2025 Hiring Trends: What Employers Need to Know About Recruitment
Last year, the use of AI exploded, and companies worldwide started incorporating it in talent acquisition. So right now, AI is supporting a significant transformation in hiring across the globe—with a positive impact on employee satisfaction.
AI is the technology trend that will transform most businesses by 2030. But 2025 will demand much more from companies than adopting AI. This year, organizations will need to figure out how to successfully use AI without neglecting the human component, speed up recruitment processes and rely on data without losing customization in hiring strategies, and offer flexible work environments without becoming chaotic. It’ll be the only way for companies to attract and retain the best talent nowadays.
In this blog post, we’ll walk you through the top hiring trends for 2025 and tell you all about what your employees expect from you this year.
Key takeaways:
- Whereas automation makes hiring more efficient, recruiters and hiring managers must oversee the entire process to maintain the human touch in candidate experience and avoid bias.
- The demand for technological skills, analytical thinking, and environmental stewardship will be high.
- Candidates thoroughly research potential employers, making a robust employer brand crucial to attracting top talent.
- Health and well-being, as well as inclusiveness, will continue to be fundamental for employee retention.
- Hybrid work and flexible schedules will keep appealing to candidates and driving high motivation at work.
The shifting recruitment landscape in 2025
This year, technological advances will continue to have a major impact on talent acquisition trends. Not only AI (86%) but also robotics and automation (58%) will be responsible for an increase in demand for technological skills, such as big data, cybersecurity, and digital literacy. In fact, the World Economic Forum (WEF) predicts that these skills will be the fastest-growing, and two-thirds of companies plan to hire staff with AI knowledge.
The WEF also anticipates that climate change mitigation and adaptation will influence more than 40% of businesses for the next five years. The result is that environmental stewardship—an essential skill for roles related to green transition, such as renewable energy engineers—is among the top 10 fastest-growing skills for the first time.
As to learning and development, 39% of the existing skill sets will change or become obsolete over the 2025–2030 period, according to the WEF. In fact, half of the employees have already completed training to upskill or reskill in preparation for the expected skill instability. Yet, the Forum still pointed out that 59% of the world’s workforce needs upskilling and reskilling by 2030.
63% of organizations stressed skill gaps as the biggest barrier to business transformation until 2030. That’s why 85% of them plan to upskill their personnel, and 70% plan to hire employees with new skills.
Analytical thinking will be the skill in highest demand by 7 out of 10 companies in 2025. But resilience, flexibility, agility, leadership, social influence, creative thinking, and lifelong learning will also be in high demand this year. And to close role-related skill gaps, developing skills in resource management, operations, quality control, and computer programming is an excellent investment.
Employee health and well-being will keep attracting talent—at least, that’s the opinion of 64% of organizations—along with remote work, flexibility, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
Top 7 recruitment trends for 2025
Of the current hiring trends, these are the ones we consider will have the most significant impact on workforces around the globe this year:
An AI-powered hiring process
Depending on the tools and how they’re used, AI can increase recruiters’ productivity through automation, help hiring managers make better decisions, and improve the candidate journey. That’s why last year, many companies adopted AI in talent acquisition in the hopes of increasing hiring efficiency, time- and money-wise. And this year, at least according to a Korn Ferry survey on current trends in recruitment, 67% of talent acquisition professionals believe AI will be increasingly adopted by their peers.
However, 40% of those specialists fear that AI could take the personal touch out of recruitment, which isn’t attractive to top talent, and 25% worry that algorithms might be biased and narrow down candidate pools unfairly due to biased training data.
So, in 2025, AI will be used more cautiously, with human oversight, as it is effective at writing job descriptions, sourcing candidates, selecting applications, and scheduling interviews, but not at assessing emotional intelligence, reading facial expressions, and interpreting tone, at least so far. That responsibility should still lie with recruiters and hiring managers.
Employer branding as a recruitment tool
Candidates—especially top ones—became smarter at choosing their next employer. They reach out to the employer’s current and former workers on social media, read employee reviews, search for news about those companies, and ask plenty of questions during interviews.
The decision to join a new organization is much more informed nowadays than it ever was, and a strong company culture coupled with a seamless employee experience attracts and retains the best talent.
Prospective employers just need to make sure that, on top of having on-point cultures and employee experiences, their candidates know about that. And that’s when employer branding—one of 2025’s hiring trends—comes in, announcing to the world what the company’s values are, how positive the work environment is, and whether leaders reward their team members timely, fairly, and consistently.
Hiring for critical roles
Korn Ferry’s latest survey on hiring trends concluded that companies will prioritize hiring candidates for critical roles. Those are the roles that most transform businesses, trigger innovation, and drive growth. And about a quarter of talent acquisition professionals consider that finding candidates with matching skills will be the second hardest activity of 2025.
Our tip? Define critical skills by reverse-engineering the skills of critical roles.
Corporate training as a talent strategy
This year, corporate training will play a central role in attracting and retaining top talent. It won’t be just a nice-to-have point in job descriptions anymore. Instead, it’ll be strategically used not only to appeal to the best candidates but also to engage current employees who are looking for upskilling and reskilling opportunities.
According to the Korn Ferry’s survey on hiring trends, 67% of employees wouldn’t leave their position if employers offered them upskilling chances. That’s why 32% of the companies will offer upskilling to their staff in 2025.
But they’ll go beyond in-person workshops and off-the-shelf online courses. They’ll invest in microlearning, gamified training, and immersive learning delivered through virtual reality and augmented reality.
All eyes on employee health and well-being
In 2025, health and well-being will continue to be fundamental pieces to engaging personnel, reducing employee turnover, and increasing productivity. These are all strong reasons for companies to keep working on
- Developing effective yet empathetic leaders
- Growing socially aware team members
- Considering rest when managing workloads
- Being flexible about workplace and office hours
- Implementing DEI initiatives
- Offering wellness programs
- And building stress-free environments
But we don’t mean that organizations must eliminate occasional peaks of stress. That’d be perfect, but we mean not allowing high levels of stress over long periods of time.
In May 2019, the World Health Organization finally classified burnout as a work-related disease. And since the COVID-19 pandemic and Simone Biles’s wake-up call at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, mental health has gained importance, and employees have become more aware of how serious work-related mental illnesses are. They significantly value work-life balance more now than ever before, and many prioritize it over salary.
Remember: A healthy body is the pillar of a healthy mind; a healthy mind turns a regular worker into a high-performer; and healthy minds at work turn regular businesses into profitable ones.
An inclusive workspace
The WEF found out that almost half of the companies are aware that tapping into diverse talent pools is a great idea. After all, more than one of 2025’s hiring trends, an inclusive workforce is an engaged workforce, and an engaged workforce brings more profit to businesses.
Mixing different backgrounds, beliefs, and identities stimulates innovation. Teams approach problems from varied angles, and all perspectives are considered valid, which translates to more comprehensive solutions.
A fair, respectful, and unbiased work environment allows every employee to develop their full potential while feeling like they belong in the organization and have an important say in its destiny.
Besides, it would be impossible to expand businesses worldwide without global workforces, which are necessarily diverse.
The hybrid work model
In their survey, Korn Ferry claimed that, in 2025, offering flexibility to personnel is essential and one of the most important trends in recruitment. It has a considerable effect on employee attraction and retention and supports the development of highly motivated workforces.
According to Korn Ferry, 76% of employers offer the hybrid work model, which includes remote work and flexible schedules. This means letting staff members work when and where it suits them best.
Final thoughts on 2025 hiring trends
This year, companies will continue to embrace AI for hiring efficiency, but they’ll preserve the human touch that candidates appreciate. The demand for technological skills like big data, cybersecurity, and digital literacy will increase; hiring for critical roles will be top of mind; and upskilling or reskilling will have great importance.
Besides technological skills, analytical thinking, and environmental stewardship will be in high demand throughout 2025. And organizations that prioritize employee health and well-being, offer remote work, have flexible schedules, prioritize an inclusive culture, and have a robust employer brand will stand out in a competitive talent market.
If you’re ready to follow this year’s hiring trends, take a look at the Positive Assessment Tool (PAT℠). Our proprietary tool will help you identify candidates who align with your company’s values and the skills necessary for the role they’re applying for, making sure that your hires will thrive at work. Reach out to us today and learn more about how the PAT℠ can uplevel your hiring strategy.
