Hung Lee, talent acquisition leader and director of the Recruiting Brainfood newsletter, talks strategies, HR technology, and employee engagement.
Hung Lee
Director, Recruiting Brainfood Newsletter
With the skills gap widening and competition for top talent intensifying, what are the biggest mistakes companies are still making in their recruiting strategies and what should they be doing differently in 2025?
We’re getting conflicting messages. We’re hearing about a lot of people being laid off, yet there’s an insanely high demand for premium skills. I think the reason is straightforward: The most in-demand skills are even more in demand than they were three to four years ago, whereas everything else stays as is. My advice for employers is to have a separate mentality when recruiting for those types of skills. Change your recruiting approach based on the competitive demand for that skill set.
Retention is often more cost-effective than recruitment, yet it still feels like an afterthought in many orgs. What’s driving employee attrition today and what strategies are working to keep people engaged and loyal?
Employees are leaving employers for exactly the same reason they always have. Number one is bad boss, bad team. That drives people away when they’re having that disaffection with their immediate people, particularly with the person who’s in charge of their career path. Number two is compensation. We all know [the cost of living has] gone up 30% […] over the last two years. The entire workforce has become economically damaged over this period of time. So, what can you do in terms of compensation?
How can HR teams cut through the noise and choose tech that actually empowers them rather than adds to their workload?
One of the reasons being cited for the relatively slow adoption of AI in HR is because you’ve got so many tools out there that it’s frozen you in terms of your ability to make a choice. You’re terrified of making a commitment on one tool, when two weeks down the line, maybe another tool is a better option. It comes down to what sort of philosophy you have as a business.
There are certain businesses that define themselves as AI first. A distinguishing characteristic of this type of organization is that they’ve committed to aggressively deploying AI whenever they can. If you work for a company that hasn’t defined itself as AI first, they’re saying, “These tools are going to make it better, but we still expect you to optimally perform. Don’t let me see any short-term drop of productivity.”
You’ve got to have an honest conversation with the business. Say, “If we’re going to adopt or implement technology, you’ve got to give us the bandwidth to do due diligence on what is right or wrong.”
You’ve talked a lot about hiring signals in the past. What new signals or candidate behaviors do you think HR leaders should be paying more attention to this year?
Keep an eye on heightened activity on places like LinkedIn. If you have a user who has increased their engagement on a work platform, you’ve got a pretty good chance to know what this person is on the market for and potentially looking for with the sort of community engagement [they do]. If you engage with community, if you’re going to conferences, you’re seeing all this. They’re kind of doing a soft signal to advertise, “I’m open to have a conversation.” Kind of like going to a nightclub. Like, why would you go there unless you’re trying to meet somebody?
