Reflecting on 2025 in the talent industry, whether you are a provider, a procurement professional, or a buyer, we have all navigated significant changes this year. Looking forward, we anticipate new opportunities and challenges in 2026. How do we distill 2025’s developments into actionable steps for 2026?

I would suggest that 2025 has brought magic to the talent industry in 3 ways:

• Enhanced Recruiting Strategies: Recruiting top talent remains a major challenge for organizations, with 69% struggling to fill roles under today’s traditional contingent & permanent staffing models. Organizations are now turning to Direct Sourcing to enhance their talent availability. *
• Skills-Based Hiring & Upskilling: Organizations now require new skills for new roles, with 47% (one in two) requiring updated skills in existing roles. *
• Role of AI in Hiring: AI in hiring is here to stay, and the smart use of AI in recruiting roles is up 43% in 2025. *

How can we put these industry shifts to work for 2026 success?

“I’m through with playing by the rules of someone else’s game.”

To begin, let’s look at the rise in the use of enhanced recruiting strategies. As I have said for several years, our buyers (those who procure talent strategy from us in either perm or contingent labor)  have changed.  They are younger, more self-service oriented, and require immediate responses to data and market intelligence. As talent providers, this drives us to be more creative in how we source talent.  We must become highly agile to our buyers’ needs, equipping them, in turn, to be highly agile to their organization’s needs.  But too often, we in talent make it cumbersome for our buyers.  What we need to provide is simplicity.  One source to curate, employ, and find talent.  Simplification, not cumbersome pricing and contract methodologies.  2026 needs to be a year of streamlined efficiencies for our buyers.

“Something has changed within me-something is not the same.”

Next, let’s not neglect the rise of Gen Z in the workforce. In the next 4 years, one in three workers will be Gen Z, making it the largest contingent and permanent worker population.  We need to look now at what that generation wants- both as a buyer and as talent. One area we know Gen Z looks to is employer brand and mission.  88% of job seekers consider employer brand before applying, and 92% of workers say they would change employers for a company with a stronger brand. *

“Sometimes your opposite is your missing piece.”

And what do our buyers want? 90% of C-suite executives are choosing to embrace a flexible employment model to adapt to their organization’s hiring and market conditions, according to the Forbes CxO Growth Survey 2025: Insights Into Leadership & Transformation.  41% of companies plan to revitalize their hiring to use shift-based, flexible project-based workers to have market volatility-proof hiring strategies in place. *

“You’re the one the Wizard has been waiting for.”

What about the Skills-Based Hiring and Upskilling in 2026? This is where AI can be unpacked into a beautiful enabler of our Curation processes to support our clients. Today’s marketplace holds some incredible tools in curation matching. Programs that harmonize direct sourcing technology with AI-driven, skills-based curation, coupled with the irreplaceable human effort of Curators, are achieving their talent goals.

“Unlimited… Our future is unlimited.”

As we move into 2026, let’s make it the year of collaboration, partnership, and what I would like to call cohesive simplicity.    The creation of talent strategies that organizations can quickly enable and utilize, underpinned by those of us across the industry co-partnering on the back-end to enable our clients’ success.  Simplified contracts.  Simple pricing.  Quicker implementations.  “She wasn’t waiting for a broom; she built one.”  I am personally excited to explore new partnerships, new ‘let’s try this!’ moments, and win new clients with you all in 2026.

*References: SHRM,  McKinsey,  HeroHunt.ai,  Amra & Elma,  Deloitte