In September 2024, hundreds of business decision-makers and talent leaders gathered at Indeed FutureWorks for an action-packed day of conversations about how better hiring can lead to better work — and better lives. The star-studded mainstage featured discussions with comedian Trevor Noah, former PepsiCo Chair and CEO Indra Nooyi, and Janice Bryant Howroyd, founder and CEO of ActOne Group. They tackled topics from skills-first hiring to the future of AI to the right way to hire while scaling your business.

Indeed Executives sit onstage while they host a Q&A session at Indeed FutureWorks 2024.

The Indeed Executives hosted a Q&A session where they addressed some of the clients' biggest pain points.

But just as many meaningful conversations happened offstage as on. Members of the Indeed Editorial Team spoke with attendees throughout the event to get their thoughts on how hiring is changing, what they took away from Indeed FutureWorks and what challenges they’re facing in a rapidly evolving workplace. Here’s what they told us:

  1. Companies are struggling with job applicants ghosting them. 

Erik Kershner, Senior Director of Talent and Engagement, WIS International: “Candidate ghosting has continued to be our biggest challenge. We are a retail support organization, so the big thing that we do is inventory for retailers, grocers, pharmacies and convenience stores. The vast majority of our workforce — 80-plus percent — are hourly part-time workers. They’re not going to the same place every day, and they tend to be a little bit more transient, meaning they’re moving from job to job for 25 cents more here, 25 cents more there.

“We had 32,000 applications last year and 17,000 hires, but the hardest thing that I can’t solve is the candidate ghosting — before, during and after they get hired. They click apply. We’ll call them within four hours, and they never respond back or they respond and don’t show up to the interview. First-day ghosting is a huge thing too. It compounds time and time again.” 

  1. Talent professionals love the concept of skills-first hiring. Execution is harder.

Rachel Gardinier, Recruiter, AMB Sports and Entertainment: “We’re a smaller organization, so we have some growing pains around skills-first hiring. It’s not to say we don’t have the desire by any means, but when we need to fill a role immediately, having the capacity and the time to invest [in training] can be challenging. I have a lot of hiring managers that will list [the skills we’re looking for] in their job description. But when it comes down to it, they want to hire somebody that has the experience.” 

  1. In today’s tight labor market, companies are upskilling talent from within.

An attendee at the Indeed Idea Center session, a roundtable discussion for decision makers and Indeed executives: “Your best hire is an internal individual. But individuals have a hard time saying, ‘Okay, I’m really good at X thing. How do I transition?’ That’s what’s really needed. Our organization is building out our internal mobility for skills-based hiring. We are attaching skills to our jobs and tying it to our performance evaluations and personal development. It’s going to take a long time, because it’s not the standard, traditional way of recruiting. But we focus our skills building on retention, not just external recruitment.”

  1. HR/TA professionals are concerned about the aging workforce.

Andrea De La Torre, Talent Selection Manager, BJ’s Restaurants: “Something that really struck me was the fact [Indeed Chief Economist Svenja Gudell shared] about how we’re losing our workforce and how quickly that’s coming. People are retiring. I’m in hospitality. So if you have no servers, if you have no line cooks, and they’re just walking out and we have less to choose from, what do we do? How are we going to open our restaurant?”

A client speaks into a microphone in the WonderWorks Breakout room.

A client engages with Indeed Executives in the WonderWorks Breakout room.

  1. Attendees are hungry for more data to drive hiring decisions.

Brian, a talent intelligence professional: “One thing I’d love to see is a way to benchmark data against our industry. Say I’m hiring for ABC occupation. Who else is hiring for that? And what are their experiences? Where are we seeing the industry going? Are we doing better or do we need improvements? When we get into senior decision making, they’re getting stuff thrown at them left, right and center all the time. It’s nice to come to them and say, ‘This is not my idea. This is factual.’”  

  1. Everyone’s bracing for the AI future. But decision-makers are optimistic.

Theresa Masek, Talent Acquisition Manager at CMC: “This whole concept of ‘robots are taking over the world’ — okay, maybe in a thousand years, but none of us are going to be here. Even our great-great-great grandchildren won’t be here. You still have to be good at your job in order to say, ‘okay, does what the AI is telling me make sense or not?’ AI can just make it faster.” 

  1. Even in an AI world, a personal touch still matters.

Shonda Jones, Talent Acquisition Manager, Senneca Holdings: “The biggest challenge for me is to figure out which platform is going to give me the most for less. Obviously, I want to master whatever hiring tool we have, but the biggest challenge is learning each platform and when they have something new. Our Indeed contact Jay is so hands-on that he makes all the other platforms look bad.”

Read more Indeed FutureWorks 2024 coverage:

Indeed FutureWorks 2024: Trevor Noah on Skills-First Hiring and Politics at Work
Indeed FutureWorks 2024: CEO Chris Hyams Announces Pathfinder
Indeed FutureWorks 2024: A Billion-Dollar Founder on AI and Entrepreneurship
In Conversation: Indeed CEO Chris Hyams and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman
Indeed FutureWorks 2024: What AI-Powered Products Look Like in Action
Indeed FutureWorks 2024: AI Can Do a Lot — But It Can’t Do Your Job
Indeed FutureWorks 2024: A Former Fortune 500 CEO on Cherishing Your Workforce So They Can Prosper
Indeed FutureWorks 2024: Real Talk on Moving Past the Anxiety to Embrace Responsible AI
Indeed FutureWorks 2024: Trevor Noah on Skills-First Hiring and Politics at Work
The Top Mic Drop Moments from Indeed FutureWorks 2024
Indeed FutureWorks 2024: Unlocking Profit and Performance with Employee Wellbeing
Indeed FutureWorks 2024: How Talent Leaders Can Reclaim DEI in a Divisive Time
Indeed FutureWorks 2024: What is “Worklife,” and How Does it Impact Your Employer Brand?