The unemployment rate is trending upwards. The latest US data shows that 4.4% of people are currently out of work. While it’s very much an employers’ market right now, it won’t always be that way. Which makes it all the more important to get out ahead of the top recruiting trends for 2026.
An employers’ market isn’t all fun and games either. It can come with downsides. Having the pick of the litter is great until you hire someone who is a bad fit. Choosing the wrong candidate could cost you dearly in further hiring costs, training costs, and overall company culture in both the long- and short-term.
So how can you ensure you find the right hires in the coming year? Let’s take a look at some of the recruiting trends for 2026 to set you up for success:
Build your employer brand with employee-generated content
We live in a world driven by personality, from pop culture to politics. Actors are often turned down for roles now because their social media following is too small, for example.
When it comes to hiring, you need to showcase your brand in the same way a celebrity chasing a new role would. If you want to get the best hires who are not just technically competent, but the right culture add and personality fit for your organization, showcasing your employer brand online can go a long way towards attracting the right applicants.
Candidates don’t always trust overly stylized, PR-heavy content, though. It can come across as too polished, forced, and disingenuous.
Instead, you need to create a place people are proud to work for. They’ll then feel happy posting about working for you, leaving reviews on sites like Glassdoor, and sharing upcoming roles.
Alongside this, it will build their personal brands—perfect for bringing in new candidate interest. Letting your thriving team speak for itself is one of the most important recruiting trends for 2026.
Showcase your culture
Everything from what employees wear in photos to what they say on review sites reflects your company culture and impacts the types of people who’ll apply for your roles.
For instance, everyone in a photo wearing a suit indicates a specific type of culture. Everyone wearing hoodies and jeans suggests a very different vibe.
Every post that goes out on your business pages and your employee ones helps people form an image of what it’s like to work for your organization. This could work in your favor or against you.
It’s harder than ever to hide a negative company culture. We’re more connected than ever and the prevalence of online reviews is unescapable.
So make sure that your employees are adequately social media trained to avoid any PR disasters. At the very least, they need to know what they can andcan’t say about work online.
Putting company culture front and center is one of the most important recruiting trends for 2026.
Source talent more effectively
With hiring taking up to 50 days for some roles, businesses need to identify innovative solutions that help them find talent faster.
Talent sourcing solutions traditionally focused on keyword matching. This means that they were prone to biases and overlooked candidates simply for not using the right language.
AI talent sourcing tools can look at the context of someone’s resume alongside things like social media profiles. That way, you have a bigger picture of what someone is really capable of. As a result, you get a more well-rounded view of what they could be like to work with in your organization. This can be helpful in assessing whether they’re likely to succeed.
When it comes to recruiting trends for 2026, being strategic about how you find and vet candidates will definitely stay high on the list.
Make onboarding seamless
Your onboarding process is fundamental to the success (or failure) of your new hires. If they don’t feel supported, there’s a high chance they’ll leave.
Likewise, if it takes too long for them to get up to speed, you incur further costs. If they’re not yet at full productivity at the end of their onboarding period, neither is your business.
The right onboarding process looks different for every organization. That said, steps such as having the right documents on hand, setting up a buddy or mentoring program, and welcoming employees into groups can go a long way towards helping them settle in.
Which makes delivering a top-notch onboarding process essential to include as part of the emerging recruiting trends for 2026.
Use employee groups as part of your onboarding
Employee groups can be a game changer in helping new hires feel supported. Connecting with people who share a similar background, or are part of the same hiring cohort, enables them to get to know people beyond their team. This can help with future project collaboration and mean projects get done with less stress/headbutting.
Workrowd can help you manage your employee initiatives so that new hires can immediately feel like part of the team. From employee groups to feedback surveys, everything is kept in one place so that they know exactly where to find what they want to know. Get in touch to find out more.
Embrace the human element
From being able to make more data-backed decisions, to engaging with candidates, the right tools give recruiters more time for the human touch when hiring.
Candidates want to deal with human recruiters. If you’re using tools to analyze and vet candidates, you need to use the time you get back to put the human back into your hiring processes.
Finding the balance between high-touch and high-tech is rapidly climbing the ranks of 2026’s recruiting trends.
Don’t ghost
Half of candidates have been ghosted during the hiring process. Ontario, Canada, has now made it illegal to ghost someone starting at the beginning of 2026. Hiring managers must get back to applicants within 45 days regardless of whether a decision has been made.
If you struggle to reply to everyone you interview, there’s a problem somewhere in your hiring process. This could mean you’re not vetting candidates’ suitability enough before interviews and need tools that can analyze resumes faster, or that you’re interviewing too many people for not enough roles. To stay compliant, it’s important to look at your hiring processes to see what’s working—and what isn’t.
Closing the loop with candidates rather than leaving them hanging is another important point on the list of recruiting trends for 2026.
Get feedback
Want feedback from your hiring managers on what you could do better? Why not send a survey?
Using Workrowd, you can automate your feedback surveys so that hiring managers can share how they felt about the process and where HR/recruiting teams can improve.
You could even send feedback surveys to new hires to find out what they thought of interviewing and onboarding with your business. The possibilities really are endless.
Want to find out more? Get in touch to book your free demo.
Conclusion
Recruiting trends in 2026 will be about doing more with less while balancing the human touch alongside AI.
It will also be about finding ways to use the time savings technology gives recruiters to engage more with candidates and provide a better experience.
If you want to improve your employee onboarding, why not give your employee initiatives a boost with Workrowd? From organizing events to connecting people across borders, we can help. Get in touch to book your free demo.
