Episode 103
The Shortlist’s RecFest 2022 Recap | With Kirstie Kelly, Emma Mirrington and Bill Boorman
Four thousand HR and TA leaders gathered at RecFest 2022 to discuss hiring in an unprecedented economic moment: recession with persistent talent scarcity. Johnny Campbell and three industry experts recap the key insights that matter now.
Episode Key Takeaways
High inflation paired with low unemployment has created an economic anomaly with no precedent in recorded history. Bill Boorman, who has navigated five previous recessions, describes this as genuinely uncharted territory: budgets are being cut and hiring freezes announced, yet finding candidates remains brutally difficult. The result is sprint hiring, stop-start cycles, and TA teams asked to do more with less.
Forty-two percent of recent graduates prefer text-based communication with employers, yet only thirteen percent of companies use SMS for college recruiting. This disconnect extends to TikTok, where #jobs has 2.6 billion views—a signal most traditional recruiters are ignoring. Early careers recruitment requires meeting candidates where they already are, not forcing them into legacy channels.
Diversity and inclusion initiatives are quietly being deprioritized as hiring pressure mounts. Emma Marrington and others reported that TA leaders are facing pushback to relax hiring standards and drop ED&I commitments in favour of speed. The risk is that two years of meaningful progress gets dismantled the moment budgets tighten.
Internal mobility and talent management are merging with acquisition as a single integrated function. Nokia hires forty percent of professional staff internally; succession planning entered the top three strategic priorities for the first time in eleven years of industry surveys. The future isn’t TA in isolation—it’s talent as a career-long journey from hire through development to leadership.
Becoming a data-driven expert voice in your organization is now table stakes for TA leaders. Peter Colson, Spotify’s global head of TA, completed a three-month people analytics course at Cambridge because his leadership demanded insight. Data that speaks the language of the business—not TA jargon—is what keeps teams funded and credible when cuts come.
Frequently
Asked
Questions
How should TA teams respond to recession hiring freezes?
Don’t cut recruiter headcount. Instead, use downtime for meaningful pipelining, internal mobility projects, and workforce planning. Organizations that maintain team capacity and invest in data and strategy emerge stronger. The paradox is that budgets shrink while talent scarcity persists—teams that stay intact and strategic win the next hiring wave.
What's driving the shift from TA to integrated talent management?
External hiring alone can’t solve talent gaps. Companies like BP and Nokia are connecting acquisition, L&D, succession planning, and career pathing into one function. This integration forces TA to think beyond fill-and-forget hiring and into long-term capability building, which is especially critical when external talent is scarce.
Why are early careers schemes failing as a DEI silver bullet?
Graduate recruitment is only one lever. Ninety-five percent of TA leaders cite talent shortage as their top challenge, and early careers programs alone can’t move the needle on organizational diversity. They’re a starting point, not a solution—and they require integration with internal mobility, succession planning, and broader talent strategy.
What communication channels do graduates actually prefer?
Text messaging is the preferred channel for forty-two percent of recent graduates, yet only thirteen percent of employers use it. TikTok’s #jobs hashtag has 2.6 billion views. Recruiters must meet candidates on their native platforms and in their preferred formats, not force them into email or LinkedIn-only workflows.
How can TA leaders protect DEI work during budget cuts?
Build the business case with external data and labor market insights. Show leadership how diversity correlates with retention, innovation, and employer brand. Talk in the language of the organization—revenue, risk, capability—not HR metrics. Vendors and external benchmarks provide credible ammunition to defend commitments when pressure mounts.