Trends in the Recruitment and Selection Process

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The area of human resources focuses on people management, and it is becoming more popular each day, especially on social media. Little by little, companies are realizing the enormous contribution the HR area has in the global success of the company.

Historically, it was seen as a more bureaucratic area, not very oriented to results and with small relevance in the company’s strategy. However, nowadays its potential is huge and companies recognize it is a fundamental piece in creating a stable and successful business in the long term.

In the past years, there has been a change in the human resources’ approach. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the work methods and overall functioning in companies had to suffer radical changes, so they could oblige to the safety measures without compromising the business’ health. Thus, HR professionals all around the world showed why they are the heart of a company: they quickly adjusted everything so that all its members had what they needed to do their jobs at home.

There are several trends that will shape the HR future, an essential area in any successful business.

Employee Retention Strategies

Firstly, there is already a concern regarding talent retention, since companies tend to heavily invest in its employees training and development. Thus, it is very expensive to them when they lose the people they have put money on, with the addition of having to train new workers to fill that place. Consequently, the concern for their well-being and happiness is becoming a priority to every company.

More attitudes, less qualifications

Another trend already seen in some companies, and that will probably impact more industries, is hiring people – mainly in entry-level jobs – for their attitudes instead of academic qualifications. Although their education is important due to their technical knowledge, companies started to realize the so-called "soft skills" and people’s ethical values are much harder to teach than the technical part.

Artificial Intelligence

With recruitment being one of the main processes in HR, it is important to guarantee the tools used are step by step with technology’s evolution, being able to give the candidate an experience he will not forget. Truthfully, technology is a strong ally of HR professionals, and one of the growing trends is the use of artificial intelligence, especially in the screening phase. Through this technology, it is possible to make the selection process more efficient and reduce the hiring expenses, since these are tools which go beyond the filtering that ATS does. The so-called "intelligent" capacity in AI technology, gives them the ability to analyze complex scenarios and actively participate in all the recruitment phases.

Applicant Tracking Systems

Still in the mindset of simplifying processes, we have the famous ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems), which are, essentially, a software to manage the recruitment and selection process. These platforms ease the screening phase, by allowing the storage, reading and scoring of the candidates’ curriculums according to the criteria the company defines for each job. Thus, this type of software allows a quick previous elimination of the profiles that are too far from that the company needs. Besides the cost advantages, there is also the fact that it allows the employees to focus on other important strategic goals without being overwhelmed with systematic and exhaustive tasks.

Increase in the informality

Still regarding the recruitment process, it has been observed an increase in the informality of both the work environment and the dynamics and interviews of the recruitment processes. Currently, young people easily adapt to any technological process, and in order for companies to attract this generation, it is necessary to adopt a more open posture, since an excessively formal one might diminish the company’s attractiveness.

Flexible working conditions

Besides adapting the recruitment process, the work conditions are also changing. Some of the main measures are offering a hybrid regiment, in which workers can organize their tasks according to their personal life and productivity hours, as well as remodeling offices in order to create leisure and relaxation spaces for the professionals.

Social Recruitment

In the last few years, LinkedIn’s popularity has exploded, now being a more important part in the information companies gather about their candidates. Truthfully, some HR professionals already defend that in a near future CVs may not be as necessary as they are today, since companies will be looking at their LinkedIn to learn about their path. Social recruitment is a new approach to capturing talent, in which HR professionals directly contact people with an attractive profile.

Virtual Reality

Another amazing tool provided by technological evolution is virtual reality, which is already used in training and development, integration process and even during the recruitment phases. With it, the recruiters can create several scenarios and give the workers or candidates a more immersive experience, allowing for a more realistic behavior analysis and a more efficient learning process.


To conclude, we can see that the human resources field has several tricks up their sleeves that will revolutionize the recruitment processes we know today. Fortunately, technology is here to aid the HR professionals and simplify the tasks that are very demanding in both time and concentration. Thus, they can focus their time on other important strategic goals and, at the end of the day, we have a company with a HR department more productive and more cost efficient. It is important to notice that all of these trends allow the attainment of the main goal: creating more flexible working conditions and less exhaustive processes because, at the end of day, nothing else matters if the workers aren’t happy and healthy.