Over the last year, the blue-collar labour shortage has decreased: fewer people are being recruited and workers are more willing to change. Nevertheless, companies cannot sit back: the trend can change at any time, and every year there are fewer new entrants and, with rapid technological progress, skills shortages are growing. What are the winning channels? What is the critical phase in recruitment? How can retraining and leadership development strengthen retention? We also asked three speakers at the recruiTECH BLUE blue-collar recruitment conference on 25 September: Mihály Nagy (Dana Hungary), Ágit Nyeste (JYSK) and Zoltán Varga (Magyar Suzuki). Tickets are still available.

During the summer months, the pace of the labour market slows down, especially in clerical and intellectual jobs. With decision-makers unavailable due to holidays, timing difficulties and over-generalised recruitment campaigns, selection can take up to twice as long as the rest of the year. This is not only a waste of time but also a serious business risk, warns the HR expert.

What are the most important considerations when choosing a job? In a recent survey, the Institute for Youth Research looked at the expectations of 15-39 year olds. The results show that for the workers surveyed, exciting and varied tasks are of high importance, while routine work is less important.

Jobseekers are using increasingly sophisticated methods to deceive employers. One Polish company, for example, used a deepfake video interview to try to get a non-existent, AI-generated candidate in. Although the case is extreme, the problem is becoming more and more common: HR is also increasingly tasked with filtering out applications that are disconnected from reality.

Companies must constantly adapt to the challenges of a rapidly changing labour market if they are to attract and retain the best talent. Automation and artificial intelligence have taken recruitment to a new level, while the importance of soft skills has increased to unprecedented levels. In addition to candidates for open positions, companies need to focus on passive candidates who respond to specific and personalised requests.

A new company, a new boss, new team members, new policies and procedures - it's natural to have to cope with being 'new' when changing jobs. It's important to stress that a successful onboarding process is not only the responsibility of the organisation, managers and mentors, but also the new employee's role, writes HR consultant Sharlyn Lauby in her HR Bartender blog post.

\"Finally, a good use for AI technology\" is the subtitle of an article in the British news site Unilad about a man looking for a job who was able to submit a personalised application for thousands of job vacancies using artificial intelligence technology \"while sleeping\".

Jobseekers believe that at least 80% of the jobs advertised will be filled with the help of job ads. The reality is something very different. Some companies use job ads to monitor the market, recruitment is not necessarily the goal. And there are others where they already have a candidate, an internal one, but they look around to see if there is a better one. Written by Anikó Pethő, HR consultant (Aarenson Consulting).

In our case study column, Lilla Lázár, Head of Recruitment at the Budapest Transport Centre (BKK), presents their annual "outdoor" trainee selection project. In one working day, 18 young talents were recruited through an experience-based selection process.

From March to April, the number of job advertisements on the Hungarian web increased from 33 089 to 36 166. This is 3077 more than in the previous month, but a year ago there were three thousand more job ads, according to the latest statistics from Állásportál.hu.

At the national level, employee turnover decreased significantly, falling to 28 percent last year from 33 percent a year earlier. However, companies should not breathe a sigh of relief as this is still twice the acceptable level. And the decline is not due to easing labour market tensions, but to the economic difficulties of the past year and the restructuring of the labour market, according to this year's HR-Evolution national turnover survey.

Employers advertise seemingly open positions on job portals or exchanges that they never intended to fill. What's in it for them? What do employers stand to lose and why are jobseekers badly off?

The majority of applicants submit their CVs to at least two, but no more than five places at the same time - this is one of the findings of an online survey conducted by the 55th University of Technology Job Fair. The responses from the companies surveyed show that although we live in a world of social media, most companies advertise their vacancies in traditional ways and channels, such as career portals, job fairs or their own company websites.

At the end of the interview, is it a good idea to ask the candidate how they saw their performance and what their chances are? If the answer is no, do you have the right to know why you didn't pass and can you benefit from the information given? The bbc.com report shows why it's not worth giving feedback from the employer's point of view. It is also questionable whether, objectively speaking, it can be done at all.