99% of Talent Acquisition Teams Leverage AI and Automation Amidst Hiring Challenges

The 2024 Hiring Insights Report, a study of 525 talent acquisition leaders, reveals a persistent struggle with talent retention, a need to automate repetitive tasks, and the strategies top-performing teams used to hit hiring goals in a challenging market.

San Francisco – January 31, 2024

After a trying year that tested talent acquisition (TA) teams in every sector, GoodTime today published the 2024 Hiring Insights Report to reveal top challenges, how TA is evolving, and how top-performing teams hit their hiring goals.

The independently conducted survey of 525 talent, HR, and recruiting leaders across the U.S. shows that hiring teams have faced colossal challenges and pressures that have forced them to evolve quickly to meet the demands of today’s market.

Key findings from the 2024 Hiring Insights Report:

• On average, TA teams hit just 51.3% of their hiring goals in 2023.
• Contrary to perceptions of an employer’s market, 44% of TA leaders said hiring became more competitive in the last 12 months, and 27% reported a lack of qualified candidates as a primary hiring challenge.
• A significant 34% of TA leaders cite talent retention as a top challenge.
• 99% of TA teams are now employing AI and automation.
• Talent teams still spend 35% of their time scheduling interviews alone, among other easily automated tasks.
• Layoffs have significantly affected employee morale. Companies that experienced layoffs in 2023 were about 83% more likely to report fair or poor engagement from employees.

Learning from top-performing TA teams

GoodTime’s report dives into what top-performing teams (defined as those who hit 75% or more of their hiring goals) did differently than the rest of their peers. The report reveals that the top performers were:

• 40% more likely to focus on upgrading hiring technology.
• 24% more likely to prioritize candidate experience improvements.
• 23% more likely to invest in improving overall efficiency.

A major adjustment in return-to-office (RTO) efforts

After persistent tensions around stringent RTO mandates, it seems companies are letting up a bit and compromising with mixed or hybrid working models. TA leaders reported a massive shift from a fully in-office workforce to a mostly in-office approach, with a mix of fully in-office, fully remote, and hybrid workers.

• Of the 525 companies surveyed, only 16% were fully in office in 2023 (compared to 62% the previous year).
• 78% of companies surveyed were mostly in-office, with some hybrid or remote workers.
• Just 1% of respondents said their company was fully remote.

A struggle to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I)

The previous year’s Hiring Insights Report found that 28% of companies planned to make DE&I a measurable priority in 2023, but this year’s report shows that only 24% followed through on that goal. Overall, the number of companies prioritizing DE&I has fallen two years in a row now.

What’s even more concerning is that DE&I is likely to be deprioritized further, with only 24% saying it’s a focus area for 2024.

TA teams are becoming more resilient

While 2023 presented immense hiring challenges, the report also surfaces major opportunities and optimistic trends among TA professionals.

• 45% said time-to-hire remained flat, with 10% saying it decreased.
• On average, TA teams saw a 7% lift in hiring goal attainment over the previous year.
• 90% said they would rate their overall recruiting process as ‘Good’ or ‘Excellent.’

“This is our third year publishing this report, and positive trends are starting to emerge: Hiring tech adoption is accelerating and while teams are getting leaner, they’re also evolving and becoming more resilient for the next set of challenges that come our way,” said Ahryun Moon, CEO & Co-Founder of GoodTime. “TA professionals honed their ability to spot top talent faster. They made processes leaner and smarter. And for many of the leaders surveyed for this report, those actions are paying off. We hope that by sharing these insights, we can help struggling TA teams tap into their resilience in the year ahead.” 

To download the full report, visit goodtime.io.

About GoodTime

GoodTime helps talent acquisition teams hire up to 50% faster by automating interview scheduling, candidate communications, and more. Hundreds of the world’s leading companies including Slack, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Lyft, Shopify, and HubSpot trust GoodTime to accelerate their hiring process while maintaining a best-in-class candidate experience.

With advanced features like multi-day and panel interview scheduling, SMS and WhatsApp communication, workflow automation, intelligent interviewer selection, and powerful data and benchmarking reports, we’re helping enterprise companies cut their time-to-hire in half.

Learn more at goodtime.io.