Employers are raising the bar for job seekers as competition heats up

It’s a hard-knock life labor market for job-seekers right now, and employers are only making it worse.

That’s according to Workday’s newest Global Workforce Report, released on Tuesday. The research is based on internal Workday data, and a survey of more than 1,000 managers and business leaders conducted with Hanover Research.

Things are heating up. Workday’s latest data reflects what job-hunters have lamented this year: competition for jobs is getting harder.

The share of global applications on Workday’s platforms grew by 31% in the first half of 2024, compared to the same period the year prior. Applications grew four times faster than hiring demand, which grew by 7%, according to Workday’s data, while the number of offers made changed little from the year prior.

At the same time, employers seem to be raising the bar for candidates, in part to help alleviate recruiting teams’ burden of parsing an increasing volume of applications. Nearly three-fourths (72%) of leaders surveyed by Workday and Hanover Research for its report said they were raising qualification and experience requirements for candidates, and 59% expect this trend to continue over the next year.

This might be to the chagrin of inexperienced job-seekers, many of whom are having a particularly hard time finding a job in the cooling labor market.

“Employers are looking for more efficient ways to find people and reduce overload on recruiters,” Aashna Kircher, Workday’s general manager of talent, product, and the office of the CHRO, told HR Brew. “I completely hear the flip side of that, on the candidate, but it’s definitely challenging on both sides.”

Overlooking flight risks. While employers increasingly focus on upping the ante for job seekers, they also face losing their key employees. Around 75% of industries tracked by Workday saw an increase in turnover for high-potential employees.

Communications, media, and technology saw the highest uptick in high-potential workers leaving, with a 13.8% 12-month average attrition rate, a 150% increase from the 5.5% rate logged at the end of 2023. In second place was education (up 67.4%), followed by nonprofits (up 42.7%).

These three industries have notoriously seen skyrocketing rates of burnout, and their top talent increasingly quitting could be a warning sign to other industries. While engagement was unchanged from the year prior, Workday found that 27% of workers within an organization on average are at high risk for burnout.

“The cream of the crop is starting to say, ‘Hey, I’m looking for opportunity and growth elsewhere.’ That, to me, is the crux of organizations needing to retain their top talent, and that same top talent being likely to leave,” Kircher said.

Workday’s research identified three key areas employers should focus on for retaining talent:

1. Redefine accomplishment and meaning at work. Giving employees clear, tangible goals and helping them understand and feel connected to the organization’s purpose and strategy will help them have more of a sense of purpose in their day-to-day work. Moreover, workers who considered their work more meaningful were more likely to feel a sense of accomplishment than those who didn’t—even if they had bigger workloads.
2. Understand how loyalty changes with tenure. The longer an employee stays at a company, the more likely they are to rank “adequate compensation” as a key driver of staying at their employer. Employees with three to six months’ tenure did not rank adequate compensation among their top five priorities, while workers with four to seven years’ tenure, seven to 10 years, and 10 or more years ranked it as their #1 driver.
3. Focus on internal mobility. More employers are trying to help employees advance their careers within their organizations, and that’s expected to continue. Around 67% of respondents said internal mobility has had a positive impact on their organization within the past 12 months, and 72% of respondents expect employee interest in internal mobility to increase over the next year.