How is hiring across APAC markets set to evolve?

Today, while developed markets of the far east in South Korea and Japan face talent problems akin to other developed markets of Europe and the US, other booming economies like China and India have been establishing a foothold in the global landscape. In addition, regions like the middle east and southeast asia remain some of the top emerging economies marked with growing labour populations.

Such a diverse set of possible growth stories and conditions today mean that the impact of what known today as the Fourth industrial revolution is too far and wide across APAC. Today, changing market forces have reshaped much of what remains of traditional business practices. When it comes to how companies within APAC are looking at hiring talent in the coming years, the effects of such impacts can be clearly noticed today.

From high attrition rates to large skills gaps across new emerging business areas are predominant, implying that talent acquisition models have to respond and adapt to find the right hires.

We take a look at some trends that are dominating the TA landscape across APAC.

Proactively assessing talent gaps and talent pools

Today recruiters are tasked with the key business objective of sourcing the right talent that’s necessary to help businesses with the changing business environment. Often this means to be proactively identifying their businesses talent needs and recruiting effectively to meet such demands. And companies within APAC today find themselves in the middle of reaching out to the future while still having a foot firmly on the past. Studies have shown that many companies are experiencing a shortage of viable talent across many newly emerging, but critical areas.

With the rise in digital working, new job roles are emerging and new ‘hot skills’ are becoming important priorities for organizations. And to find the right talent with such skills, TA heads and recruiters have begun looking outside their traditional talent pools. With technology today enabling virtual workspaces, many across the board are looking at overcoming geographical boundaries when it comes to sourcing talent. This has been noted to especially high in countries like Singapore, Thailand, and Hong Kong, while sectors like e-commerce and other start-ups have been its primary users.

In many organizations, ‘talent gaps’ are evident in key areas such as technology, sales, innovation, research & development, business operations, marketing, customer service, finance, and HR. While one the biggest shortage of talent within APAC region remains at the senior management levels many organizations today face large gaps when it comes to hiring across technology and sales roles as they remain the hardest to fill.

Building employer brand and candidate experience

A recent Aon study on hiring trends across APAC noted that over 62 percent of the organizations in their study didn’t measure the effectiveness of their employer branding. In addition, many didn’t keep a tab on candidate experience either. Over 43 percent of organizations did not capture candidate feedback after the selection stage while 39 percent only capture feedback from candidates who are hired. Only 18 percent according to the study put forward any effort to capture feedback from every candidate.

This gap is surprising in a region which already suffers from inefficient talent pipelines and recruitment processes which still hold to archaic practices in a rapidly changing business world. Improving candidate experience and focusing on employer brand has been two important areas where companies within APAC are projected to mprove if they need to meet their talent demands.

It is important to understand why candidate experience is becoming of supreme importance within the region. With the competition for talent across niche skill areas growing, treating candidates well is vitally important for two reasons. With investments and changes aimed at improving it greatly benefiting companies, it's projected that more would soon begin to revamp their hiring models and place importance on candidate experience.

Utilizing technology

With technology playing such a big role in modern day business processes it is important to build it into people management and hiring processes. And this remains one of the biggest areas of gaps.

According to the Aon study is the biggest gap only 22 percent of organizations are currently utilizing technology-enabled assessments. Citing reasons like budget constraints and cost concerns the report notes that this area would see one of the largest growth. It notes that over 55 percent of firms that are not currently using assessments but plan to adopt them in the coming year.

Technology underpins effective talent management. Many employers who have invested in people management technology like automating internal systems improving their hiring. Augmented and virtual reality have begun providing candidates with even more true-to-life experiences. Over 39 percent of the respondents of the Aon study states that AI-based sourcing and interviews will be the ‘next big thing’ in recruitment.

With technology playing a big role in how hiring evolves within the Asia Pacific, it becomes important to update TA practices. But doing so when time is still on the side of businesses will be critical for a region that is both experiencing growing economies and bulging labor populations.

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