskilled in creative writing, marketing 101, social media, and visual communications. We’ve got it.

Prediction No. 3: ChatGPT will help companies and employees learn new skills

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s newly launched free tool, has already been touted as a fast-working, multitasking talent acquisition assistant that can craft job descriptions, generate interview questions, draft emails to candidates, and much more. 

But as skills and internal mobility are having their moment in the sun, I predict companies will start to experiment with ChatGPT to help teach their employees new skills. Over time, this could accelerate internal mobility opportunities and allow companies to develop in real time the skills they need for the future. It would be great if more companies also seized this moment to redeploy their talent teams to leverage their skills and acumen — rather than laying them off.

Prediction No. 4: Talent teams become “the table”

When done well, skill development and internal mobility require all teams across the talent functions — from recruiting to learning and development to compensation and total rewards — to work together. I predict that 2023 will be the year when we talent professionals truly become the table — and the business pulls up a chair around us, looking for agile people and growth strategies that can help steady the ship.

With rapid market fluctuations and persistent labor shortages, a company’s talent strategy has never mattered more to the overall business success. Those of us in talent have the data, insight, and strategic levers on retention, skills, internal mobility, career development, and many more of the workplace factors that will drive growth — or, this year, keep the business going. 

Prediction No. 5: The linkage between talent brand and customer brand will continue to get stronger

With burnout, flexibility, and well-being continuing to be key focuses for companies, employees, and the wider public, I predict that how companies treat their employees will influence consumer decisions. For me, Tesla is a key example of this — the decisions that Elon Musk has made on flexibility and work-life balance and how he treats his employees at Tesla and at Twitter are impacting the spending decisions of customers. 

Amy Schultz is the global recruiting leader at Canva. With almost 20 years of experience in the talent industry, Amy has lived and worked in Australia, China, Singapore, and the United States. Before joining Canva two years ago, she was in talent acquisition leadership at LinkedIn.

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