Employers' Top Hiring Concerns for 2023 (and How You Can Solve Them)

iHire’s 2023 State of Online Recruiting Report showed the constant job shuffling of the Great Resignation is slowing down. 49.3% of employers experienced staff turnover in the past year (down 8.7% from 2022), and 36.2% foresee difficulty retaining employees in the coming year (a 16% drop from 2022).

While things look more stable for employers than last year, the survey showed a few persistent pain points for companies pursuing talent.

With the job market tightening, here’s how candidates can stand out in their job search by presenting themselves as the solution to these employer challenges:

Employer Problem: Too Many Unqualified Candidates

One trouble spot for employers that did not drop significantly was seeing too few qualified applicants in their candidate pool, which plagues 62.6% of surveyed employers. In a tight market for talent, sifting through resumes that do not pass muster for the posting is a time suck.

Solution: Apply for Jobs That Fit Your Skills & Experience

While you shouldn’t self-select out of job postings when you don’t meet 100% of the requirements for the role, you should check most of the boxes and have skills that transfer to the job you’re aiming for. For example, if you are an Assistant Communications Director for a non-profit organization with eight years of experience in the role, and a Director of Communications role opens that wants at least four years of supervisory experience, your skills match up. However, if you just started an internship and see a management role available, your resume is likely going from “submitted” to the “no” pile without a human seeing your resume.

Employer Problem: Ghosting During Interview Process

Job ghosting is a bad idea, but it is still commonplace for candidates and employers alike to unexpectedly slip out of the interview process (or the job itself). The 54% of employers citing candidates ghosting them as a challenge in the State of Online Recruiting is nearly 2% higher than last year’s figure. Each stage a candidate advances in the hiring process, including accepting a job offer, is more time an organization wastes if a candidate drops out without notice.

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Solution: Show Up and Be Visible

While candidates are understandably unsympathetic to a company’s frustrations with ghosting, given that 53.1% of job seekers struggle with getting ghosted themselves, being communicative and present throughout the hiring process can position you as a top candidate. Here is some job search advice to remain visible (and viable) to an organization you apply to work for:

• Follow Up on Your Application: Doing so confirms your interest in the job.
• Email your Interviewers: This keeps the conversation going and is a chance to showcase yourself further.
• Send a Thank You Note: This extra effort is appreciated and makes you appear even more committed to obtaining the position.
• Show Up: This should go without saying, but if you are interested in a position, you should appear at your interviews and, if hired, at work.

Employer Problem: Too Few Applicants

Even though this issue has improved for employers as the labor market has stabilized, 43.1% still report they receive too few applicants for their job postings. When combined with the organizations reporting too many unqualified applicants enter their candidate pool for a given job, hiring managers are frequently caught between talking themselves into someone who isn’t a fit and starting the search over, costing them even more time.

Solution: Send in Your Application (Within Reason)

Continuing a point above on applying for positions that are a fit, you don’t have to check every box in a job ad. However, you should have a strategy to position yourself as a viable candidate when applying for roles you don’t meet all the requirements. If you have 70% of the skills a company is looking for, fill in an application and be proactive in addressing the 30% you fall short in, both by communicating how your current skills can translate into learning how to do the rest of the requirements and building your skills through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).

By applying for jobs that fit your skills, being visible throughout a company’s hiring process, and submitting your materials on job postings that may come with a small learning curve, you can turn yourself into the solution to a frustrated employer’s problem. For more information on optimizing your job search, visit our Resource Center.