New hiring tools are top of HR team’s wish lists for 2025—as LinkedIn releases new tools and insights to help businesses and professionals hire and get hired Asia-Pacific, January 16 2025: New data from LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network, finds that while the majority of people (65%) in APAC are looking for a new job in 2025, nearly two-thirds (61%) of HR professionals say it’s actually become harder to find qualified talent in the last year. More than a third (41%) of job seekers say they are applying to more jobs than ever, but hearing back less. Hirers are also finding the process increasingly challenging. Over a fifth (24%) of HR professionals are spending between 3 to 5 hours a day sifting through applications, with 64% of HR professionals saying that less than half of job applications received meet all of the criteria listed.
This mismatch is partly driven by changes in the skills and roles that businesses need—LinkedIn’s inaugural Work Change Report shows that global hiring for AI talent has surged more than 300% over the last eight years. LinkedIn’s annual Jobs on the Rise list also reflects the changing needs of businesses—almost three-quarters (70%) of this year’s Jobs on the Rise roles are new to the annual lists. The lists show an increased demand for AI and sustainability roles—Artificial Intelligence Researcher, Sustainability Analyst and Consultant are amongst some of the top roles across APAC.
While these changes are driving innovation and growth, they are also presenting new hiring challenges. LinkedIn data shows that the skills needed for jobs in APAC are expected to change 70% by 2030 due to generative AI, compared to 52% without it—marking a 18 percentage point faster pace of transformation. HR professionals list finding candidates with the right technical (52%) and soft (48%) skills as some of the top challenges they face—and two thirds (67%) say there’s a mismatch between the skills job seekers have and the skills their organisation needs. How businesses are navigating these challenges Nearly 9 out of 10 (88%) C-suite executives globally say helping their business speed up adoption of AI is important over the next year.
Access to hiring technologies—including AI-powered tools—is the #1 thing HR professionals (54%) in APAC say would make the hiring process easier, with nearly three-quarters (78%) saying AI makes it easier to find qualified candidates. To mitigate against emerging skills gaps, businesses are also looking to build skills from within: 78% of HR professionals say their organisation is prioritising upskilling initiatives in 2025—in areas such as AI, sustainability, and soft skills.
Piyush Mehta, Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) and Country Manager for India, Genpact, says: “Our perspective on the skills our workforce needs centers around becoming ‘trilingual’. First, individuals must be experts in their domain, whether it’s finance, risk, supply chain, insurance, or any other. Second, they must be fluent in technology, particularly data and AI, which are increasingly integral to every field. Lastly, they need to excel in professional skills like storytelling, interpersonal relationship management, and communication — all crucial for thriving in their roles.” Sumita Tandon, HR Director, APAC, LinkedIn says: “Finding the right person for a role often feels daunting and difficult. And it’s natural that companies have been finding it harder to find the talent they need — especially when you consider that many of the fastest-growing job roles we see today didn’t even exist 20 years ago. However, ensuring you have the right people, with the right skills, in the right roles will be crucial for a business’s success in the years to come. It’s great to see businesses taking an intentional and proactive approach on navigating these workplace changes — whether that’s by investing in AI-powered hiring tools to supercharge recruiting efforts, or prioritising upskilling initiatives to build the skills their organisation needs from within.”
LinkedIn introduces new tools designed to address hiring challenges. To help job seekers focus their job search on the opportunities that are the best match for them, LinkedIn will roll out a new job match feature that shows how their skills and experience line up with open positions. It will help job seekers better focus their search on the opportunities where they’re more likely to hear back. To help small business hirers stay competitive in today’s evolving market, LinkedIn will also rollout an AI-assistant within LinkedIn Jobs to help small businesses post a job and hire qualified candidates faster and more efficiently. The AI-assistant is available today in the US to select charter customers. It will be rolled out in English to additional global customers over the coming months. LinkedIn will also continue the roll out of its first AI agent, Hiring Assistant launched in October – designed to take on a recruiter’s most repetitive tasks so they can spend more time on their most impactful work. It will help hirers find candidates based on skills, as opposed to traditional proxies like where someone went to school or previous employers. And, LinkedIn continues to show verifications on job posts, so when a job seeker sees a job with a verified badge, that means certain information about the organisation or the job poster has been confirmed.
