While the Great Reshuffle of 2020 pushed hiring levels to fever pitch, this trend has since cooled significantly, aided in part by the current macroeconomic climate.

LinkedIn’s latest Global Talent Trends data shows that hiring continues to slow around the world, including in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. India recorded a 34 per cent dip, Singapore came down by 42 per cent, Australia saw a 35 per cent reduction and Indonesia dropped by 34 per cent, when comparing March 2023 with the same time last year.

The hiring mania that once characterised our talent landscape now appears to have been replaced by a more focused, inward strategy, as skills-first hiring rises in importance. 

This could signal the start of a new, more sustainable ride into the future, as skills become the currency of the workplace. 

With a faster proliferation of new skill needs, where someone went to school or who they know should matter less than the skills they possess. A skills-first hiring approach widens the talent pool and helps organisations fill their roles with greater efficiency and effectiveness.  

We invited four industry experts to weigh in on LinkedIn’s latest Global Talent Trends report and share their advice to help recruitment professionals recalibrate their talent strategy for the future. 

Tip #1: Build a strong talent pipeline by putting skills first  

As the hiring market cools, orienting your talent strategy around skills instead of traditional proxies like direct experience and paper qualifications can immediately widen your talent pool by a global average of 9.4x. This can be even more significant in markets such as Australia (10.2x), India (12x) and Indonesia (13x). 

To make the shift towards a skills-first hiring strategy, Stacey Donovan Zapar, Founder of The Talent Agency, has two key recommendations: 

1. Start by taking the time to understand the skills your organisation needs 
2. Invest in a strong employer brand, making sure that your employee value proposition is aligned with candidates’ priorities. 

The Global Talent Trends report found that, despite swings in the labour market and economic uncertainty, what employees in the APAC  region value when it comes to work has stayed relatively consistent through the turbulence of the past two years.

LinkedIn Global Talent Trends: How employees in APAC rank their priorities, March 2023

How can LinkedIn help? You can use your company page’s new Commitment section to showcase up to five key values such as diversity, equity and inclusion , career growth and learning, work-life balance, workplace flexibility and more. 

You can also use the Talent Interest Pipeline, another new feature that allows candidates to express interest in working for your company without applying for a specific role, to automatically maintain a pipeline of warm candidates. 

Tip #2: Leverage internal mobility as a tool for retention 

While hiring is on a downward trend, we are seeing an uptick in internal mobility in some global industries, indicating that, amid global uncertainty, some companies are opting to fill their skills requirements from within. 

While internal mobility is increasing in some global industries, it’s still not top-of-mind for employees in some APAC markets. 

Our Workforce Confidence Index found employees across APAC are more likely to consider leaving their company than they are to look for an internal move. Employees may have internalised the idea that moving up the ladder means changing employers. 

However, there is a particular untapped opportunity in markets where employees are just as likely or almost as likely to consider moving internally: In Australia 1.1x, in Japan 5.5x and in India 1x. 

Part of the reason for this may be that they don’t see opportunities internally. This makes it all the more important to promote internal mobility opportunities to your employees. 

Doing so can come with big payoffs, starting with higher employee retention – LinkedIn data shows that employees stay at companies almost twice as long if the employer is highly committed to internal hiring. 

You may also be helping to uplift certain employee groups more than others, thereby building a more diverse and equitable workforce along the way. 

Employee groups  most likely to benefit from internal mobility

LinkedIn Global Talent Trends: Employee groups that are most likely to benefit from internal mobility, February 2023 

To strengthen your internal mobility and your hiring culture and process, LinkedIn Learning instructor Stacey Gordon suggests: 

1. Making it easy for internal candidates to find opportunities, such as through an internal job board 
2. Quantifying the skills you’re looking for
3. Building a culture of internal mobility and securing managers’ buy-in and support. 

As a recruitment professional, you can put LinkedIn hiring tools that you already know to good use, leveraging features such as the Internal Candidate Spotlight in Recruiter to find and connect internal talent to internal opportunities. 

Tip #3: Invest in upskilling and reskilling the next generation of leaders 

Our Global Talent Trends data suggests Gen Z employees are the least likely to make internal moves, and people leaders in management roles are more likely to benefit from internal moves compared to individual contributors. 

However, our Future of Recruiting 2023 report found career advancement and skill development consistently ranked within the top six priorities of workers across Australia & New Zealand, India and Southeast Asia. In fact, companies generally see a seven per cent higher retention rate at the three-year mark when employees have learned skills on the job.

Learning is clearly a compelling driver for both internal candidates and external hires. To help employees acquire the skills and achieve the growth that they desire, Christopher Lind, Vice President and Chief Learning Officer at ChenMed, recommends: 

1. Understanding where employees are in their careers right now and what help they need to progress internally 
2. Focusing on leadership and management training 
3. Offering targeted mentorship programmes. 

Watch these five LinkedIn Learning courses to jump-start your company on implementing an inclusive, skills-first talent strategy – they’re free until July 28, 2023. 

• Upskilling and Reskilling your Workforce with Lori Niles-Hofmann

• Promoting Internal Mobility as a Manager with Alisa Cohn

• Attracting, Hiring, and Working with Gen Z with Sophie Wade

• Diversity Recruiting with Stacey Gordon

• Creating a Culture of Learning with Naphtali Bryant and Jason Mulero.

Some of the biggest changes and opportunities today are being driven by artificial intelligence (AI). We know how important building AI-related skills will be to navigate virtually every role and industry. Your employees can access over 100 free AI courses until June 15, 2023 to upskill in AI and learn what it means for the future of work.

Tip #4: Make the business case for skills

As the hiring market cools and the macroeconomic climate weighs on businesses, employee retention is a concern for virtually every organisation. According to LinkedIn’s 2023 Workplace Learning Report, this is true for 94 per cent of organisations in Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, and 99 per cent in India.  The vast majority of these organisations are providing learning opportunities in a bid to stem attrition. 

Our Global Talent Trends data tells us companies that focus on skills can expect nearly a 10 per cent higher retention rate, which should be enough to get your leaders to sit up and pay attention.

Gallup estimates the cost of replacing an employee can range from 1.5 to 2x the employee’s annual salary. While this is likely to vary from market to market, over 80 per cent of learning and development professionals in APAC agree that it’s less expensive to reskill a current employee than to hire a new one. 

To help you build a business case for skills, Crystal Lim-Lange, CEO and Co-Founder of Forest Wolf and LinkedIn Top Voice 2022, recommends quantifying the value of leadership training and skills-building. 

Taking the next step 

As the world of work continues to shape-shift around us, the best first move is to start asking hard questions about your company’s internal mobility culture and processes. 

Are internal moves encouraged? Do employees know how to access open internal roles? Is there a clear working model between the teams most likely to be accountable for internal mobility (i.e. talent acquisition and talent development)?

The answers to these questions will set you on the right path as you recalibrate your talent strategy for the future. To help you along, see the further resources below.

Read the full Global Talent Trends report here: 

• Global Report 
• Australia & New Zealand edition