New Data: What Recruiters Get Wrong About What Candidates Want

The startling rise of generative AI (GAI) will do more than just save recruiters’ time. As noted in the sixth prediction of LinkedIn’s new 2023 Future of Recruiting report, hiring leader Glen Cathey believes it will lead recruiters to focus on the most human parts of their jobs — like listening to candidates, understanding what they want, and practicing empathy.

So, it’s worth asking: Do recruiters actually know what candidates want? 

To find out, we asked nearly 2,000 recruiting pros to select what they believed were the most important factors for candidates when considering a new job. Then we compared their choices to the real responses of over 20,000 candidates. 

This comparison reveals a few interesting gaps and misalignments. Surprisingly, recruiters might be undervaluing factors as essential as employee happiness, while overemphasizing certain perks and benefits. 

Addressing these gaps can help recruiters recalibrate the way they pitch jobs to candidates and what they choose to highlight. Read on to learn about the four biggest disparities where recruiting pros missed the mark — and how a few simple tweaks could help you better connect with candidates. 

Recruiting pros underestimate the importance of employee happiness

One of the biggest disparities this data reveals is about the importance of employee happiness. While 28% of candidates selected “happy and inspired employees” as one of the top factors they weigh when considering a job, just 15% of recruiting pros thought it’d be a high priority for candidates. 

Of course, recruiters know intuitively that employee happiness is important — but these findings suggest that it’s even more important to candidates than many in recruiting realize. Don’t lose sight of this simple point: People want to work somewhere where people are happy. 

If you think about it from the candidate’s perspective, employee happiness is a decent measure of all the disparate parts of a company’s culture, boiled down to a simple question: Are people happy to be working there? In other words, candidates aren’t missing the forest for the trees — make sure you don’t miss it, either. 

Recruiting pros overestimate the importance of flexible work arrangements

One of the biggest disparities in the other direction is on flexible work arrangements — an unquestionably important factor that recruiters may be fixating on just a little too much. 

Make no mistake: Flexible work arrangements are one of the most important priorities for candidates — in fact, it’s ranked as the third-most important, after compensation and work-life balance. 

The error here is more a matter of emphasis. Recruiting pros think flexible work arrangements are the No. 1 priority for candidates, whereas candidates say — quite clearly — that it’s compensation and benefits.

The lesson for recruiters: Don’t let specifics crowd out the big picture

So, what should recruiters take away from these two disparities? It comes down to the age-old adage of “show, don’t tell.” 

It’s tempting to tell candidates all about the specifics of this or that policy or perk, since you’re steeped in those details and differentiators. And there’s nothing wrong with that, especially when candidates express interest. 

But don’t neglect to show the end-result of all those amazing perks and policies — a happy, engaged, and involved workforce. Instead of inundating them with a laundry list of specifics, find opportunities to showcase how employees feel working there. 

As the saying often goes: People may forget what you said, but they’ll always remember how you made them feel. Similarly, when a candidate is considering joining your company, they might not remember all the details of your offer — but if you make them feel that they’ll truly be happy working at your company, that’s an impression they won’t soon forget. 

Recruiting pros underestimate skill development and overestimate career advancements

Now we’ll consider two more areas where recruiters and candidates are misaligned: the opportunity to develop new, highly desired skills and the opportunity for career growth within the company.

This time, we’re looking at both together because, in many ways, these are two sides of the same coin. Both employer value propositions ladder up to the same larger idea: that this job will be good for your long-term career. 

The biggest difference is whether you’re focusing on the person or the company. Developing new skills means the candidate becomes more desirable and has more career opportunities inside and outside the organization. On the other hand, advancing up the ranks presumes the candidate will still be at the company for multiple position changes. 

Perhaps that’s why recruiters and candidates are misaligned on this question. A third of all candidates (34%) consider skill development to be a top factor, compared with just 23% of recruiting pros. Conversely, 60% of recruiting pros thought advancement opportunities would be a top factor, compared with just 35% of candidates. 

Recruiters could be overindexing on the idea of career advancement because they’d like to imagine the new hire will stay for many years.

After all, retention is one of the most important metrics for recruiters. But that may or may not be what the candidate is picturing for their future. 

The lesson for recruiters: Speak about a candidate’s career growth from their perspective, not your company’s

Again, recruiting professionals may be approaching this from the company’s perspective, rather than putting themselves in the candidate’s shoes. The data shows that candidates are equally interested in developing new skills and advancing up the ranks — but if you focus exclusively on growing within the company, it could signal that you’re putting the company’s best interests ahead of what the candidate really cares about. 

It might sound odd for a recruiter to tell a candidate, “with the skills you’ll develop within your first year here, you’ll be able to find a job anywhere” — but there’s no doubt that’ll be part of the candidate’s calculations. Being straightforward and showing you truly care speaks to the most human aspects of being a great recruiter: connecting with candidates through empathy. 

Methodology

You can read more about what matters to candidates and how the role of recruiting is evolving in LinkedIn’s 2023 Future of Recruiting report. 

In the LinkedIn Talent Drivers survey, members are asked to select up to five of the most important factors for them when they consider a new job, out of a list of 15 different factors. Recruiting professionals were given the same 15 factors and told to select up to five of the top factors for candidates. Recruiting professionals’ answers were collected via survey in November 2022 and are compared to Talent Drivers results from the same month. While the numbers have fluctuated slightly in following months, they do not significantly change the findings or takeaways in this analysis. 

Finally, it’s worth noting that overall recruiters do have a decent sense of what candidates want. In most cases, their estimates were in the right neighborhood. This analysis focuses on the biggest disparities in order to help recruiters improve their messaging to candidates.