Professionals with 3-5 years of experience to be the most in demand: survey

Naukri’s biannual hiring outlook survey for the second half of 2023, conducted with 1,200 recruiters and recruitment consultants, shared some interesting insights on the hiring patterns expected over the next few months.

Overall, the people surveyed shared that 92% of the recruiters were expecting to look at new or replacement hiring over the next six months.

Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer at Naukri.com, articulated, “With 92% of recruiters forecasting hiring activity, coupled with a return to normalcy in hiring practices anticipated by more than half of the recruiters surveyed, hiring outlook survey manifests an optimistic white-collar hiring landscape in the forthcoming half of 2023.”

Drilling down into further details in terms of the expected hiring patterns reveals the following information.

Hiring sentiment:
A relatively small percentage (4%) of the people surveyed shared that they would not be hiring. More worrying was the response shared by a few people about possible downsizing. Though again a small percentage at 4%, it is a worrying trend about the continuing market stress. The larger group of people though had a positive outlook in terms of new and replacement hiring which reflected the overall positive sentiment.





In terms of business functions which are expected to see the most hiring over the next few months, business development, marketing and operations roles were expected to be leading the hiring efforts.

The maximum demand is supposed to be for mid-career professionals, followed by early career professionals.



Professionals between 3-5 years of experience are expected to be the most in demand based on the survey insights followed by professionals with about 5-8 years of experience. While those with 5-8 years of experience and between 1- 3 years of experience were the next in terms of demand, the hiring for those with over 18 years’ experience is expected to be the lowest. This could go to show more focus on internal leadership and movement at senior levels.

Attrition insights:
Meanwhile, attrition has hovered around 15% in the surveyed group and about 70% of the recruiters expect that to continue or to reduce further. This also denotes that people might prefer to stay with existing jobs in the current market environment. The highest attrition rate in terms of functional skills were from Business Development followed by Marketing, Operations, Supply Chain and HR and Administration.

In terms of experience level, the attrition numbers expected mirrored the hiring pattern with the maximum expected attrition from professionals between 3-5 years of experience.

Aligning increments:
One question that comes to mind while analyzing the questions around hiring and attrition, is around the increments and incentives allocated and planned for the roles.

Most recruiters shared that the increments offered by companies were cautious in the latest appraisal cycle. In fact, 42% of the recruiters mentioned that the companies gave less than 10% increment.

Campus hiring trends:
What does this mean for those who are currently studying in campuses and looking for placement opportunities? There was a divergence in the trends reported here.

36% of the people surveyed indicated that they would go ahead with campus hiring as earlier planned and a smaller group of 11% even indicated that the campus hiring numbers would go up further, showcasing their growth plans.

However, on the other hand, 14% shared that there would be reduction in campus hiring and 39% also mentioned some plans might be on hold.

While the broad hiring patterns are positive from the survey for the next few months, we will keep analyzing the opportunities and challenges across various specific segments.