Job vacancies may have increased in 2022, but the applications themselves? Tumbleweed. And when you do get them? Nowhere near the quality, you were hoping for. Add to this an unstable economy,  the great resignation, a post brexit hospitality staff shortage and a generational shift (welcome Gen Z to the workforce) and there was a whole lot to contend with in 2022. The luxury travel & hospitality recruitment market finished 2022 in utter chaos it's safe to say.

SO let's talk about 2023 - sunshine and roses on the horizon? There could be, but only if you invest in your offering, your staff, your socials and your tech, OR you use a savvy recruiter (that's us), otherwise you're low key f*cked if you opt for the copy + paste + head in the sand move.

Here's the 2023 Luxury Travel & Hospitality Recruitment trends - and the all-important WHY, behind them, obvs:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Candidates will say no.

We've seen this more at the tail end of 2022 than ever before and expect this to be THE key trend for 2023. Why though? Well with jobseekers in control, the best candidates know they can be picky and shop around. Here's the top reasons we've found this year for candidates saying no to offers:

- Did not like the culture / mis-match of values

- Was disappointed by the offer 

- Received a counter/better offer

- Office location / working hours

- Process took too long

- Was not sold the role/company by the hiring managers

- Lack of employee benefits

---------------

2. Employer branding will be key to candidate attraction.

Employers, listen up: candidates want to see the real you - no front, no polish, no pretence. Roping in your team to create authentic, beautifully flawed video content is one of the best things you can do to showcase your culture and boost your employer brand.

People want to work for brands that are human and represent them and their values, places where it looks like it's genuinely a nice place to work. Y'all should be focussing on this in 2023 to engage with potential new employees. Check out a great example video below, or a super simple meet the team blog post win here.

-----------

3. Focus on employee onboarding & retention 

Honestly, if you're not doing this already then you need to make this THE big goal for 2023 for the business, onboarding and retention are where you can make or break it with recruitment. 

We always advise our clients that 20% of employees leave in first 45 days if not on-boarded correctly or mis-sold a role. This forbes article gives some great advice on how to not lose them in 45 days (ft common sense), but we'd also advise to look at your overall offerings to keep all your employees happy, or check our our article on how to support LGBTQ+ employees at work.

Don't be afraid to, you know, talk to your company about what they might want to see to help improve their job satisfaction. Set up an anonymous slack poll, ask them in their 1:1s - communication is sexy y'all.

Some perks that we love are Emplomind (mental health & career coaching) + Heka (monthly wellness offering) + scrapping monthly team drinks for team lunches #freefood

----------

4. Remote roles are vanishing

Fortune recently called this the 'Great remote work mismatch' to describe the amount of employees still looking for remote roles, but lack of companies offering them. However Business Leader Magazine recently reported on 'Fully remote roles facing steep decline in popularity', both articles Nov 2022. We've also personally only worked on a handful of fully remote roles in 6 months and are actively turning candidates who are based in remote locations away, with clients just not willing to invest in remote talent as the recession + return to office hits.

This is particularly an issue in travel & hospitality industries, where people have moved overseas and have been working remotely, but now companies are now realising certain teams (sales/marketing etc) work best IRL or hybrid, so models are once again changing. If you are a candidate then be warned that competition for remote roles is extremely tough, and clients in an ideal world you should be offering hybrid in 2023 to attract the best candidates.

-----------

5. Recruitment is marketing not HR 

No need to link any articles here as I've been screaming this from Stoke Newington for years - RECRUITMENT IS MARKETING NOT HR. The companies who really listen to this and either engage a social media & marketing savvy recruitment agency or sit down with their in house / external content teams and declare that recruiting is now their new job will be the ones who get access to the best talent in 2023.

For example, did you know that tiktok resumes are now a thing? Do you advertise your roles properly on Instagram? Are you putting together a bespoke marketing campaign and involving your best copywriters when writing JD's? You should be in 2023, recruitment is marketing, not HR.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

And if you'd like to learn more about how to recruit top talent in a recession, as told by the experts, then check out our blog from our WTM panel here.