Top 3 trends for new hires in the first half of the year

① Preference for experienced candidates ② Increased rolling recruitment ③ Increased use of AI

"Survey on Recruitment Trends and Perceptions of Top 500 Companies in H1 2024"

① Experienced hires - 25.7% of last year's new hires were experienced candidates with the preference expected to increase this year

② Rolling recruitment - 6 of 10 large organizations (58.5%) hiring on an ongoing basis, 1.4 percentage points higher than last year (57.1%)

* Among companies utilizing rolling recruitment, proportion of rolling recruitment (53.2%) > open recruitment (46.8%)

③ AI adoption - 40.7% of companies are using or considering AI, 1.6 times more than last year (25.4%)

• Problems for businesses: Job mismatch... "finding the right talent" (27.2%) is the biggest problem

• Policy Tasks: ① Reduce regulation to attract investment and increase employment (35.0%) ② Increasing support for companies that increase employment (31.6%)

  The Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) cited three trends in the college graduate recruitment market in the first half of this year: a preference for experienced candidates, increased rolling recruitment, and increased use of AI.

Trend ❶ Experienced candidates - 25.7% of last year's new hires were experienced candidates with preference for experienced candidates expected to increase further this year

  The FKI commissioned Research & Research to survey the top 500 Korean companies in revenue about their recruitment trends and perceptions for the first half of this year. According to the survey, one in four (25.7%) hires for college graduate-level positions last year were so-called "experienced new hires" who applied for entry-level positions with some work experience. This is up 3.6 percentage points from the 22.1 percent  of new college graduate hires in 2022.

  The average length of experience for experienced new hires was 1.3 years. More specifically, the most common amount of experience was between 1 and 2 years (52.6%), followed by 6 months to 1 year (32.8%), 2 to 3 years (6.0%), 3+ years (5.2%), and less than 6 months (3.4%).

  "In the context of increasing business uncertainty due to prolonged high interest rates and high inflation, companies are preferring  talent with practical experience who can be immediately put to work and produce results in order to minimize the cost of training new employees," the FKI said.

Trend ❷ Rolling recruitment - 58.5% of large companies to use rolling recruitment, 1.4 percentage points higher than last year (57.1%)

  Companies plan to actively use rolling recruitment in the first half of the year. Nearly six in 10 (58.5%) organizations plan to utilize rolling recruitment for college graduate-level positions. Of these, 16.2% will only use rolling recruitment and 42.3% will use a combination of open and rolling recruitment. 41.5% of the companies surveyed plan to only use open recruitment in the first half of the year. The proportion of companies that utilized rolling recruitment in the first half of this year (58.5%) increased by 1.4 percentage points compared to the first half of last year (57.1%).

  Meanwhile, organizations that plan to utilize rolling recruitment say they will select more than half (53.2%) of their planned hires through rolling recruitment. This is 6.4 percentage points higher than the proportion of open hires (46.8%).

Trend ❸ AI Adoption - 40.7% of organizations are using or considering AI, 1.6 times more than last year (25.4%)

  In the first half of this year, 40.7% of organizations are using or considering using artificial intelligence (AI) in their recruiting process, with 22.0% using AI and 18.7% considering using AI. This is a 15.3 percentage point increase from the first half of last year (25.4%).

  When asked at what stage of the hiring process they are using or considering using AI, more than six in ten (62.3%) respondents said the document screening stage. This was followed by the working-level interview and group discussion stage (29.5%) and the executive-level interview stage (8.2%). 

  "Recently, companies have been utilizing AI technology in the recruitment process to efficiently screen high-quality human resources," said the FKI. "Non-face-to-face recruitment using AI technology not only improves the efficiency of recruitment by reducing recruitment costs and time but also enhances the fairness and effectiveness of talent selection by objectively and in-depth analyzing applicants' job suitability based on advanced technology and big data," said the FKI.

Issues for businesses - Job mismatches

When hiring, 'finding the right people' (27.2%) is the most challenging part of the process

  As young people struggle to find jobs, companies are either struggling to find the right talent or new hires are leaving early, resulting in a job mismatch. Companies cited “difficulty in finding the right candidates” (27.2%) as the top recruiting challenge, followed by “new hires quitting soon after being hired” (24.9%) and “dropouts during the hiring process” (21.1%).

  The labor shortage at large organizations is growing. Last year, the number of people actively recruited but not hired (unfilled positions) at organizations with 300 or more employees was 23,000, nearly double the number three years earlier in 2020 (13,000). Over the same period, unfilled positions as a percentage of total job openings increased by 2.1 percentage points, from 4.6% in 2020 to 6.7% in 2023.

To improve youth employment, "less regulation" (35.0%) and "more support for companies that increase employment" (31.6%) are needed

  Businesses most frequently cited “easing regulations to encourage business investment and employment expansion” (35.0%) as a policy issue to promote college graduate recruitment. This was followed by “expanding incentives for companies that increase employment” (31.6%) and “supporting companies in new growth engine industries” (9.8%). 

  "In the face of growing domestic and global business uncertainty, companies are stepping up their efforts to secure the right talent by expanding rolling recruitment, increasing recruitment of candidates with some experience, and introducing AI technology," said Sang-ho Lee, Vice President of the FKI’s Economic and Industrial Research Department. "It is necessary to expand hiring capacity through deregulation, expanding incentives for companies that increase employment, and focusing on fostering talent with work-ready skills such as through industry-academia collaborations."

[Attached] Hiring trends and perceptions of large companies in H1 2024