Gartner Inc, the technology analysis firm, identified three macro trends impacting recruiting technology that HR leaders will need to address in 2024.

These trends include broad ranging themes surrounding generative AI, changing regulations, and vendor selection.

“This year, recruiting has been focused on leveraging new technology investments for talent attraction and engagement, enabling more streamlined worker transitions, and slowly consolidating technology market,” said Emi Chiba, principal analyst in the Gartner HR practice said at a conference hosted by Gartner. “As we look to 2024, while these trends will evolve, we see new macro trends emerging that HR leaders will need to address.”

Generative AI

The buzz around generative AI has yet to die down, and Gartner predicts that this will continue to impact hiring trends.

The hype had shifted the conversation about artificial intelligence as a whole, with topics ranging from the copyright law, job replacement, and other technological advancements.

HR and recruiting leaders are actively determining where AI is applicable, and which use cases make sense for organisations to augment human recruiters.

Many organisations have already implemented AI in their recruiting processes, the analyst firm said, to personalise candidate outreach, complete mundane tasks like scheduling, or conduct candidate matching assessments.

“While AI has become widespread in recruiting, generative AI is not at the same level of applied maturity in the recruiting process,” explained Chiba.

“In 2024, we expect generative AI use to continue increasing, particularly to draft job descriptions, candidate communications, and even interview questions.”

The use of AI in recruitment, however, does not come without controversy. Routinely, AI is found to be littered with biases when used in recruitment. In one of the most high profile cases, Amazon stopped using an AI platform to conduct hiring efforts after it found the model to sort against CVs of women and people of colour.

In the examples provided by Gartner, the use of generative AI in the hiring process appears to be less invasive, and people can still be central to the decision making processes.

However, many hiring practices are already facing scrutiny for being discriminatory or inaccessible to those with varying care needs and to those who are neurodivergent.

Regulatory Changes 

Amplified regulations will lead organisations to be more vigilant in 2024, Gartner Inc. predicts.

The hype surrounding generative AI is also causing a shift in how organisations are looking at the ethics of AI as a whole.

The regulatory uncertainty of 2023 will likely persist and intensify in 2024 as more laws are enforced.

Afterall, the EU AI Act is just being formalised into official law, and the UK AI Summit is set to take place this autumn, with potentially more regulations to follow.

As more companies seek to incorporate generative AI in their day-to-day, the conversation around responsible AI will be front and centre, Gartner predicts.

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“Despite increasing regulations, organizations will continue to lean into generative AI,” said Rania Stewart, senior director analyst in the Gartner HR Practice. “As organizations experiment more with AI, HR leaders must hold their AI vendors co-accountable while maintaining attentiveness.”

Vendor Selection

Buying cycles for talent acquisition tech have been elongated in 2023 as general uncertainty in the market led to increased scrutiny of the business case for talent acquisition tech transformation.

This trend is set to continue well into 2024, Gartner predicts. This is problematic for businesses as longer buying cycles can cause vendors to resort to hastily pulled-together new products that they’ve rushed to market to maintain their bottom lines.

As a result, it is more important than ever for HR leaders to be intentional when buying technology. In turn, this can further elongate the buying cycle.

Before buying, HR leaders must consider their priorities, how they’ll measure success, and hard vs. soft requirements.