Last year was tough on recruiters. The pandemic and its repercussions devastated some talent acquisition teams, heaped new demands on others, and proved to be a historic change agent as virtually recruiting and onboarding a remote workforce became the norm for many.

2020's adversities will certainly inform talent acquisition trends in 2021. More companies will adopt virtual recruiting technologies; shift talent attraction efforts to remote candidates; consider internal talent pools; and focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. The best recruiters will take the opportunity to add new skills, adapt as needed and show their value to the organization.

Over 1,500 talent acquisition professionals from 28 countries identified these trends in a survey conducted by LinkedIn and supplemented by data generated by more than 760 million members on the professional networking site.

Daniel Chait, CEO of New York City-based Greenhouse, one of the fastest-growing recruiting software providers, envisions the talent acquisition function playing a major role in what he calls the "great rehiring."

"When COVID is mitigated and life can start returning to normal, businesses will need to quickly gear back up," Chait said. "If things go well, it's possible that more people will re-enter the workforce in 2021 than in any single year on record." 

Virtual Hiring Is Here to Stay

In the same way that a hybrid workforce of onsite and remote employees will become more normalized, a hiring process that combines virtual and in-person processes will become increasingly standard due to the associated cost and time savings, according to 70 percent of respondents to the LinkedIn survey.

"Job interviews will largely continue to be conducted virtually," said Candace Nicolls, SHRM-SCP, senior vice president of people and workplace at Snagajob, a Glen Allen, Va.-based online staffing platform that specializes in matching candidates to hourly wage jobs. "Even for businesses resuming in-person operations, I expect that virtual and automated interviews will instead replace many in-person touchpoints, helping to accelerate timelines while also providing a critical layer of safety as we continue to observe social distancing rules."

Original article: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/2021-recruiting-trends-shaped-by-covid-19.aspx