Starting next year, we’ll be facing several changes in the recruitment process, some of which will take effect in December of this year.
Automation and AI – This year, automation is becoming increasingly visible in the recruitment process. More and more job portals are offering partial automation using AI even during standard job posting.
For example: pre-selection of candidates’ CVs according to a specified keyword. One portal offers the option of sending personalized, automatic feedback to all candidates starting next year. Ideas for so-called „virtual assistants” are also emerging, meaning AI receives a list of job requirements and conducts the candidate search within a given portal. This is all intended to support recruiters. However, certain automations are also emerging for job seekers – without a CV, one can quickly generate one on a given portal by entering the most important information in specific fields. Regardless of how much automation is used in the initial stages of recruitment, the final stage will still be (or at least still be!) a meeting between the job seeker and the recruiter/hirer.
Pay Transparency Directive – the Pay Transparency Directive enters into force on 24 December 2025.
What does this mean in practice? Every candidate must have the opportunity to review the salary offered for a given position. This information must be presented in the job advertisement, before the interview, or before entering into an employment relationship. This information should be provided electronically or in paper form and should also include information about any benefits/provisions arising from the collective agreement or work regulations.
Neutrality of job advertisements – Also effective from December 24, 2025, is the requirement to publish job advertisements containing neutral wording, in which neither gender is preferred. In practice, this means using a feminine ending to the job title (where possible) or adding the suffix m/f to the job title.
Reskilling and upskilling – Due to an aging population, the labor market is forcing certain adaptations. As a reminder, reskilling involves acquiring entirely new skills so that an employee can perform a different job, while upskilling involves developing existing competencies so that an employee can more effectively perform their current duties or handle more complex tasks. This helps, on the one hand, fill gaps in the labor market where specialists in a given field are lacking, and on the other hand, develop talent and retain employees.
These are just a few of the changes planned for next year. The Pay Transparency Directive will lead to further changes next year, and the labor market itself is currently difficult to predict. For over a year now, there has been consistently increased demand for specific professions, such as AI and cybersecurity specialists, electricians and energy engineers, warehouse workers, welders, and other professions—primarily technical.
