The success of your company depends on its people, but how do you attract the very best talent? It starts with understanding the powerhouse behind your hiring strategy — your recruiter.

Should you opt for the inside expertise of an in-house recruiter or tap into the expansive networks of an external recruitment agency? Each brings its own unique edge to the table. The right type of recruiter for your team is one who can come in and improve your process, attract high-caliber candidates, and position your business as a top contender for talent.

By understanding the strengths each recruiter brings to the table, you gain the tools to refine your strategy and elevate your hiring outcomes. This guide will unravel the nuances of different recruiter types to help you supercharge your talent acquisition efforts.

TL;DR — Key Takeaways

• You can take two main paths when hiring recruiters: external or internal recruiters.
• In-house recruiters have a better understanding of your company culture, recruitment process, values, and goals, and you can manage them more easily. However, they have a limited network and increased workload, so they might be the wrong choice for recruiting for specialist roles.
• External recruiters can access a wider talent pool and often come with specialized knowledge. However, they don’t have as much information about your company, and they are usually pretty expensive.
• There are eight main recruiter types: executive search firms, headhunters, staffing agency recruiters, contingency recruiters, technical recruiters, freelance recruiters, retained recruiters, and specialized recruiters.

In-house recruiters vs. external recruiters: Key differences

Before we look into the diverse types of recruiters, let’s first understand the fundamental distinction between in-house and external recruiters.

An in-house recruiter, also known as a corporate recruiter, is a full-time, salaried member of your team, typically nestled within your HR department. They’re the home team, deeply embedded in your company’s culture and operations.

An external recruiter, on the other hand, is a hired gun. They could be a recruitment agency or a freelance professional you engage on a case-by-case basis. They are typically compensated upon the successful placement of a candidate.

In-house recruiters

As part of your internal HR team, corporate recruiters intimately understand your company’s culture, management style, and operational nuances. They’re in the trenches with you, making them well-positioned to identify candidates who will fit and enhance your company culture.

Corporate recruiters work hand-in-hand with hiring managers, identifying departmental needs and sourcing the best talent to meet those needs.

However, their reach may be limited to your company’s existing network of contacts and candidates, which can sometimes make finding the perfect fit feel like running on a treadmill. Moreover, internal recruiters often juggle multiple responsibilities, from recruitment to employee engagement and HR administration.

This can stretch them thin, potentially impacting the effectiveness of your recruitment efforts. And while they’re generally well-versed in HR practices, they may lack the specialized knowledge required to fill specific roles, such as a product manager or machine learning engineer.

External recruiters (e.g., recruitment agency)

External recruiters, like a well-connected staffing agency, have access to a vast pool of candidates. Their experience spans multiple clients and industries, giving them a broad perspective on recruitment strategies and a deep reservoir of talent to tap into. They will likely have specialized knowledge for roles outside your usual hiring needs.

However, hiring an external recruiter can be costly if you seek top-notch, swift results. While they’re adept at finding qualified candidates, they may not fully grasp your company culture as intimately as an in-house recruiter would. This could lead to a mismatch between the candidate’s values and your company’s culture.

Additionally, external recruiters primarily focus on filling vacancies and earning their commission. This could sometimes result in a less thorough understanding of the role and the candidate’s fit. Also, their services typically don’t extend to providing interviewing assistance or giving you complete control over the hiring process.

Here’s a quick summary of key differences between internal recruiters and agency recruiters

In-house Recruiter	External Recruiter
Participate in full-cycle recruitment from sourcing to onboarding	Typically heavily focused on candidate sourcing and initial screening
Care about the candidate experience and employer branding	Have a more aggressive, go-getter attitude, focused on sourcing the right skills match
Administrative-driven mindset, like to follow and improve procedures	Possess a combination of marketing and sales skills, able to ‘sell’ the role to passive candidates
Work closely with the hiring manager to find the perfect candidate	Typically work alongside in-house recruiters to fill the vacancies as quickly as possible
Employed full-time and aligned with the company’s talent strategy	Juggle multiple clients and types of positions
Hire with the focus to retain	Prioritize speed and efficiency over ‘perfect fit’
Hire permanent staff	Often hire short-term staff for specific projects
Typically focused on improving vs innovating	On top of the latest trends, candidate sources and market shifts

When to hire a recruiter in-house vs. external talent acquisition specialists

Now that you know the main differences between the two types of recruiters, let’s find out which one you should hire and when.

When to hire in-house recruiters

It’s a lot more cost-effective to have an internal recruiter when you need to hire for many roles consistently. Also, when you want complete control and ownership of your hiring process, from writing job descriptions to negotiating the final offer.

Last but not least, in addition to sourcing candidates, full-time corporate recruiters handle more strategic projects, such as developing the employer brand or building talent pools of qualified candidates.

When hiring internal recruiters, equip them with the right tools for the job. Your internal HR team will need more than an ATS to find candidates that elevate your organization to the next level, tackle skills gaps, and build high-performing teams.

Part of having a skills-first strategy is going beyond just hiring to ensure you’re looking at the larger picture. First, you need to understand the skills that your business needs. Then understand what skills your employees have, or that they can develop, and what skills you need to hire for so that you build your talent strategies accordingly.

Jennifer Shappley, VP, Global Talent Acquisition at LinkedIn

When to hire external recruiters

When you want to fill positions very quickly or when your hiring needs are inconsistent, for instance, when you only need to hire someone a few times per year. Also, when looking for candidates with very specialized knowledge that an in-house team may not have.

8 Types of recruiters your business may need in 2025

Depending on your situation and the type of role you want to fill, you may need executive recruiters, recruitment agencies, a retained agency recruiter, or something entirely different.

Here are the eight main types of recruiters you can hire for your team.

Executive search firms

An executive search firm specializes in hiring senior executive roles in companies such as president, vice-president, CEO, or any other C-suite role.

When is it a good idea to employ an executive search firm?

Executive search firms are particularly valuable when an organization seeks to fill a senior role that requires a unique blend of skills, experience, and leadership qualities.

They are also beneficial when a company needs to conduct a confidential search without alerting internal staff or the public. The specialized knowledge and extensive networks of potential candidates these firms possess make them well-equipped to identify and attract top executive talent, even those not actively seeking new opportunities.

Common characteristics of executive search recruiters

• Deep industry knowledge: Executive search recruiters possess a profound understanding of the industries they serve, which allows them to identify the specific skills and experiences required for high-level roles.
• Extensive networks: They have wide-ranging networks of potential candidates, including those who may not actively seek new opportunities but could be the perfect fit for a specific role.
• Discretion and confidentiality: Executive search recruiters are committed to maintaining a high level of discretion and confidentiality, which is particularly important when conducting a search for a senior role or a confidential replacement.
• Long-term relationship building: They excel at building and maintaining long-term relationships with the companies they serve and the candidates they place. This allows them to understand the strategic needs of an organization and match them with candidates who can drive growth and success.

Typical work arrangement

Executive search firms typically operate on a retained basis, meaning they are paid a retainer fee upfront to conduct the talent search. This arrangement underscores the consultative and dedicated nature of their service.

Unlike contingency recruiters, who are paid only upon the successful placement of a candidate, retained firms are compensated for the process, time, and expertise they invest in the search, regardless of the outcome. This makes the due diligence process of choosing the right executive recruiters that much more important!

How much do they cost?

The cost of engaging an executive search firm is typically a percentage of the successful candidate’s first-year total compensation, including base salary, bonuses, and other financial benefits.

This fee usually ranges from 20% to 35%, with the percentage potentially increasing for more senior or complex roles.

Headhunters

A headhunter in the corporate world is akin to a skilled bounty hunter. This is a recruitment professional you engage, typically as a contractor, to hunt down the perfect candidate for a specific role, doing so with speed, precision, and a keen eye for talent.

When is it a good idea to employ headhunters?

Consider engaging a headhunter when your recruitment efforts feel like searching for a needle in a haystack.

If you’re struggling to find highly qualified candidates or need someone with a deep pool of specialized, highly motivated talent – say, a headhunter focusing on technical recruitment — they can be your secret weapon.

Headhunters also excel at unearthing passive candidates, those high-performers who aren’t actively job hunting but could be persuaded by the right opportunity.

Common characteristics of headhunters

• Master communicators: Headhunters are gifted communicators, able to sell the opportunity to candidates and represent your company in the best light.
• Industry insiders: They possess deep industry knowledge, understanding the nuances of their roles and the landscape of potential talent.
• Bold poachers: Unafraid to venture into the lion’s den, headhunters will contact competitor companies to poach top performers.
• Network navigators: They maintain an extensive network of candidates, keeping in touch and knowing who might be ripe for a new opportunity.
• Prepared professionals: Headhunters do their homework. They understand the role and the candidate and enter each conversation fully prepared.

Typical work arrangements

Headhunters are typically engaged as contractors and paid upon the successful placement of a candidate. They are your “on-call” talent scouts, ready to act when an urgent vacancy arises.

How much do they cost?

The cost of a headhunter’s services usually falls between 20% and 30% of the annual salary for the role they’re filling.

Staffing agency recruiters

Think of a staffing agency as your company’s external HR SWAT team. These agencies serve as a bridge between job seekers and employers, ready to deploy reinforcements when you need to fill positions swiftly.

When is it a good idea to employ staffing agency recruiters?

Consider engaging a staffing agency when hiring for entry to mid-level positions or when you need part-time or temporary employees. They’re also your go-to resource when you need to scale up quickly for a project or seasonal demand.

Common characteristics of staffing agencies and agency recruiters

• Talent reservoir: Staffing agencies maintain a dynamic, ever-expanding pool of candidates actively seeking new opportunities.
• Skills sleuths: Staffing agency recruiters frequently use skills tests to quickly match the right person with the right job, ensuring a good fit based on abilities.
• Speedy strategists: Agency recruiters prioritize filling open positions quickly, often focusing on finding a good enough fit who can hit the ground running.

Typical work arrangements

They work on either a flat fee, retainer, or one-off basis, helping to fill urgent openings.

How much do they cost?

The cost of a staffing agency’s services typically ranges from 25% to 100% of the hired employee’s annual salary. This wide range in staffing company’s costs reflects the variability in services offered, from temporary placements to permanent hires.

Contingency recruiters

These recruiters are contingent on whether they successfully find a new hire for your team. In other words, they only see a payday when they make a successful hire.

When is it a good idea to employ contingency recruiters?

Consider the contingency recruitment model when you prefer a “pay for performance” approach. It’s an attractive option when you’re budget-conscious and prefer to pay for tangible results from the recruitment process rather than committing to ongoing retainer fees for an untested recruitment agency.

Common characteristics of contingency recruiters

• Talent trappers: Contingency recruiters maintain a broad network of candidates, casting a wide net to catch the right talent for your role.
• Efficiency experts: With their compensation on the line, contingency recruiters operate with high efficiency. They’re motivated to fill your vacancy swiftly and effectively.

Typical work arrangements

This type of recruiter operates on a “no win, no fee” basis. They only get paid when they successfully fill a position, making them a risk-free option for your recruitment needs.

How much do they cost?

The cost typically ranges from 10% to 30% of the hired candidate’s first-year salary. This fee structure aligns the recruiter’s interests with the client company, ensuring they’re motivated to find the right candidate for the role as fast as possible.

Technical recruiters

Technical recruiters are the seasoned guides you need when venturing into the complex terrain of tech talent acquisition. They specialize in hiring for technical roles, such as software development, data science, or hardware engineering, and possess a depth of knowledge that sets them apart from generalist recruiters.

When is it a good idea to employ technical recruiters?

Consider bringing a technical recruiter on board when your in-house hiring managers are grappling with the challenge of filling specialized technical roles. They’re also your go-to resource when you don’t have an in-house recruitment team but need to fill a technical role swiftly and accurately.

Common characteristics of technical recruiters

• Tech talent whisperers: Technical recruiters have specialist knowledge in recruiting within technical areas, typically within the IT sector.
• Hands-on tech experience: Many technical recruiters have hands-on experience in some area of tech, such as software development. This means they speak the language and understand the nuances of the roles they’re filling.

Typical work arrangements

Technical recruiters can operate on a retainer basis, providing ongoing recruitment services for a set fee. Alternatively, they can work on a one-off basis, getting paid a percentage for filling a specific role.

How much do they cost?

Technical recruiters typically charge 15% to 25% of the hired candidate’s first-year salary for one-off engagements.

Freelance recruiters

Freelance recruiters are the agile, adaptable generalists of the recruitment world. Unlike recruiters tied to an agency or company, they operate as independent contractors, offering their expertise on a temporary basis to companies in need.

When is it a good idea to employ freelance recruiters

Consider hiring a freelance recruiter when you have an existing HR team but want to amplify your recruitment results. A freelance recruiter can serve as a consultant, identifying areas for improvement and strategizing ways to fill positions more efficiently and effectively.

Common characteristics of freelance recruiters

• Industry veterans: Freelance recruiters often have extensive experience in staffing agencies, recruitment firms, or HR teams across various industries.
• Communication maestros: They possess superb communication skills, essential for liaising between candidates and companies.
• Talent networkers: They maintain a network of candidates they’ve engaged with in the past, ready to tap into when the right role arises.
• Multitask masters: As independent operators, freelance recruiters are adept at wearing many hats, handling all aspects of the recruitment process.

Typical work arrangements

Freelance recruiters are typically engaged as consultants, either on a one-off basis or on a retainer. They can augment an existing HR team or manage the entire recruitment process for businesses without an in-house HR function.

How much do they cost?

Typically, anywhere between 15% and 25% of the annual salary for the roles they are trying to fill.

Retained recruiters

Retained recruiters can act as your company’s external HR department. They operate on a retainer basis, receiving a monthly fixed fee for their comprehensive recruitment services.

When is it a good idea to employ retained recruiters?

Consider partnering with a retained recruiter when your company has consistent hiring needs and frequently open positions but not enough to justify a full-time, in-house recruitment team.

Common characteristics of retained recruiters

• Recruitment generalists: Retained recruiters often have broad experience in the recruitment field, enabling them to handle various roles and industries.
• HR taskmasters: They can cover a wide array of HR tasks for a client company, from crafting compelling job descriptions to orchestrating the interview process.
• Team players: Retained recruiters often operate in teams, providing you with a dedicated hiring manager along with other team members to support your recruitment needs.

Typical work arrangements

Retained recruiters are engaged for ongoing recruitment tasks, keeping them consistently involved in your hiring process. Their responsibilities span the full recruitment cycle, from identifying new openings to scheduling interviews and extending job offers.

How much do they cost?

The client company pays them 15 to 35% of the role they are trying to fill. If you’re looking to fill multiple roles simultaneously, it’s worth doing the math first – hiring an in-house corporate recruiter may be more cost-effective in the long run.

Specialized recruiter

A specialized recruiter is an expert in their chosen field. Whether freelance or retained, these recruiters concentrate their efforts on a specific area, be it an industry (like healthcare), a role or function (like data science), or a geographical region. Their focused approach allows them to navigate the complexities of their niche with precision, delivering highly qualified candidates that meet the unique needs of their clients.

When is it a good idea to employ specialized recruiters?

Consider calling in a specialized recruiter when faced with a hiring challenge that’s left other recruiters scratching their heads. They’re your go-to resource when you need to fill a niche role in a specific market, and generalist recruitment agencies just aren’t cutting it.

Common characteristics of specialized recruiters

• Niche knowledge: Specialized recruiters possess a deep, nuanced understanding of their focus areas, whether that’s a certain industry, role, or geographical region.
• Specialist networks: They maintain contact with a network of specialists in their focus area, ready to tap into when the right role arises.
• Proven track record: Specialized recruiters have a history of successful placements within their area of expertise, demonstrating their ability to navigate the niche talent landscape.

Typical work arrangements

Specialized recruiters typically work on a one-off basis with a client company, focusing their efforts on filling a specific role that requires their unique expertise.

How much do they cost?

Similar to an executive recruiter, anywhere from 15 to 35% of the annual salary for the role they are hiring for in a client company.

Wrapping up

With so many types of recruiters to choose from, getting help with your recruitment process should be easy. While it may seem like having an internal recruiter is the best way for companies to fill vacant positions, the reality is that the choice is much broader than that.

And if your recruiters and hiring managers need help with finding those ideal candidates, a skills test is the best way to kick off your sourcing process. Sign up for Toggl Hire today and quickly go from thousands of candidates to a handful of the very best talent.

If you’re like most of us, you’re likely tired of hearing about how ChatGPT and generative AI are going to take all our jobs (spoiler alert: they’re not…at least not anytime soon), but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t all be learning how to make technology work for us.

For employees to survive and thrive in a fast-paced, change-fuelled future, they need meta-skills: the ability to learn, understand, and adapt (fast). 73% of employees globally report they don’t currently feel equipped to learn the digital skills businesses need now, and that’s a scary reality.

So, let’s explore what meta-skills encompass and which ones result in productive, creative people ready for whatever tomorrow brings (hopefully more human empathy and fewer robot overlords, but hey, we’re open to just a sunny day and some good vibes).

TL;DR — Key Takeaways

• Organizations must prioritize meta-skills for current and future employees to stay ahead of changes and ensure synergy between human and technological resources.
  
• Meta skills are higher-order skills that boost a person’s ability to learn and apply new knowledge quickly.
  
• A few examples of meta-skills include capabilities like learning a new language, plug-and-play skill transfer between industries, and the ability to solve complex problems.
  
• Studies have shown that the three main meta-skills are self-awareness, creativity, and resilience, which have the biggest impact in the modern workplace.
  
• Additional meta-skills all candidates and employees should strive to build and improve include learning and applying info quickly, having high emotional intelligence, and problem-solving.
  
• You can assess meta-skills to understand what level a candidate is at with Toggl Hire’s skills assessment platform. Create a customized test around specific skills in just a few clicks.

The changing world of work

Even though the world of work is changing fast, we know two things for sure.

☝️ The first is that AI and automation are here to stay. 55% of Americans regularly interact with AI, and the global AI market is expected to grow by 19% through 2032. The simple reality is that, as a society, we’ve grown to rely on technology to make our lives easier or to solve problems.

✌️ Second, these technological advances are permanently changing the role of humans in the workplace. Technology is challenging the standard notion of what makes a great employee. And while technology is the lever that enables agile change, organizations need employees with the right soft skills to work those levers.

A company’s capacity to learn determines its capacity to adapt and, ultimately, its chances of surviving far into the future. If your company isn’t learning, it isn’t growing — and it’s probably on a losing path.

Boston Consulting Group | Source

Looking at the current upward trend in upskilling and lifelong learning, what skills should organizations prioritize that will have the biggest impact on success? To stay one step ahead of the fourth industrial revolution, forward-thinking businesses are looking for candidates with meta skills.

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.

Alvin Toffler, Futurist | Source

What is a meta-skill? Definition and examples

A meta-skill is the ability to learn and apply new knowledge quickly. Also known as meta ability, it’s an overarching range of capabilities people need to learn new skills faster or drive functional expertise in other skills.

If you’re wondering why soft skills, like these meta-skills, are so crucial all of a sudden for the workforce, the World Economic Forum spells it out pretty clearly:

By the end of 2025, 85 million jobs may be displaced by machines, according to the Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2020, but 97 million new roles may emerge that are more adapted to the new division of labour between humans, machines and algorithms.

World Economic Forum

Meta skills are core skills that we adopt through deep learning. For example, they tend to be more lasting than learning to use a new HR software tool and are in short supply for many organizations.

According to McKinsey, “Research indicates that 50% of leaders are facing business problems due to an unforeseen skills gap; the majority believe that upskilling and reskilling are the crux of the solution.”

A few common examples of meta-skills

Meta skills will only grow in importance, but the good news is that you should have already encountered a few or mastered them yourself. Like these:

• Ability to transfer core skills between different industries
• Ability to learn a new language
• Core coding knowledge
• Complex problem solving
• Ability to identify business pain points

While those are all good examples of meta-skills, there are three specific ones that would future-proof any applicant or employee.

What are the three meta-skills that every employee should develop?

Soft skills, like effective communication and interpersonal skills, and hard skills, like data analytics, all contribute to the makeup and success of a good employee in our digital age.

Yet, these three meta-skills are ones that every employee should and can develop for a lasting career advantage: self-awareness, creativity, and resilience.

1. Self-awareness

Self-awareness is about more than knowing yourself. It’s a quality or trait that includes knowing your strengths and weaknesses, triggers, how you typically respond to particular situations, awareness of your effect on others, empathy, and understanding other peoples’ realities.

We’ve found that even though most people believe they are self-aware, self-awareness is a truly rare quality: We estimate that only 10%–15% of the people we studied actually fit the criteria.

Dr. Tasha Eurich, organizational psychologist | Source

2. Creativity

Creativity isn’t typically learned in school, and children are often branded as “naturally” more creative than others. Yet, as Albert Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.”

We need to be able to change gears or think creatively to solve new problems more quickly at work or in our personal lives. This means letting go of binary thinking (the idea that there are only two sides to every situation) and embracing our imagination.

And since AI is now encroaching on creative job functions, like digital design and copywriting, it presents us with another opportunity to use meta-skills.

In 2025, and throughout the next decade, we’ll need to find ways to work creatively with generative AI to enhance our work, like using it to get new content ideas or to create the first draft of a computer program.

3. Resilience

Resilience is all about being able to challenge yourself, being willing to fail, and immediately adapting and trying a new approach. Your adaptability hinges on your willingness to fail.

Resilience is the ability to not only recover quickly from a crisis but to bounce back better—and even thrive.

McKinsey | Source

Those able to adapt quickly and not give up when things get tough will have what it takes to ride the wave of any new or unexpected change we’ll experience in 2025 and beyond. They’ll be the ones who innovate, succeed, and create competitive advantages for organizations.

The Meta Skills Progression Framework by SDS

Meta Skills Progression Framework was invented by Skills Development Scotland as a way to empower learners to thrive in any context. They look at meta skills from the perspective of teaching and ensuring that students can recognize, understand and explore their meta skills development.

The framework organizes meta-skills into three core categories:

1. Self-management: The ability to regulate one’s behavior and emotions, fostering focus, integrity, adaptability, and initiative.
2. Social intelligence: The capacity to interact effectively with others through communication, empathy, collaboration, and leadership.
3. Innovation: Creative and critical thinking that drives curiosity, sense-making, and problem-solving.

The framework lays out how meta-skills develop across different educational stages, from early years to the senior phase. Each skill is illustrated through examples:

• Early level: Learners demonstrate curiosity by asking questions and exploring new tasks.
• First level: Skills grow as learners reflect, collaborate, and begin problem-solving.
• Second level: Critical thinking and initiative deepen, with learners adapting to feedback and complex tasks.
• Third/fourth level: Focus shifts to independent problem-solving, leadership, and self-regulation.
• Senior phase: Learners show sophisticated skills such as confidently evaluating situations, leading others, and independently navigating challenges.

How to use this framework

The Meta Skills Progression Framework is not prescriptive but offers guidance to educators seeking to integrate meta-skills development into their teaching. Key points include:

• It is non-mandatory: Educators can adapt it to fit their unique classroom contexts.
• The framework focuses on practitioner support: It provides insights for teaching but is not designed as a direct tool for learners.
• Examples serve as a starting point: Educators are encouraged to contextualize these examples based on their students’ experiences.

The top 6 meta-skills to look for in candidates

Hiring candidates with meta-skills means creating a stable, adaptable, and quick-acting workforce. Is that the kind of workforce you’re looking to build in 2025? We thought so, so let’s explore the six core attributes they’ll bring to the party.

1. Learning capacity

The overarching and possibly most essential meta-skill, the one skill to rule them all, is a person’s ability to learn. If a person can’t learn and apply new skills quickly, they’ll be severely disadvantaged in an automated world.

Moreover, constant learning has become part of how we operate in modern business.

Tips to improve your learning ability:

• Figure out which learning style you prefer—visual, tactile, or audio, and find resources that support that style, such as YouTube videos for visual learners.
  
• Ensure you understand all the core terms of a new subject or industry you plan to enter. You could even create a glossary for yourself.
  
• Use visual aids, such as flashcards or drawing sketches and mind-maps of the concepts you learn about.
  
• Take notes. Good old-fashioned notes can help you out of a bind if you’re learning a new skill or tool and need to quickly refer back to a particular step in a process, for instance.
  
• Get some exercise. It’s good for the mind and body!

2. Emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence is the ability to manage your feelings and responses effectively and be aware of how others are feeling.

People with high emotional intelligence use empathy, self-awareness, and social awareness to manage how different people in a group interact, resolve conflicts quickly, and ultimately create a positive, productive work environment.

This is a valued and important skill used by leaders as it can help to build confidence and trust in teams.

A leader needs to have all of those skills, including de-escalating and empathizing with people, especially in these times. Emotional intelligence is one of the key things of working with people and helping people grow.

Forbes | Source

3. Perspective

Perspective is about being able to see and understand different points of view. In other words, it means putting yourself in the shoes of your boss, colleague, client, or competitor and holistically understanding their priorities and why.

Studies show that perspective-taking can:

• Help you be more present rather than focusing on why your way is the best
• Support a better integration of knowledge and experience
• Help teams work more synergistically
• Help us learn better from each other

4. Storytelling

Storytelling is a way of communicating ideas through stories. Since research reveals that approximately 65% of us are visual learners, using this medium for persuasive business communication with clients makes sense.

Organizations use storytelling to simplify complex problems or concepts and lead their audience to a particular conclusion, such as why the business’ product best solves their pain points.

Storytelling is used across various departments and industries:

• Marketing communication, such as blogs or infographics
• Data analytics to show insights visually through charts and graphs to support data-driven decisions
• Selling your business ideas to investors
• Creating persuasive presentations
• Creating explainer videos that demonstrate your product’s value

Research indicates that stories can be far more effective at selling a job than impressive facts and figures. With only 5% of the latter being remembered after just 10 minutes, against the 65% of stories.

DeepStash | Source

5. Creative problem-solving

The ability to solve complex problems quickly means being able to spot the actual problem. It also means focusing, being objective, and looking at potential problems from a distance.

When this goes together with a lot of experience across the business, leaders can:

• Come up with practical solutions quickly
• Ensure teams keep producing quality work in good time
• Override complacency and help teams work smarter
• Help the business quickly adapt to change

Design thinking is a great approach to solving problems efficiently. It helps teams move from problem to solution in an iterative way that ensures practical solutions.

6. Leadership

A natural career path often leads employees from being juniors to taking on more responsibility and eventually managing other team members.

This is an important meta-skill to develop, as it has a positive impact not only on the individual but also creates growth for teams and the organization.

Effective leadership can inspire confidence and create a supportive environment that nurtures other employees’ meta-skills, boosting self-esteem, self-confidence, and overall abilities within teams.

Evaluate your candidates’ meta-skills (and any other skills) with skills assessments

Recruiters and hiring teams may need to reconsider traditional role-based hiring. Creating skills-based opportunities might be a more suitable approach for today’s globally connected workforce (and keep us a step ahead of the robot takeover 😉).

If you’re looking for a way to hire future-ready candidates or modernize your talent mobility strategy, stop looking. Toggl Hire is the only full-cycle recruiting software that allows you to create skills tests based on specific skills that match your requirements.

Faster and more objective hires are a click away! Browse our assessment library to future-proof your business and hire smarter.

Clockify is an easy-to-use time tracking app popular with freelancers and businesses with simple time tracking needs. Its bare-bones UI and basic reporting make it a top choice for those who don’t demand much from a time tracker.

However, these same qualities make Clockify a poor choice for larger businesses that need to gain insights from their tracked time and increase productivity. This is just one of the many reasons why businesses look for Clockify alternatives.

For example, some companies may be put off by its employee surveillance features. Simply reading a few online discussions will reveal that employees aren’t keen on installing surveillance software on their equipment.

So, if you’re thinking about Clockify alternatives, you’re in the right place. We’ve been in the time tracking space since 2006, and know what freelancers, small businesses, large businesses, and enterprises are looking for — because we serve all of them.

That’s why we made this list to help you find the best alternative. All apps in this article offer free plans and trials so you can test them thoroughly before deciding. We’ve also tested each by ourselves and presented our findings below for your convenience. 

Quick overview of the best free Clockify alternatives

What is Clockify, and why should you consider an alternative?

Nenad Milanovic and Lazar Vujanic founded Clockify in 2017 when they realized the industry needed a simple and affordable time tracking app and that more people should have access to useful yet free apps.

Clockify is a timekeeping, reporting, and project management platform for straightforward projects. Its manual time tracking features are designed for factory workers and officegoers. The Reports feature helps track billable hours, automatically calculate wages, and auto-generate client invoices.

Some may find it controversial because it’s developed for companies that expect industrial efficiency from their workforce. That’s why they offer surveillance features such as GPS Tracking, Automated Screenshots, and Force Timers that can’t be stopped or manually edited.

This fosters employee distrust, negatively impacts company cultures, and (ironically) tends to decrease productivity.

Companies also look for Clockify alternatives because it lacks custom reporting, advanced analytics, and time tracking tools for dynamic office environments like agencies, software development, marketing, and other fully remote or hybrid teams.

What to look for in a Clockify alternative (and how we curated our list)

If you’re looking for an alternative to Clockify, you probably need a tool with the same functionality without the drawbacks. The following is the framework we used when picking the tools for the list.

Our testing methodology

We started by finding tools on review sites like G2 and Capterra and looked for the ones listed as the best match feature-wise. We then went through their website and documentation to confirm which tools best match Clockify’s features, which allowed us to shorten the list.

Next, it was time to test the apps.

We tested ten platforms side-by-side with Clockify to see which ones performed better. That’s how we narrowed our list down to 7 platforms that were good alternatives to Clockify and didn’t completely overlap with each other feature-wise.

Rating categories

Online reviews and discussions around Clockify and its alternatives commonly revolve around four categories:

• Ease of use: Managers often mention their teams don’t want to adopt a platform that isn’t intuitive for employees (because time tracking becomes a chore).
• Analytics: Many Clockify users (and time tracking software users in general) discussed the lack of good analytics features to gather insights into improving their team’s workload and productivity.
• Employee Privacy: One of the main talking points around Clockify and similar software is how much employees hate being monitored — people often talk about leaving companies that try to impose surveillance in their workflow.
• Price: We often find people looking for free options, so all the apps on our list offer free plans. However, we also compare pricing plans and their affordability.

We rated each platform’s features in all four categories to give you a quick overview of what you can expect from them.

We split the list into two categories

We noticed the tools on our list all offer similar features, but they fall into two broad categories with different time tracking philosophies:

• Trust-based tools: These focus on employee privacy and autonomy and are designed to track time and productivity without monitoring. They try to capture productivity data without intruding on the natural workflow to help everyone in the organization improve their work-life balance and productivity.
• Tools with employee surveillance features: These include monitoring features like screenshots, activity monitoring through clicks and keyboard strokes, URL tracking, location tracking, and such. They try to force employee productivity and fundamentally function around distrust.

❗ DISCLAIMER:

Now, let’s go through an in-depth review of each Clockify alternative.

1. Toggl Track: Best overall Clockify alternative to maximize team productivity and build trust

Alari Aho and Krister Haav created Toggl in 2006 because they had difficulty accurately tracking their working hours to bill their clients. The time tracking software was renamed Toggl Track after launching Toggl Plan and Toggl Hire.

Toggl Track’s strength is intuitive time tracking with the Timeline feature, allowing quick adoption within any organization.

However, its main distinction is the most advanced Reports, Analytics, and Insights you can get. These allow you to clearly reveal your whole organization’s work habits without monitoring employees. And, when combined with cross-platform support, integrations, extensions, and the Toggl API, Toggl Track guarantees accurate time tracking is not a chore but a seamless part of your workplace culture.

Analytics, Insights, & Reporting: Toggl Track provides insights that impact your business growth better than Clockify

Similar to Clockify, Toggl Track also offers Reports.

The difference is that Toggl Track has deeper Insights to spot inefficiencies and boost productivity. Their Analytics features allow you to build fully customized reports and dashboards (unique to Toggl Track).

The Insights tool allows you to use the tracked time to get actionable insights into ROI by tracking work hours against clients, projects, and tasks.

But don’t take our word for it. Here’s how Candybox Marketing uses Toggl Track to sustain up to 40% growth YOY:

User experience

Clockify has straightforward manual timers, while Toggl Track takes time tracking off your mind with automatic tracking, time entry duplication, and a built-in Pomodoro timer.

Toggl Track is designed to take time tracking off your mind with five ways to track time:

1. Manual time entry,
2. Time recording via the browser extension,
3. Import Google Calendar or Outlook events,
4. The timer on the web, mobile, and desktop app,
5. Local and private automatic time recording on the desktop app (lets you choose what time to submit).

It also offers an interchangeable List, Calendar View, and Reminders to start or stop timers.

All these additional features are there so Toggl Track is the one adapting to your employees’ and company’s workflow, not the other way around.

Employee privacy

Clockify has employee surveillance features, while Toggl Track doesn’t because it’s made for teams with trust-based cultures.

Toggl originated as an in-house time tracker, where micromanagement has never been a part of the work culture. It doesn’t record location, keystrokes, screen, app, URL usage, or employee webcams.

It provides insights to improve productivity, work-life balance, and profitability.

While monitoring generates a lot of data, it encourages employees to cheat the system, so the data is skewed at best and doesn’t offer any value at worst. Instead, Toggl Track’s approach relies on trust and a sense of ownership over work and tracks team performance based on output, not input.

Toggl Track pricing

Toggl Track is free for freelancers and teams of up to 5, while its paid plans are flexible with your needs.

Toggl Track’s pricing starts with a free plan, which includes everything a freelancer, solo professional, or micro-team might need. In contrast, its paid plans target businesses and larger teams where advanced analytics and insights can significantly impact profitability and productivity.

Use Toggl Track if:

• You need an intuitive time tracker that works with your employees for maximum adoption
• You need powerful analytics to help you improve team productivity
• You value privacy and a trust-based work culture

2. Harvest: Best Clockify alternative for freelancers that need invoicing

Harvest was started in 2006 when Danny Wen and Shawn Liu “made the tool they couldn’t find: a well-designed, innovative application to track time and invoice.” Thousands of freelancers and remote teams globally now use it to track and understand their time.

Harvest vs. Clockify

Harvest is a compelling Clockify alternative, especially for those prioritizing invoicing and time tracking. It offers an intuitive user experience without surveillance features, making it a good choice for managing teams and projects.

It’s particularly well-suited for small businesses juggling multiple clients and various projects and freelancers needing a robust solution for time tracking, invoicing, and billing.

While its basic reporting features might not satisfy those looking for deep business insights (where a tool like Toggl Track might be more appropriate), it excels in simplicity and user-friendliness.

It offers customizable expense reports that can filter and sort data for more detailed oversight. But its focus is on basic functionalities like:

• Logging time
• Tracking expenses per project (as shown in the image below)
• Distinguishing between billable and non-billable work hours

However, what it lacks in analytics, it makes up for with its invoicing features.

Harvest is efficient for freelancers and those working with contractors, allowing them to convert timesheets into invoices and process payments directly within the app via PayPal or Stripe.

Despite its lack of automatic time tracking, it remains user-friendly.

Harvest is available as a web, desktop, mobile app, and Chrome extension. Additionally, it seamlessly fits into various workflows with 68 integrations ranging from project management tools like Asana, Trello, and Notion to payment processors.

Harvest pricing

Harvest’s pricing starts with a free plan, which supports one user and two projects.

The Pro plan, priced at $12 per user per month, unlocks all features, including unlimited projects and access to all integrations. It is accompanied by a generous 30-day trial.

There is also a Premium plan at $17.50 per user per month. This unlocks features such as profitability reporting, timesheet approvals, activity logs, custom reports and exports, SAML-based SSO, and custom reporting.

Use Harvest if:

• You’re a freelancer looking for a paid all-in-one online time tracking, invoicing, & billing solution
• You don’t need advanced time analytics features
• You’re a lean business with multiple contractors

3. MyHours: Best Clockify alternative for teams on a tight budget

Launched in 2002, MyHours founders believe that employee time tracking is communication, that no one likes being monitored, that the future belongs to autonomous teams, that the project budgets breed creativity, and that software should be fun to use while getting the job done.

MyHours vs. Clockify

MyHours caters to freelancers and small to mid-sized teams.

While Clockify offers essential time tracking features, MyHours focuses on simplicity and efficiency in managing timesheets and invoicing. MyHours’ best features include:

• Task-based or member-based rates
• Diverse billing options, such as flat project fees
• Ability track attendance with hourly rates

These key features ensure that businesses clearly understand the time spent on projects and tasks, making it easier to manage workloads and bill clients accurately.

MyHours lacks a calendar view, which might be a deal-breaker for those who prefer a more visual scheduling tool. 

However, it compensates by strongly emphasizing timesheets (its default view) and simplicity of use. In some cases, though, we found that certain tasks in MyHours require unnecessary steps. For example, you need to update your project (1), task (2), and expense (3) information every time you start the timer. 

This approach aligns well with its target audience of professionals and teams prioritizing straightforward time tracking over complex scheduling features.

MyHours offers reporting capabilities similar to Harvest, including a cost-profit breakdown, although it doesn’t support expense tracking. This limitation makes it a more specialized tool for those who want to monitor project profitability and use third-party tools for comprehensive financial management.

It also includes invoicing capabilities, providing a seamless transition from time tracking to billing clients but with simpler features than more all-encompassing solutions.

MyHours pricing

MyHours’s pricing consists of two plans. The Free plan is meant for up to 5 users and includes unlimited projects and clients with the ability to track time on projects and tasks, set billable rates, and generate detailed reports without any cost.

Meanwhile, the Pro plan costs $8 per user per month. It includes everything from the Free plan plus priority support, generating client invoices, and adding or editing time logs on behalf of team members. It also introduces an approval workflow.

Use MyHours if:

• You don’t need advanced analytics for productivity management
• Your business has a larger team and is on a tight budget
• You’re looking for a trust-based tool

4. TimeCamp: Clockify alternative with employee monitoring and an emphasis on expense tracking

TimeCamp, founded in 2008, evolved from its CEO’s class assignment, a note-taking app. It has since advanced into a smart and intuitive time management app, with the idea of not controlling employees but allowing them to focus on their assignments instead of glancing on the clock or wasting time manually filling out timesheets.

TimeCamp vs. Clockify

TimeCamp is a compelling alternative to Clockify, especially for those drawn to Clockify’s feature set but seeking a tool with a more intuitive interface and slightly more refined analytics.

At its core, TimeCamp mirrors Clockify’s strengths:

• Expense tracking
• Calendar view for scheduling
• Screenshotting for work progress monitoring

However, TimeCamp’s interface is simpler and more intuitive than Clockify’s, with a stronger contrast that makes navigation and task management smoother. This design philosophy also extends to its analytics capabilities, offering better analysis options than Clockify, making it easier for users to assess the profitability of their projects, tasks, and client engagements.

One notable caveat of TimeCamp is that timesheet approvals (a crucial feature for many businesses) are only available on the paid plan at $8.

The free plan also doesn’t include invoicing, which may limit its appeal to freelancers who often rely on integrated invoicing features to streamline their billing processes. 

TimeCamp pricing

TimeCamp offers four paid plans:

• The Starter plan: $3.99/user/month
• The Premium plan: $6.99/user/month
• The Ultimate plan: $10.99/user/month
• The Enterprise plan: custom pricing

Use TimeCamp if:

• You want slightly more analytics options than what Clockify offers
• You want employee performance monitoring features
• Your main concern with Clockify is the UI

5. Tmetric: Clockify alternative with surveillance features focused on task management

TMetric launched in 2016 as an internal productivity tool with over 40,000 users by the end of 2017. They aspire to be an app that smooths the work process for higher profits and more cohesive teams.

TMetric vs. Clockify

TMetric is an affordable alternative to Clockify for users and teams whose priorities are collaboration and project progress management.

While it mirrors Clockify with core features like reports, time off management, client management, and invoicing, TMetric is more streamlined. An example is its lack of a calendar view, a feature Clockify users might miss because of its convenience in visualizing schedules and allocating time.

However, TMetric compensates for this with a task list view — designed to enhance project management. 

This feature allows users to assign and manage tasks collaboratively within TMetric, allowing a more organized and streamlined workflow.

Regarding monitoring features, TMetric allows screenshots and includes app activity tracking to provide managers with work pattern insights, not just remote team accountability.

From a pricing standpoint, TMetric is an affordable option for startups and small businesses looking to optimize their budget without sacrificing much functionality compared to Clockify.

However, it’s important to note the lack of kiosk support for teams that prefer physical or kiosk-based time tracking solutions.

In essence, TMetric can be considered a “Clockify clone” that leans towards collaboration and project management.

TMetric pricing

TMetric has three pricing plans:

• Free
• Professional: $5/month/user
• Business: $7/month/user

Use TMetric if:

• You’re a startup or small business and need a streamlined time tracking system
• You want better task management features than what most time tracking apps offer
• You want employee surveillance features

6. Everhour: Clockify alternative with employee surveillance and a focus on project management

Everhour started as an idea in a small IT outsourcing company based on its own time-keeping needs. The company couldn’t find a time-tracking solution that fit its needs, so it made its own. Everhour is known for its best-in-class integrations with the most popular project management tools.

Everhour vs. Clockify

Everhour is an alternative to Clockify for users who want to integrate time tracking with other popular tools for project management.

Unlike Clockify, it has a native project timeline and integrated resource planning features. It includes key Clockify features like expense tracking, time off tracking, and invoicing capabilities. It also has monitoring capabilities with screenshot capture, a feature that aligns it more closely with Clockify’s functionality.

However, unlike Clockify, Everhour takes reporting further by offering customizable report options.

While advanced features might not revolutionize the reporting landscape, the ability to tailor reports to specific needs adds a layer of flexibility that can be invaluable for teams with unique reporting requirements.

Everhour pricing

In terms of pricing, Everhour stands neck and neck with Clockify. It offers two pricing plans:

• Free: Free up to 5 users
• Team: $10/user/month (min. five users required)

Use Everhour if:

• You’re using third-party project management software and want to integrate a time tracker
• You need a native project timeline and integrated resource planning features
• You want customizable reporting options

7. DeskTime: Clockify alternative with employee surveillance for identifying time sinks

DeskTime was born in 2011 out of the need to manage Draugiem Group’s many employees. The founders soon realized they had made a tool that could be useful to many other companies, and so the development began.

DeskTime vs. Clockify

DeskTime carves out its niche with robust shift scheduling and team management features, making it particularly appealing for teams needing to manage shifts and tracking productivity.

With options for away time and an “absence calendar,” DeskTime is not just about monitoring hours but ensuring that those hours align with the planned shifts and workforce availability.

This feature makes it an excellent tool for businesses that operate on a shift basis.

Like Clockify, DeskTime tracks app usage, offering insights into which applications and websites employees use during work hours.

However, DeskTime elevates this with an automatic time tracking feature that detects app, website, or page usage without manual input, streamlining the process and providing accurate data on how work time is distributed across different tasks and tools. It also offers fixed report dashboards that cover the usual metrics expected from a time tracking solution.

The necessity to use the desktop app for all interactions with DeskTime might limit its appeal to those who prefer more flexibility in accessing their time tracking tools.

DeskTime pricing

DeskTime has four pricing plans to choose from:

• Lite: Free
• Pro: $7/user/month
• Premium: $10/user/month
• Enterprise: $20/user/month

Use DeskTime if:

• You want to track exactly how your employees are spending their time
• You don’t need flexibility and are fine with only the desktop app
• You want to plan and schedule work shifts

So, what’s the best Clockify alternative for you?

Based on our tests and research, we listed the seven best alternatives for Clockify you can choose from.

They all offer free plans that are great for freelancers, solo professionals, and even small teams. Based on what most users seek in a Clockify alternative, you should consider four things when choosing your ideal time tracking tool:

1. Ease of use
2. Analytics
3. Employee privacy
4. Price

All Clockify alternatives take one of two approaches: trust-based time tracking or forced productivity with employee monitoring features. Choose from the ones that align with your company culture.

While options like Harvest and MyHours are great if you’re a lean business looking for a simple Clockify alternative with affordable pricing, choose Toggl Track if you’re a team or enterprise with a trust-based culture looking to empower employees and managers with in-depth insights while respecting privacy (or if you’re a freelancer looking for a great free time tracker).

Ready to turn time into money? Get started with Toggl Track’s 30-day free trial.

Online timers provide motivation, accountability, documentation, balance, and vital management data. Whether you manage yourself, work with a team, or lead a group, you can get the most from your efforts by keeping track of your most precious resource: productive time.

Better yet, managers and employees can find that elusive sweet spot — the perfect balance between underwork and overwork.

By studying your time tracking data, you can:

• Identify your most productive times-of-day for different task types
• Determine which team members work best solo, in small groups, and in large groups
• Reward hard work by noticing the “unsung” heroes in your ranks.
• Find a healthy work/life balance as a freelancer/solo employee

Now, without further ado, here are our top five free work timers.

5 best online timers to track time spent on work

1. Toggl Track

Choose Toggl Track if:

• You need a full range of time-tracking options.
• You manage a team and want an easy solution for tracking billable hours.
• You want to save your time-tracking data for later reference.
• You want to analyze your overall efficiency (or that of an entire organization) over the long term.

Toggl Track stands above the competition by saving all your tracked time in your cloud-based account. With Toggl Track, you can view your charts and timesheets — anytime, anywhere.

With Toggl Track’s robust, easy-to-use reporting suite, you can quickly analyze your data. Toggl Track makes tracking your team’s billable hours, mileage, and break times more straightforward. This clear and comprehensive interface allows you to organize your data by client, team member, project, workspace, and more.

With the easy-to-use Toggl Track dashboard, you can effortlessly switch between “Me” and “Team” views. You can check out your workflow over time at a glance and compare this data to previous periods. You’ll be astounded at how easily you can analyze data on Toggl Track and save your reports for instant reference.

2. Timer Tab Multifunctionality

Pick Timer Tab if you:

• Juggle various types of tasks
• Use timers, alarms, and stopwatches regularly
• Want multifunctionality without a lot of visual noise
• Perform both fixed and open-ended tasks

This online countdown timer lets you set a timer for routine tasks and track open-ended projects with a stopwatch. With this easy click-and-type interface, you can quickly set timers and alarms — even down to the second!

3. Online-Stopwatch Simple Countdown Timer

Pick this big, colorful online stopwatch if you want only countdown functionality. With this mouse-click (no keyboard) interface, online time-tracking is just a few clicks away.

By using countdown timers, you avoid wasting mental energy on non-essential tasks. For example, while answering emails, you don’t need to plan your next board meeting in the back of your mind. Countdown timers (and appropriate scheduling) help you stay on-task and avoid costly multi-tasking.

Giving yourself only a set amount of time to complete a project isn’t about pressuring yourself to work at an unhealthy pace and make many mistakes.

You’re setting yourself free by setting proper amounts of time for each task.

If you know you have 25 minutes to answer emails, you’ll naturally prioritize the most important ones. You’ll give yourself the time you need to interact with each person meaningfully — and provide a quality experience.

If you’ve given yourself the right amount of time for this task, you’ll float happily and easily through this task with a smile on your face. The value of scheduling and time-tracking lies in segmentation.

When working on a task, do your best by mentally setting aside all other concerns. You’ll be amazed by the results!

4. Tomato Timer – Breaks Down Your Workday

Tomato Timer is best for you if:

• Your work involves many routine tasks
• You want to eliminate procrastinate
• You want to increase your productivity

Tomato Timer was designed to work in concert with the  Pomodoro technique. This popular time-management method involves breaking up your workday into 25-minute chunks of productive time.

After completing each 25-minute chunk, take a short break and restart the cycle. That requires you to break up the workday into 25-minute productive time blocks. After 25 minutes, you get a short break, and the cycle starts again. This online timer will alert you when 25 minutes or the break time is up.

You’ll love this simple and elegant online Pomodoro timer. In reality, 25 minutes doesn’t feel like a long time – before you know it, this page will be telling you it’s time for a break.

Tomato Timer allows you to select short 5-minute or 10-minute Pomodoro technique break times (which countdown, just like your work sessions). This interface even features keyboard shortcuts, so you’ll spend more time working and less time playing with the app.

5. Toggl Track’s Free Full-Screen Work Timer

Nothing beats this no-nonsense online timer for simplicity and visual appeal. Bookmark this page in your browser to create a one-click timer tab. Solo workers and freelancers use stopwatch timers to stay honest with themselves about their different types of work.

For example, if you stop working on a graphic design project to answer an email from another client, is this really on-task work?

Let’s be real here – you probably switch from task to task without noticing. I’ll own this one: as a freelance writer, I flit between client relations, social interactions, research, and actual writing work many times throughout my work time in the café.

You probably do the same — don’t you?

Carve out more productive work time by acknowledging the amount of time you spend on non-essential tasks (and social interludes).

People who manage themselves (whether in the office, the café, or the home office) can use simple stopwatch apps to track their time on various tasks.

This technique also works well for students balancing their study time between more- and less-enjoyable classes/subjects.

This simple and free online timer is only the tip of the Toggl Track iceberg. For example, click the links at the bottom of the page to integrate Toggl Track’s timer with Trello. Toggl Track offers 100+ integrations with popular platforms like Drupal, Google Calendar, GitHub, Beeminder, and many more!

Everhour and Toggl Track are time management tools with features that boost team performance and improve productivity. However, after comparing them side-by-side, we realized each approaches things differently.

Everhour is a time tracking app that integrates with third-party project management platforms. It comes with a native project timeline and resource planning tools, customizable reports, and employee monitoring features like screenshots.

Everhour is an excellent option for strict employers because it gives an over-the-shoulder perspective of every employee’s activity. However, some employers believe surveillance erodes trust and may negatively impact team culture.

On the other hand, Toggl Track is known for its anti-surveillance policy. Privacy is deep-rooted in its philosophy, so it doesn’t support screenshots or other employee monitoring features.  

Toggl Track’s strengths lay in its intuitive time tracking with the Timeline feature, timer mode, and manual time entry, which help everyone track time effortlessly. The goal is to reveal work habits, assess performance, and boost productivity, rather than micromanage.

This, combined with advanced Reports, Analytics, and Insights, makes Toggl a powerful tool for managers and decision-makers who want to improve work-life balance, productivity, and profitability in a trust-based environment. 

To better understand the differences between Everhour vs Toggl Track, we will take a closer look at how they stack up in the following areas: 

• Time tracking 
• Project and team management 
• Analytics, reporting, and insights
• Employee monitoring
• Pricing 

The comparison summary below also touches on billing hours, invoices, integrations, and user experience. Our goal is to give you a solid picture of each tool’s strengths and weaknesses so you can choose the right one. 

Before we go in-depth, here’s a quick summary of our findings:

Comparison Summary: Everhour vs Toggl Track

What is Everhour?

“Time tracking software with hassle-free integrations”👩‍💻

Everhour is a team-oriented time tracking software launched in 2015 by Weavora Consulting LLC, a web development company from Belarus. It was founded on the idea that people need an easy and intuitive time tracking app, and too many features disrupt that balance. 

That might be why the software is so heavy on integrating and fitting smoothly into the workflows of the most popular project management tools in a way that users feel like Everhour is a built-in function.

Everhour is equipped with a Resource Planner for assigning tasks, Reports for creating custom dashboards, and a Team page to monitor team members’ work day. However, its best feature remains its ability to natively integrate with Trello, Asana, Basecamp, Pivotal, GitHub, ClickUp, and Jira. 

Overall, Everhour is an excellent time tracking tool for small and large teams needing a streamlined solution that works seamlessly with their existing project management toolkit. 

What is Toggl Track?

“An all-in-one time expert” 🕙👨‍💻

Toggl was created in 2006 by Alari Aho and Krister Haav as a time tracking tool. They later expanded their selection to two more tools: Toggl Plan and Toggl Hire, and the time tracking software was renamed Toggl Track.

Toggl Track embodies a philosophy of time tracking for self-reflection and career growth. Therefore, it prioritizes ease of use, giving users the flexibility to design their time tracking workflows however they want.

Toggl’s key features include an Insights hub to spot data trends and time sinks, an Autotracker to automate the time tracking process, an Analytics hub to visualize data with custom dashboards, and an Organization hub for tracking projects and managing teams. 

Overall, Toggl Track works best for freelancers who want a free time tracking solution or teams of any size that need a seamless time tracking tool for team-wide adoption. Its ideal use case is in large teams because of the powerful analytics features that help boost productivity and profitability.

Everhour vs Toggl: Time Tracking

In a nutshell, Toggl’s time tracking toolset is more robust than Everhour’s. It offers more ways to track time and prioritizes ease of use.

Everhour works best with its clock-in and clock-out timer, while Toggl’s Timeline feature makes time tracking effortless. 

Everhour’s Time Clock App is built around a clock-in and clock-out feature that employees can use to record their work hours without logging time on specific tasks.

It works with a simple start/stop button and a task hub that admins can use to assign time to tasks. 

The Time Clock App also supports screenshots and provides a Timecard page managers can use to edit and adjust reported time entries. 

On the other hand, Toggl Track’s Timer Mode also offers a clock-in and clock-out functionality with a start/stop timer that employees can use to keep track of their day. 

However, Toggl really shines with its Timeline feature, which lets you automatically record your computer activity—every website and program you view for over 10 seconds—without taking intrusive screenshots. 

Instead of screenshots, Toggl’s Activity Timeline shows you a graph of your recorded work with vertical lines that represent a recorded Timeline for a period, and bars underneath showing the time entries you logged. 

All recorded activities are saved locally on your computer and are not shared with anyone unless you decide to use them as time entries on Toggl Track.

Moving to views, Everhour complements the time tracking process with its List, Timesheets, and Screenshot views. Plus, a Timeline hub for project management offering Kanban boards and multiple widgets. 

Toggl, on the other hand, supports extra visualizations like Activity Timelines, Calendar View, weekly and daily project breakdowns, and a List View that supports bulk editing. There’s also a Focus Mode option on Toggl’s web app for time tracking without clutter.  

Both tools allow users to manually add and edit time entries, offer browser extensions, and support Google Calendar integration. However, they differ in how they track time with a few features.

Along with the previously mentioned, there are many other ways to track time on Toggl Track, which include:

• an Outlook and Google calendar import option for creating or starting time entries based on calendar events,
• a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox to track time in your favorite web tools wherever you are on the web,
• an in-app Pomodoro Timer (more on this in the next section),
• and Manual Mode for manual time entry. 

And similar to Toggl, additional ways to track time on Everhour include: 

• an integration with Outlook, iCloud, and Google Calendar to sync events as time entries,
• a browser extension to natively embed time tracking controls inside other tools,
• a web-based Pomodoro timer,
• and manual time entries. 

There are a handful of subtle differences between these time tracking apps. 

Everhour, for one, allows you to add a note to its Timer, which helps project managers and team members share relevant info about the time entry. 

Meanwhile, Toggl’s unique Timer additions include the “Split time entries” and “Add to favorite” features, which help organize the time entries. 

Toggl provides an Autotracker with customizable auto-tracking rules. Everhour isn’t as big on automation. 

Toggl takes time management a step further by offering an auto tracker to automate the time tracking process. 

The Autotracker allows users to set auto-tracking rules with specific triggers, eliminating the need to use the start/stop button each time they want to track activities. 

Everhour, on the other hand, doesn’t offer a flexible automation sequence and doesn’t support auto-tracking rules. 

Automation that is available on Everhour happens on each user’s profile page. 

Users can set automation preferences to automate clock-ins and clock-outs based on the following criteria:

• “Active”: when the computer is on,
• “Idle”: when the computer is turned on, but there has been no activity for some time,
• and “Locked”: when your computer is locked, turned off, or goes into sleep mode. 

Everhour vs Toggl: Team and Project Management 

In a nutshell, Everhour is a great choice for managers who want to plan and monitor how team members spend time, while Toggl Track is a better choice for tracking employee work hours and project profitability and it leaves project planning to Toggl Plan.

Everhour’s Team page helps managers monitor employees’ processes, while Toggl’s Organization hub helps admins manage how team members spend time. 

Everhour’s Team page comprises features that can help busy managers eliminate the chore of team management. It shows admins their team’s process so they can adjust the composition of each member as needed. 

Some core features include: 

• a Timers page that highlights what your team is working on,
• a Timesheet page that provides a structured picture of a member’s tracked time for a week, 
• a Timecard page displaying when a user started their workday, had breaks, and finished their work, 
• and a Time Off page showing vacations, sick leaves, and other PTO types.

On the other hand, team management in Toggl Track revolves around its Organization hub. 

This hub provides data on all the Groups and Workspaces within your organization, allowing you to effectively oversee your teams. 

From each user’s worked hours and billable rate to time entries and subscriptions, it helps busy admins stay on top of team members’ activities. 

Toggl’s Organization Hub also serves as a one-stop for admins who want to grant team members seamless access to the data they need to do their best work. 

Everhour offers a Timeline and Resource Planner that admins can use to build project roadmaps and track each employee’s capacity.

Everhour’s Timeline feature allows admins to build project roadmaps and manage team members’ workloads by providing a detailed calendar of all past and future team assignments. 

Within Everhour’s Timeline hub, you can: 

• create assignments,
• group time entries by Member and Project,
• navigate between days, weeks, and months, 
• and apply different filters to enable planned time.

There’s also a Resource Planner page that highlights who is busy, overworked, or free to take on new projects, so you can speedily create new assignments for team members. 

The Resource Planner also gives admins a vivid picture of how much time was originally planned for a particular project or client budget compared to the actual time spent.

Toggl’s Project Dashboard offers insights admins can use to predict timelines and budgets, track progress, and spot potential bottlenecks.

Unlike Everhour’s Timeline and Resource Planner features, which focus on helping busy managers plan work, Toggl’s Project Dashboard helps data-savvy admins track project performance and assess profitability.

It has multiple filters that busy admins can use to get a bird’s-eye view of where their team is spending time, so they can reshuffle work as needed. 

And for all the decision-makers in need of detailed performance data, clicking on any project on your Project Dashboard will lead you to the Forecasting chart. 

This chart provides trendline graphs and historical insights on billable and non-billable tasks and projects so admins can make better cost projections, efficiently allocate resources, and set realistic budgets. 

Everhour supports automatic data synchronization for selected task management tools, while Toggl Track aids with a dedicated task management product. 

Everhour and Toggl Track natively integrate with task management tools like Trello, Asana, Basecamp, Pivotal, GitHub, ClickUp, and JIRA. 

The key difference is that Everhour goes a bit further with integration by providing more advanced options for certain task management tools. 

For example, Everhour integrates with project management tools like Asana, Jira, and Basecamp, like it’s a built-in function, allowing admins to log or edit time entries manually within these third-party tools.

Toggl Track, on the other hand, integrates with these tools but not as a built-in function that might fully support manual edits across tools. 

That’s because Toggl has its dedicated product for task management: Toggl Plan. 

It’s a simple, visual way for admins and managers to balance team capacity and manage tasks — priced at $9/user/mo. Toggl Plan automatically integrates with your Toggl Track workspace and offers every project and resource planning functionality you’ll find in Everhour and more.

Everhour vs Toggl: Reports, Insights, and Analytics

In a nutshell, Toggl and Everhour both allow custom reports but Toggl Track offers better productivity and profitability insights.

Toggl Track offers Reports and Insights features that give admins a deeper view of what is driving team and project profitability.

Toggl’s Reports house summaries, detailed analyses, and weekly overviews of workspace activities. 

• The Summary Report comprises colorful charts and multiple filters admins can use to create one-click reports to visualize employee productivity and timesheets. 
• The Detailed Report shows each team member’s detailed time log, allowing admins to bulk edit, export, and print.  
• The Weekly Report gives admins an overview of the time tracked during one specific week.

In addition to the Reports feature, Toggl offers an Insights feature, designed to inform admins about data trends and the profitability of each project.

The Insights allow admins to filter for data such as project profitability, including income vs expense reports, and estimated vs actual comparisons.

Everhour offers a Report hub with multiple layouts and columns you can customize to track metrics and insights tailored to your needs.  

Unlike Toggl, Everhour’s Report hub doesn’t support one-click summaries. And there’s no such feature as Insights that would help admins get a comprehensive view of the team’s profitability. 

However, Everhour does offer a Home page with summary dashboards that aggregate and allow admins to see key team metrics quickly. The page consists of 6 widgets. 

Then there’s also the Report hub, built around layouts, filters, groups, conditions, and drag-and-drop columns. You can tweak the data layout to create editable report dashboards displaying quantitative metrics with insights tailored to your needs.

Some of the key metrics you can track and generate custom reports on include: 

• budget remains,
• estimated profits,
• expense tracking, 
• labor cost, 
• complexity,
• and invoiced time.

Everhour’s Report hub also supports automatic synchronization with all integrated projects and tasks, guaranteeing real-time updates. The generated reports are downloadable as PDF, CSV, or Excel files.  

Toggl also has an Analytics feature similar to Everhour’s Report hub, but it takes timesheet reporting a step further with its Timesheet Approval feature. 

Custom reports can also be created on Toggl. You just need to visit the Analytics hub. 

Toggl’s Analytics feature comprises a combination of customizable charts and detailed dashboards you can create using those charts. Like Everhour’s custom reports, Toggl’s Analytics feature allows admins to build custom dashboards showing real-time insights into team progress, projects, and resources.

Then there’s Toggl’s Timesheet Approval feature, which helps admins set up an approval workflow for team members. The feature makes it effortless for admins to check team members’ tracked time for approval or rejection, guaranteeing the validity of billed invoices. 

Everhour vs Toggl: Employee Monitoring

In a nutshell, Everhour takes screenshots of employees’ work activities, meanwhile, Toggl has a strict no-surveillance policy.

Everhour records employees’ screen activities and takes screenshots. 

Everhour has a Screenshots feature that lets admins monitor page visits and other team members’ activities to prove they are working on a task for which they report hours.

To authorize access to the Screenshot feature, you’d have to download Everhour’s desktop app and use the API on your profile page.

Each screenshot Everhour takes shows the exact time it was taken according to the users’ time format, allowing admins to track employees who are stalling on tasks. 

However, some employees may view this approach as a privacy issue. It can lead to micromanagement and a lack of trust among team members.

Toggl is anti-surveillance and doesn’t support screenshots. 

Toggl doesn’t support employee surveillance because it originated as an in-house time tracker in a work culture built to foster trust. So, any feature that can eventually lead to micromanagement is a no-go. 

It doesn’t monitor location, keystrokes, screen, or employee webcams on the premise that while employee surveillance might provide a lot of information on an employee’s work ethic, it also generates a lot of noise, which dilutes the usefulness of the data. 

Instead, Toggl provides useful insights for improving workspace productivity and profitability. 

It also provides a Timeline feature that allows users to record their computer activity without taking intrusive screenshots. The data is entirely private to them until they want to upload it as time entries to their Toggl Track workspace. 

Everhour vs Toggl: Pricing

In a nutshell, Both tools’ paid plans start at $10/user/mo, but Toggl provides a better bargain because it offers more plans with more features.

Both tools offer free plans that accommodate up to five users, but Toggl Track takes the lead with its 30-day trial period. 

Everhour’s free plan can help keep track of unlimited projects and give you an at-a-glance overview of team members’ performance with its custom reports. It also allows integration with multiple websites and supports a 14-day trial period on its paid plans. 

Toggl’s free plan, on the other hand, is just as robust as Everhour but has more features. Free users can enjoy an in-app Pomodoro Timer and inactive data storage for up to six months. Also, new users can opt for a 30-day trial period to try out all the premium features. 

But like Everhour, Toggl Track’s free plan is limited to a maximum of five users. 

Everhour’s one-size-fits-all paid plan is suitable for freelancers and mid-size businesses.

Everhour’s single plan for Teams is priced at $10/user/mo. The Teams plan’s core features include: 

• automatic and manual time tracking, 
• project and task management features,
• native integrations, 
• summary emails, 
• custom access level management,
• time audits, 
• expenses and invoices, 
• detailed custom reports,
• Zapier and Jira sync, and more.

Everhour doesn’t have a custom or enterprise plan for large businesses. However, opting for the yearly plan grants you a 15% discount. 

Toggl has a more flexible paid plan structure that is suitable for diverse creative needs. 

Unlike Everhour, Toggl offers three paid plans. 

Its Starter plan is the most affordable, priced at $9/user/mo. This plan serves freelancers and small teams that want to track billable rates, need pre-populated project templates, or require Outlook calendar integration. 

Next up is the Premium plan, priced at $18/user/mo. It’s a powerful option for agencies, medium-sized businesses, and large companies that want to create fixed-fee projects, audit time logs, schedule reports via email, or track team labor costs. 

And lastly, the Enterprise plan is a suitable choice for larger companies that need to manage multiple workspaces under one organization. Get in touch with Toggl’s team for pricing. 

Toggl’s paid plans come with a 10% discount on yearly subscriptions. 

Everhour vs Toggl: Pros and Cons

Final Verdict: Everhour vs Toggl Track

In a nutshell, Everhour has an advantage as a built-in time tracker for your favorite project management tool, meanwhile, Toggl works best as a standalone time tracking solution for improving productivity.

Overall, both tools can help you track project progress and budget, separate billable and non-billable hours to create accurate invoices and manage remote teams. However, at their core, they differ in their use cases and the audience they serve. 

Toggl is an ideal choice for freelancers looking for an all-in-one time management solution, as well as large and small teams that value employee privacy and want to maximize profits. Everhour, on the other hand, works best for mid-sized and small businesses that want to plan work and monitor employee performance closely. 

Use Everhour if:

• You are managing a small or mid-size team. 
• You use project management tools like Asana, Jira, and Basecamp and want a time tracker that integrates like a built-in functionality. 
• You prioritize screen monitoring and want a tool that can help record employees’ screen activities. 

Use Toggl Track if:

• You are a freelancer or an admin managing a large team or multiple departments.
• You want a tool that can help automate the time tracking process and allow you to do more in less time.
• You want an all-in-one time tracking solution offering detailed insight into what’s driving profitability and what isn’t.

Click here to get started with Toggl Track!

Note: Still looking for the best time tracker for individual or organization-wide needs? We also compared Clockify vs Toggl Track, Harvest vs Toggl, Timely vs Toggl, and several other employee time tracking software. 

Hiring with your heart or gut feeling isn’t viable anymore. It’s incredibly inefficient and a surefire way to lead to a bad hire. And when you hire badly, often, that person will end up leaving (or being let go) quickly, and then you’ll be right back where you started.

One way to improve the accuracy of your hiring hit rate is by designing and using a candidate scorecard for interviews, so your team can support their hiring decisions with real, quantitative data. This guide explores how these interview scorecards save you time and effort in the long run, all the while delivering smarter insights to support your hiring decisions.

TL;DR — Key Takeaways

• An interview scorecard is a rating system for objectively assessing candidates’ skills. It increases the fairness of interviews and provides data-driven insight that supports better hiring decisions.
  
• But there are even more benefits — reducing unconscious bias, spotting top talent faster, and ultimately moving the right candidates through your recruiting funnel.
  
• We also unpack the best way to create and use interview scorecards to keep the hiring team focused and gain the most from an initial screening interview with a candidate.
  
• Combining practical HR tools, like an interview scorecard template, with other resources like job task analyses and skills assessments will help your team save valuable time and effort.
  
• If you’re looking for simple, drag-and-drop skills assessments to add to your toolkit, Toggl Hire has just what you need for fast, enjoyable candidate screening, assessment, and hiring.

What is a candidate scorecard for interviews?

A candidate scorecard is a rating scale interviewers use to score a candidate on how well they match the job requirements for a particular role. Each person conducting the interview completes the same hiring scorecard by rating the candidate’s hard skills and soft skills listed as categories on the card.

With the entire panel rating each candidate on the same points and collaborating after each interview on their findings, it supports a more objective and fair hiring process.

People are biased, emotional, and inconsistent when interviewing and, as a result, decades of industrial psychology research has found, the validity or predictive power of a typical unstructured job interview is around 20%, meaning that only one in five interviews increases the baseline odds that a hired candidate will be successful.

Ben Dattner | HBR

These interview score sheets (as they’re also called) are often used in structured interviews, along with other tools, such as a set of fixed interview questions. Why? Because they also produce quantitative data on candidates, which is the basis of structured interviewing.

A candidate scorecard can help hiring teams shortlist candidate profiles faster and more objectively.

When to use a candidate scorecard in interviews

Interview scorecards can be very helpful if you’re dealing with broad, competitive roles. For instance, a major accounting firm with a large graduate program will have thousands of applicants to screen and assess. Using a scorecard can help the selection team filter out the best candidates faster.

Another instance where interview scorecards are helpful is as a pre-screening tool for a large pool of potential talent. For example, if you were reviewing the massive flood of tech talent out there from the recent mass layoffs.

Interview scorecards can help evaluate candidates who seem like a good match for your company. They employ a quantitative approach to selection that reduces unfair hiring practices.

Since “95% of employers reported making a bad hire in the last year,” tools like scorecards are essential for reducing bias.

Benefits of using an interview scorecard in the hiring process

Today’s hiring teams need to use data to continually improve the hiring process and relevant metrics, such as time to hire. And that’s why it’s so important to work with quantitative data wherever possible (rather than going on gut feelings). A hiring scorecard is a valuable source of quantitative data on potential candidates.

For instance, hiring managers can use the scorecard info to predict whether candidates will be a good fit and compare that data with the number of candidates that are actually successful in a role. We love what executive coach Ben Dattner shares about this in the Harvard Business Review:

By using a quantitative interview scorecard to evaluate the qualifications and suitability of job candidates, and by comparing interview-based predictions with subsequent performance on the job, it’s possible to boost your interview hit rate and your organization’s return on human capital investment over time.

Ben Dattner | HBR

Interview scorecards help an organization make better hiring decisions. But the benefits don’t stop there.

• Interview scorecards can help a company achieve better success in hiring with smarter hiring decisions.
• More data to compare prospective candidates, especially when combined with other data on candidates, such as insights from pre-employment skills tests
• Easier to identify top talent as all applicants are compared by the same criteria
• Avoid unconscious bias by collaborating with other interviewers and sticking to an agreed-upon scoring method
• Together with job task analyses, interview scorecards can reduce any unrealistic job expectations that cause open positions to remain unfilled for a long time
• Deliver standardized, fair interviews across all candidates by sticking to scorecard details
• Remember candidates more clearly with specific notes on their skills and abilities

Potential disadvantages or minefields to avoid

Interviewers must remember to compare candidates to the skills required for the role rather than compare them against each other. Darren Bush, Global Talent Acquisition Lead at Ericsson, explains,

“You have two candidates in the final round. How do you evaluate the candidates and make the final decision? The right thing to do is compare the candidates against the role. But being human, instinctively, you can’t help but compare the candidates. Our brains are naturally wired to make comparative judgments. However, there are arguments against doing that:

• It can amplify unconscious biases
• It can lead to overlooking critical role-specific requirements
• It may introduce irrelevant factors into the decision-making process.”

To get around this, Bush recommends the importance of understanding what the specific role requirements are before the interview process begins, to avoid managers introducing new criteria that specifically favor one candidate over another.

Another thing to ensure is that your candidates are at ease while using your scorecards. HR practitioners have learned from conducting video meetings and interviews that eye contact is always important. So, don’t just read the scorecard and take notes without making eye contact with the candidate.

Another myth is that scorecards make the interview rigid. They don’t have to. Because it’s ok to stray beyond the scorecard questions. So long as you’re gathering important information on a candidate and not wasting everybody’s time, keep doing what you’re doing!

Word of caution! Relying solely on interviews to screen and shortlist candidates can lead to bad hires. What’s more, it may get boring sticking to the same questions for a bunch of candidate interviews in a row.

But remember, you’re gathering helpful intel, so don’t let the applicant think you’re bored. Since you’re gathering the same type of info for each candidate, you can analyze that data and make smarter, data-driven hiring decisions — and that’s cool!

How to design and use a candidate scorecard in the interview process

If you design a scorecard that’s easy to use and replicate for other roles, you’ll be helping your team deliver fast, fair interviews. Let’s explore how to get started.

#1. Create a new scorecard in a spreadsheet or table

It’s a good idea to create a new interview scorecard for each job your team needs to fill so it’s easier to manage, refer to quickly, and collaborate with your colleagues.

Here’s how to create a basic scorecard template.

• Create four columns in your spreadsheet or table.
• Label the first column ‘Category of information’, the second column label will be ‘Candidate’s response’, the third column ‘Numerical rating’, and the fourth ‘Comments’
• Of course, you’ll also need to include basic data on the form, such as the candidate’s name, the date, and the job title
• And that’s it for your basic template…(or just use our free template)!

Note on the numerical rating: You’ll be scoring each item, such as level of experience, on a scale of 1-5 (or 1-10 if you need a more detailed breakdown to differentiate candidates). Plus, you’ll also need to get everyone to agree on what each score represents. For instance, a score of 1 out of 5 is a candidate answer that missed the mark altogether. These ratings show the interviewer how well a candidate’s personality, qualifications, and experience suit the role specs.

Who’s involved at this stage? The hiring manager can create the framework for the interview scorecard template.

#2. Decide what categories and rankings to include

Now you have the basic template, it’s time to add some juicy filling into that pie crust — and populate your template with relevant categories.

The Harvard Business Review suggests these broad criteria:

• Technical ability
• Leadership skills
• Interpersonal/collaboration skills
• Organizational skills

Who’s involved at this stage? The hiring manager and a person who oversees the specific role to input on the broader criteria.

#3. Create interview questions that address all the hard and soft skills

With your categories chosen, you can now decide what specific questions you need to ask to get a clear picture of the soft and hard skills of the potential new hire.

• Identify the skills: You could use the data you gathered through performing job task analyses to help you identify or verify the essential skills for the position. Then, determine what hard, soft, and other role-specific skills are necessary.
• Design the questions: Craft questions that will get candidates to share relevant information about their skills and experience using the data from your job task analysis and job descriptions.

For example, “Tell us about your greatest achievement as a social media manager.”

Who’s involved at this stage? The hiring manager and the person overseeing the role break down the essential skills for success in the role.

#4. Calculate the score

Once you’ve conducted the interview and each team member has filled out the scorecard, you’ll calculate each applicant’s total score.

Make sure you’re all in agreement about what each rating number means. For instance, 4 out 5 means they answered the question well and in a way that clearly demonstrated their experience or expertise.

Who’s involved at this stage? All interviewers. You’ll be collaborating to reach an agreement on who the top candidate is — based on the data and insight from your scorecards.

#5. Shortlist candidates with Toggl Hire

The final step, and our favorite (of course) to ensure you’re making the right choice—is to perform skills tests to gain more quantitative data on their relevant skills and experience. That way, you boost the chances of selecting a quality candidate that’s a good cultural fit for your company, and likely to succeed in the long run.

Hire fairly using interview scorecards

Interview scorecards are a super helpful tool to include in your screening process.

They give you solid data to use when selecting candidates, helping your team work smarter (and hopefully argue less 😉!). Scorecards also help you transform subjective impressions into objective data, making it easier to compare candidates on a level playing field and select the best fit for your team.

Toggl Hire enhances this process even further by integrating skills tests and a seamless candidate pipeline directly within our hiring software, simplifying the note-taking and evaluation process. With Toggl Hire’s all-in-one applicant tracking system, you can effortlessly track candidate performance, marrying quantitative data with qualitative insights to enhance your decision-making.

Ready to revolutionize your hiring process with an exceptional candidate experience? Sign up for a free account with Toggl Hire today and experience the power of efficient, data-driven candidate evaluations.

In a competitive job market, every candidate can use a boost. While there are several ways for someone to stand out during the application process, a great letter of recommendation is one of the best ways for them to have someone else highlight their skills and achievements.

Employers check an average of three references per candidate and often seek third-party verification before proceeding with an applicant. A strong letter of recommendation could make or break someone’s chances of landing the job. These letters can be career-defining for applicants, transforming potential hires into top contenders.

If you’ve ever wondered how to craft a standout recommendation letter that truly makes an impact, you’re in the right place. We’ve loaded this quick guide with expert tips and letter of recommendation samples to help you get started.

TL;DR — Key Takeaways

• Recommendation letters often offer valuable insights into a candidate’s skills and personal qualities, verifying their potential and giving them an edge in the hiring process.
• While reference letters are particularly impactful for senior roles, they may be less crucial for entry-level positions where skills tests offer more insight into their abilities to perform well on the job.
• A solid recommendation letter should have a header, introduction, main body, conclusion, and signature, maintaining a professional yet warm tone to endorse the candidate effectively.
• When crafting your own reference letter, use the job description as a guide for what to include, covering skills, projects, qualifications, and personality traits.
• Every job candidate starts somewhere. High school and graduate school applicants also lean heavily on letters of recommendation to advance them to the next step in their education and prepare them for their future careers.
• Reference letters are most effective when integrated into a smooth hiring process, enhancing the employer’s brand. Toggl Hire’s ATS helps you track skills tests, interviews, and CVs seamlessly.

What’s the purpose of a recommendation letter?

To…recommend a candidate (or student). Oh, beyond that? Recommendation letters provide credible insights about a candidate’s skills, personality, and achievements. They help employers assess a candidate’s suitability for a job by highlighting their strengths, achievements, and potential contributions to the team.

Hiring managers usually ask for letters of recommendation after they’ve shortlisted job applicants and require verification of candidate credentials. They’re almost always private, allowing letter writers to offer a candid and subjective assessment.

Not all positions require a letter of recommendation. As a rule, they’re mostly needed for:

• Senior roles where experience and leadership skills are essential
• Roles where honesty and reliability are critical, such as those involving money or confidential documents

Letters of recommendation are rarely required for entry-level positions. However, a start-up looking to assess cultural fit and skills when building a new team, for example, could be an exception to the rule. Letters of recommendation are also useful for students hoping to secure college or grad school places as the next step on their chosen career path.

Letters of recommendation can be useful in different ways:

• For candidates, letters provide accurate representations of their abilities. A compelling recommendation letter could give them an edge when competition is fierce.

• Potential employers benefit from third-party opinions. This makes it easier to decide whether candidates meet role requirements.

• A previous employer asked to write a letter of recommendation can help maintain a good relationship with promising ex-employees. A good letter can also help build a positive brand.

How to format a letter of recommendation

Well, for starters, we don’t recommend using AI to compose and structure a recommendation letter, as they can vary greatly depending on which role the person is applying for and what skills are most important to success in that role.

They’re also highly personal, and it would look pretty darn suspicious if the letter sounded like it was written by Chat-GPT.

Despite these variations, the format remains fairly consistent.

The tone should always be professional and concise, avoiding slang or jokes. These letters validate candidates’ skills and achievements and often comment on their potential in a new role. While it’s okay to throw in an anecdote or two, now’s not the time to try and be funny.

Recommendation letters generally also follow a standard format. The following core elements are almost always present.

Header

The header is the first thing a reader sees, so it’s important to get this right.

Write the date of writing and the recipient’s address. Add your professional address to enable return mail if necessary (whether that’s a physical or email address). Double-check all of these details and present them professionally. Errors here ruin the tone of the letter before recipients read a word.

Greeting and introduction

Next comes the salutation or greeting. As this is a professional letter, a formal tone is required.

Greetings like “Hi there” aren’t appropriate. If you have the full contact information, use “Dear [recipient’s name].” If you’re unsure who you’re addressing, write “To Whom It May Concern” (and pay attention to capitalization.)

It’s generally better to personalize the greeting to create a human connection. Personalization matters in a process that can feel a bit robotic. Feel free to ask the candidate for more information about the recipient to ensure it’s addressed to the right person.

After the greeting, write a short introduction. Introduce yourself and your connection to the candidate. Re-stating the purpose of the letter is also a good idea. Something like “I can confidently recommend [X] for the role of [Y]” immediately creates a positive impression.

Body paragraph

The next section is critically important, as it forms the bulk of the letter and explains:

• The candidate’s qualifications (if relevant)
• Achievements in a professional setting
• Personal qualities that make the candidate a valuable asset

Every sentence should relate to the role in question. If the candidate is a former employee, describe how their experience fits the role. Use specific examples to illustrate the candidate’s skills and potential.

When a candidate moves from a junior to a senior position, it’s okay to be subjective. Think about how they’ve demonstrated leadership abilities. Running project sub-teams or stepping up to fill staff absences are both good examples.

Comparative assessment (optional)

This section is optional but can help when potential employers have plenty of choices. If the role is particularly competitive, explain how the candidate stands out from their peers.

For example, the candidate may have an outstanding work ethic or an exceptional thirst for knowledge. They may stand out for their concentration and focus under pressure. Or they may be a model colleague, defusing tensions and managing disagreements.

Closing statement

It’s challenging to know how to close a recommendation letter, but generally, you should end on a high note, with a positive but professionally-worded candidate endorsement.

The endorsement summarizes points made earlier about the candidate’s strengths and qualifications. Mention why the applicant fits the employer’s team. Stress your confidence that the candidate will perform well in the advertised role (not in the general workplace).

Invite the reader to contact you for further information. Employers may desire clarification before they make a final decision.

Signature

Finally, the letter should end with a formal closing and a signature. If you don’t know the recipient, “Yours” or “Best” are fine as a common letter of recommendation closing. However, “Sincerely” is generally acceptable. Definitely don’t go with “Peace out” (you’d be surprised…).

After that, sign and print the letter of recommendation. Typing your name is fine if you choose a digital format. Remember to include your professional title underneath the signature.

Tips for writing a strong recommendation letter

Mastering the structure above is fairly simple, but without care and attention, it’s easy to misjudge the tone or leave out important content. The following five tips show you how to write a recommendation letter so you use the perfect wording and structure every time.

Understand the purpose of the reference letter

Before writing anything, look at the job description and job title. Understand the required skills, tasks connected to the role, and cultural qualities suitable candidates need. This information influences your content and tone. Don’t start writing a candidate recommendation without thinking it through.

Think about the person asking for the recommendation

Keep the candidate in mind when writing a letter of recommendation. List achievements, focusing on what made your colleague a good team member. Pick out some unique qualities that set the candidate apart from run-of-the-mill applicants. For example, perhaps some interesting extracurricular activities or volunteer work they’re involved in.

Start with a reference letter template

Save time by using a pre-written letter of recommendation template. Below, you’ll find an expertly created template (along with some sample letters). Fill in the gaps with information based on your former employee and the role in question.

Edit to personalize and highlight the right skills

Before using a letter of recommendation template, check that it meets your requirements. For instance, you may want an extended section on different projects and relevant skills. Or you may need content on academic performance if you are a teacher or university professor.

Specific examples of recommendation letters

Letters of recommendation are not creative writing exercises. However, writing an effective letter requires care to ensure they fit their context. They must suit a particular role and never come across as generic.

If that sounds tricky, we’ve created five exemplary recommendation sample letters for different situations to use as guidance the next time a student or ex-employee asks for help.

1. A high school student requiring a recommendation to support their college application

Dear [Recommendation Recipient]

It is my pleasure to recommend [Student’s Name] for admission to [College/University name.] As their AP biology teacher and mentor in our Science Research Program, I have been consistently impressed by their intellectual curiosity, leadership, and determination.

In class, [Student’s Name] has excelled, frequently engaging with concepts that go far beyond the scope of the curriculum. Their research on the impact of microplastics on freshwater ecosystems earned first place at our regional science fair, showcasing their critical thinking.

Outside academics, they have led our Environmental Club to implement a campus-wide recycling initiative, reducing waste by 30% in one year. Their ability to inspire peers in their senior year and enact this meaningful change is just one example of their exemplary leadership and communication skills.

[Student’s Name] is an outstanding individual whose passion, integrity, and resilience will make them an asset to your institution. I wholeheartedly recommend them for admission.

Yours sincerely,

[Your Full Name]

2. A graduate school applicant writing a cover letter to faculty members

Dear [Recommendation Recipient]

I am honored to recommend [Applicant’s Name] for admission to [Graduate Program Name] at [University Name]. As a school counselor at [School Name], I have had the privilege of working closely with [Applicant’s Name] during their role as a peer mentor in our student support program. Their dedication to fostering academic and emotional growth among their peers has been truly exceptional.

[Applicant’s Name] has consistently demonstrated a deep understanding of interpersonal relationships and a natural ability to connect with students facing challenges. For example, during a peer mediation session, their empathy and problem-solving skills de-escalated a tense conflict. This experience reflects the qualities necessary for success in [Graduate Program Name] and as a future [profession, e.g., clinical psychologist, educator, etc.].

[Applicant’s Name] is thoughtful, diligent, and driven by a genuine passion for making a difference. I have no doubt they will excel in your program and beyond.

Yours sincerely,

[Your Full Name]

3. An entry-level role for a previous intern or junior employee

Dear [Recommendation Recipient]

I am writing about Ms. [x] regarding the Web Development Officer position. I employed Ms. [x] for three years, first as an intern and then as a junior technician. During that time, she contributed to a website redesign and became a valued member of our IT support team.

Ms. [x] regularly demonstrated the ability to contribute and develop her skills. She volunteered for coding and web design courses and used those skills in subsequent projects to maintain the company website. Her initiative and desire to succeed exceeded our expectations and requirements for someone in her position.

I confidently recommend Ms. [x] for a permanent technical role. She possesses exceptional potential and a willingness to learn. She is honest and friendly and works hard to meet project goals. I have no doubt that she will become a valuable asset to any business workforce.

Yours sincerely,

[Your Full Name]

4. A senior-level position

Dear [Recommendation Recipient]

I am writing about Mr. [x] concerning the position of Digital Marketing Manager. I employed Mr. [x] for five years at Cybersales Enterprises and confidently recommend him for the position.

While at Cybersales, Mr. [x] rose to the position of Regional Sales Executive. He showed exceptional business and organizational capabilities, running a 30-person team responsible for North American operations.

During his time with us, Mr. [x] oversaw the creation of an immersive sales app that used 3D technology to introduce new products. He also managed several product launches, ensuring seamless rollout and strong sales figures.

Mr. [x] also contributed to our learning culture by developing his skills and mentoring junior staff. He showed a flair for relationship management, enabling colleagues to realize their potential. His character makes him a strong candidate for management roles.

At all times, Mr. [x] demonstrated a strong work ethic and proved an honest, enthusiastic team member. I am confident his skills and qualities make him an ideal addition to your team. He will confidently assume additional responsibilities without any problems.

Yours sincerely.

[Your Full Name]

5. A character-specific letter focused on soft skills, not technical qualifications or skills

Dear [Recommendation Recipient]

I am writing about Mr. [x] for the Corporate Social Responsibility Manager position. I employed Mr. [x] for seven years at Ecowash Industries as our Environment and Ethical Officer. I have no hesitation in recommending him for a senior CSR position.

As an employee, Mr. [x] showed a passionate belief in environmental protection and social causes while aligning CSR initiatives with our business strategy. He communicated clearly with senior colleagues, explaining corporate policy changes and updating production managers about performance targets.

Mr. [x] also demonstrated an exceptional ability to resolve disputes and motivate colleagues. He used game-playing techniques to embed energy conservation practices. He also bridged the gap between executives and factory staff, easing the transition to different packaging and production techniques.

I am confident Mr. [x] will perform well as a CSR manager. He has outstanding commitment, negotiation skills, and positivity. As an employer, he is also a pleasure to work with.

Yours sincerely,

[Your Full Name]

How to hire employees you want to recommend

So, now you know how to recommend someone for a job, and that letters of recommendation are an important part of the process. They add a human touch to recruitment, communicating admiration, respect, and even affection. Reference letters also reassure employers in a world where 64.2% of candidates write misleading resumes.

But that’s not all they do. Recommendation letters can also be critical reference points in hiring decisions. At Toggl Hire, we often think, ‘Will we be proud to recommend this candidate?’ If we aren’t sure, it’s time to take a second look.

The challenge is finding candidates you want to recommend. If that’s what you’re after, consider implementing skills testing and other candidate assessment checks during your hiring process. This step ensures you’re hiring all-around great employees you’ll be happy to recommend once they eventually move on to a different role (hopefully far into the future!).

Skills test scores, for example, can identify individuals with skills and personalities that suit your organization. Find out more with a free Toggl Hire account. Sign up today to make your hiring more efficient and plan for a more productive workforce.

Recruitment strategies are evolving faster than ever, leaving behind the days when social media felt revolutionary (oh my, how time flies).

Today, social recruiting is just one piece of the puzzle in a much larger, more dynamic toolkit. To stay ahead, businesses need to think beyond the familiar and tap into innovative approaches to attract and secure top talent.

This article takes a forward-looking approach, guiding you through what makes a recruitment strategy impactful, showcasing standout examples, and revealing 13 cutting-edge strategies designed to help your business thrive in 2025.

TL;DR — Key Takeaways

• A recruitment strategy is a plan of action outlining how the company will acquire talent, including what methods and tools you can use to achieve a pre-determined goal.
• A fully-formed recruitment strategy is based on a specific goal. For example, if your goal is to improve diversity and inclusion, you’ll detail which recruitment methods and tools meet this goal, such as skills-based hiring.
• There are many recruitment strategies out there, but some of the most effective examples include building a strong employer brand and talent pool, optimizing your sourcing strategies and social recruiting, and putting diversity first.
• With Toggl Hire’s expertise in employee skills testing, you can optimize your recruitment efforts and unlock the full potential of these innovative recruitment strategies.

What is a recruitment strategy?

A recruitment strategy is a well-defined hiring plan that outlines the approach an organization chooses to attract, evaluate, and hire people to fill their open positions. Your strategy will include actions you’ll take at any step of the hiring process. For example, you could develop a recruiting strategy to boost candidate applications or create one to improve employee retention.

To choose the best recruiting strategy, a company should first identify its strengths and weaknesses — aka the parts of the recruitment funnel that are working well vs. those requiring improvement — and understand how the hiring process fits into these big-picture goals.

A good example of a recruitment strategy

An effective recruitment strategy should include all the tools, tactics, and goals required to bring in the best talent to drive business growth.

Let’s look at a practical example, like campus hiring. An organization with a clear growth plan and a specific profile of an employee for hard-to-fill roles might choose to create a recruiting strategy based on acquiring talent early in their career. Why? Well, it’s a relatively easy market to target!

Alternatively, a leading tech company looking to nurture diversity and foster greater innovation could adopt a “Hackathon Hiring” approach. By hosting coding competitions open to a global audience, the company could identify exceptional talent from various backgrounds while showcasing the company’s commitment to diversity and innovation.

Acquiring the right talent is the most important key to growth. Hiring was — and still is — the most important thing we do.

Marc Benioff, Chairman, Founder and CEO of Salesforce

3 things to consider before developing a hiring strategy

To reiterate, a good recruiting strategy includes all the necessary details on how you plan to achieve a set goal. So, before you can start developing any kind of strategy, it’s important to keep these three things in mind.

#1. Recruitment goals

This can be a short-term objective, like onboarding 10 new hires before the end of the year, or a longer-term goal, like improving your employer branding across the US market.

Just remember that goals should be specific, measurable, and aligned with the company’s long-term vision. And with the goals set, you’ll want to agree on the right recruitment metrics to monitor the progress.

#2. Recruiting process

When considering the specific steps you’ll take in your recruiting process, from job posting to onboarding, it’s essential to keep your recruitment goals in mind.

For example, if the goal is to onboard quickly, you’ll need a recruitment process that’s fast and efficient. Or, if the goal is to increase diversity, you’ll need to focus on inclusive best practices to achieve this goal, right down to the language used in your job ads.

For instance, at Toggl, we aim to find the best candidates while maintaining a great candidate experience. This is what our recruitment process for most of our products or roles looks like:

1. A 15-minute skills test to evaluate candidates‘ core skills quickly
2. When we hire for customer-facing roles, we use video intros for additional screening
3. A short homework assignment to identify the most qualified candidates
4. An interview with the hiring manager to confirm cultural alignment
5. A paid test week to get proof of competence and conduct peer interviews

We track metrics like best candidate sources, percentage of candidates over the test threshold, applicant satisfaction scores, drop-off rates, and speed to hire to identify areas of improvement in our recruiting process.

#3. Recruitment tools

Recruitment tools like Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), skills assessments, and automation software have become an essential part of the recruiting process because they help to:

• Streamline the hiring process
• Save hiring teams significant time and money
• Improve the candidate experience
• Reduce the risk of mis-hires

But to know which tool is right for you, you’ll need to refer back to your chosen recruitment goals and interview process to help you decide. For example, skills testing is an excellent tool to speed up candidate screening but would need to be combined with an efficient selection process if the goal is to hire more efficiently.

13 best recruitment strategies to find qualified candidates

Now we understand what recruiting strategies are and the main things to consider when developing one, let’s dive into our pick of the best recruiting strategies and tactics, and why they work in 2025.

1. Work on your employer brand

Employer branding plays a major role in attracting, hiring, and retaining great talent. In fact, 81% of organizations have taken action to improve their employer brand in the last 12 months, signaling its impact on hiring success and employee satisfaction.

Your employer brand is what makes people want to work with you and for you. Think about companies like Apple, Patagonia, Nike, and Netflix. Each has a clear mission, identity, and tone of voice that helps them stand out as industry leaders — as well as a compelling employee value proposition.

Granted, they’ve been around for a while now. But even newer companies stand to gain from strategic employer branding.

Take Revolut, for example. The global finance app went from series A funding to raising a whopping $800M in series E in the space of just five years. To reflect their incredible journey and mission, they created a unique campaign under “never settle” to attract potential candidates to their brand.

How can you implement this recruitment strategy? 

Start by identifying which areas of your employer brand need work. Everything from your job ads to writing creative job descriptions to the perceived company culture falls under your employer brand — so you’ll need to investigate thoroughly to decide what needs work.

You’ll also need to engage with other departments, such as marketing and communications, to build a brand candidates want to work for.

Key employer branding elements to focus on include:

• EVP: The promise you make to potential candidates in return for their commitment to your company. Promises like “Create a world where anyone can belong anywhere” from AirBnB help to crystalize your brand’s value proposition.
• Careers page: A major opportunity to showcase your employer brand with videos, testimonials, and information on the hiring process.
• Recruitment marketing materials: Refers to all the touchpoints and ways in which you market your company to candidates long before they’re even ready to fill out an application.
• Employee ambassadorship: Another powerful tool when marketing your company brand, as brand ambassadors are perceived as more credible than corporate marketing messages.
• Job postings/ads: Actually your last chance to convince prospective candidates to apply.

Create a desirable employer brand, and we promise you that attracting great candidates becomes a whole lot easier!

2. Polish your ideal candidate profiles

Creating an ideal candidate profile for every role is far from a waste of time. Just as marketers develop customer personas to target their efforts, a candidate profile can become an invaluable hiring tool used to:

• Create better job descriptions
• Improve sourcing strategies
• Lead to a better quality of hire

How can you implement this recruitment strategy? 

Don’t let your ICPs gather dust! For them to work, you need to continually review and refresh them for every new role by following these seven steps.

3. Optimize your candidate sourcing process

Sourcing is the first stage of your talent acquisition process and refers to all your combined efforts to find and attract potential applicants to your company and/or a specific role. That includes how you target both active and passive applicants.

Given that 85% of the workforce doesn’t even scan job boards, optimizing this stage of the recruitment process can bring big rewards.

How can you implement this recruitment strategy? 

Start by conducting a review of your sourcing methods and cross-check your current strategy with other creative candidate sourcing ideas. For example:

• Use external recruiters or headhunters
• Try new channels for job postings and advertising
• Open up your vacancy to remote hires
• Subcontract employees for a temporary project or position, like a maternity cover
• Incentivize more employee referrals
• Tap into your database of past applications

4. Attract passive candidates

According to research, only 35% of employees are not interested in looking for a new job next year. 41% are actively seeking new employment, and 24% were “unsure,” indicating they’re in the passive market and could be swayed by the right opportunity if it came along.

Given that passive candidates aren’t actively looking for new roles, it’s important to realize you aren’t going to engage with them on job boards. Instead, you need to adopt a long-term talent acquisition philosophy to ensure you get seen by passive talent long before they’re looking for a new role. This way, when they are eventually on the market, they’ll think of you!

How can you implement this recruitment strategy? 

There are many ways to get the attention of passive candidates, for example:

• Create a strong employer brand: As we saw before, employer branding is one of the most powerful ways to get the attention of passive candidates.
• Gamify your application process with skills tests: We’ve seen first-hand how effective skills testing can be in capturing the attention of passive talent.
• Be seen on social media: Whatever space you’re in, your company’s social media profiles can be used as tools to convert your passive followers into active candidates.

5. Put diversity first

Finally, what we’ve all known has been proven. Diversity and inclusion in the workplace not only helps to level the playing field for minority groups, but it also carries many real business benefits.

• Companies in the top quartile for diversity representation have a 39% greater likelihood of financial outperformance than companies in the bottom percentile.
• Diverse teams are 87% better at making decisions
• Companies that welcome diversity are 1.7x more innovative

Given those stats, and in this day and age, you really shouldn’t need any more convincing about putting diversity first.

How can you implement this recruitment strategy? 

Global pharmaceutical company and top-ranking employer Novartis is a leading example of putting diversity first. Of course, being a large company with big responsibilities, its diversity initiatives have grown to the point of needing a Chief Diversity & Culture Officer.

But even long before your company’s culture gets to that level, there are still many things you can do:

• Pay close attention to job postings and descriptions to check for inclusive language
• Try blind hiring and anonymous applications
• Remove bias with skills tests and unconscious bias awareness initiatives
• Switch up the job boards you use and try including niche job boards that specialize in a particular sector, field, or skill set

6. Create a talent pool

One of the biggest challenges in recruitment is often sourcing suitable candidates with the skills and experience you need. One way to tackle this problem is to build a high-quality talent pool and keep a list of vetted candidates on standby.

However, a great talent pool isn’t just a list of names and phone numbers. A properly curated talent pool provides rich information on each potential candidate, including their: 

• Experience
• Hard & soft skills
• Attributes
• Career goals
• Cultural fit to your organization
• Suitable roles

If you’re going to implement any long-term recruitment strategies, building a talent pool is one we’d definitely recommend. Not only will it boost your speed to hire, but it will also reduce costs and keep the best candidates engaged with your business.

How can you implement this recruitment strategy? 

The first step is to acknowledge all the different methods that can contribute to your talent pool.

For example:

• Candidate sourcing campaigns
• Leads from career events
• Software like Toggl Hire keeps track of all applicants (including unsuccessful applicants that may be suited to a different or future role)
• Community
• Passive candidates
• Candidate profiles on platforms like LinkedIn, Github, and UpWork

The second step is to start exploring different strategies and best practices for creating and maintaining a robust talent pool.

For example:

• Sorting and segmentation: To extract the most value from your existing talent pool and remain organized when growing it, you’ll need to segment by attributes like job function, skills, experience level, location, and interests.
• Nurturing and engagement: It’s not enough to simply collect and sort candidate details; you need to stay connected with candidates in your talent pool through things like social media, events, and outreach.
• Personalization: Your segmentation will prove invaluable when recruiting from your talent pool, but it’s also essential to personalize your communications to build and maintain that relationship.

7. Develop an employee referral program

Employee referral programs aren’t new, but getting them right is still tricky. Asking your current employees to refer great people from their network is an effective way to connect with outstanding talent. And what makes this recruitment strategy so sought-after is that it’s free.

Employee referrals are one of the best recruitment strategies because:

• Referred candidates have lower turnover rates
• They’re better quality hires
• They help reduce your time to hire
• They’re cost-effective for sourcing

How can you implement this recruitment strategy? 

The trick with employee referral programs is to strike a balance between incentivization and quality. You want your staff to actively refer people from their network but not their low-quality connections.

But the good news is that building employee referral programs is quick, low-cost, and delivers qualified candidates fast! No wonder it’s one of the favorite recruitment strategies among technical recruiters.

8. Nail your social media recruiting efforts

The rise of digital technology and social media has fundamentally changed the way candidates and recruiters interact. Digital hiring strategies and social media help recruiters find, engage with, and acquire the best talent on the market.

Here are some stats to back this up:

• 79% of job seekers have used social media in their job search in the last year.
• ‍On LinkedIn alone, 9,000 candidates apply, and 7 candidates are hired every minute.
• Candidate application rates increase 34% when the job postings include a video. LinkedIn also reveals that video views are up 36% year on year.

The fully remote workflow automation company Zapier is a great example of social recruiting in practice. The company uses innovative ways to engage and connect with its target audiences and prospective job candidates.

For example, during the summer, the company posted the results from its first “no-meeting week,” during which 80% of the team achieved their goals and gave others a meaningful look into the company culture.

How can you implement this recruitment strategy? 

To get started with social recruiting, consider the following:

1. Choose the social media platforms most relevant to your audience and recruitment goals
2. Post frequently sharing news and insights into job openings, job fairs, networking events, company milestones, product updates, contests, what it’s like to work at your company, etc
3. Engage with followers and potential candidates by responding to their questions and comments
4. Encourage employee referrals and engagement by current employees
5. Measure and track how your social recruiting efforts perform in order to adjust and optimize your social recruiting strategy

9. Connect with graduates

Graduates are the future, literally. For many roles, graduates are just a graduation away from clicking apply. In fact, many graduates are encouraged to secure their places up to a year before they even finish their courses, and this represents a candidate pool that shouldn’t be ignored.

Here are just some of the reasons why you should consider creating a recruiting strategy targeting graduates:

• They cost less as graduates start their careers
• They’re motivated to keep learning, with 94% of graduates surveyed citing work as an avenue for building their skills
• They have excellent knowledge of the latest digital tech and software to help your business thrive
• They bring fresh perspectives from their learning experience

How can you implement this recruitment strategy? 

4 ways you can connect with graduates include:

• Social media: Using creative, bespoke recruiting campaigns to target university students, like this creative ad campaign from Amey below.
• Job fairs and careers days: Attending multiple events for employers hosted at universities
• Your benefits package: Another way to hook graduates is by making a better offer than your competitors and including perks like gym memberships or flexible hours that make all the difference
• Candidate experience: Recruiting in this space is highly competitive, and another way to differentiate your brand is through the candidate experience.

10. Attend or host industry events

In an increasingly remote world, there is a lot of value in attending in-person events. Company and industry events can raise your profile within your industry, bring value to your network, and position your business as an exciting and innovative place to work.

From a recruitment perspective, events are a great way to synergize with several other recruitment strategies. They raise your employer brand, plant the seed with passive candidates, and are an opportunity to build a talent pool.

How can you implement this recruitment strategy? 

Start with Hootsuite’s awesome guide on how to host your own virtual events. These ideas offer a quick, easy, and low-cost way to start boosting your business profile and meet future candidates.

If you’re in tech, this could be a hackathon. For the arts industry, try hosting an exhibition. Or, if you’re in marketing, go to a conference.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t hold remote events. Something as simple as hosting a webinar on an industry hot topic or a virtual job fair is still a powerful way to bring people together.

11. Create an internship program

Last but not least, one of the most effective recruitment strategies that has never fallen out of fashion in the world of talent acquisition is the implementation of internship programs. Statistics show that candidates who complete internships are 85% more likely to secure a full-time job after graduation.

These programs offer hiring managers a unique opportunity to identify and nurture promising talent within their organizations by allowing both employers and candidates to assess their compatibility before making long-term commitments.

This strategy works exceptionally well because it provides an extended evaluation period and serves as an effective talent pipeline.

How can you implement this recruitment strategy?

For a successful internship program, start by doing research to:

• Identify which departments or teams should have an internship program
• Define the objectives and goals of the program for the team, individuals, and wider organization, as well as the terms and compensation they will receive to attract interns to your program
• Promote your internships through various channels, such as career fairs and universities, as well as your careers page and social media.
• Refine your program by gathering and incorporating feedback
• Measure and assess the success of your program by tracking key metrics such as intern satisfaction, the number of interns who were offered full-time roles, and subsequent retention rates

12. Provide a safe workspace free of political discussions

Global political events such as the US election and war in the Middle East appear to be spilling over into the workplace, causing discomfort for employees. A recent Politics at Work report finds that:

• 75% of employees are considering leaving their jobs due to political discussions at work
• 60% believe political discussions should be banned at work altogether
• 66% have lied about their political views to fit in with their colleagues
• 94% of entry-level colleagues are more likely to lie about their political beliefs, compared to 44% of senior managers

Potential applicants, especially those seeking junior roles or even those who have experienced the fallout of political discussions in their previous workplace, need reassurance you’re offering a safe space free from potential conflict.

How can you implement this recruitment strategy?

Admittedly, it’s easier to publicize your anti-politics stance to an audience of existing employees rather than potential applicants. But there are steps you can take to reassure candidates of your company values, such as:

• Using your social platforms to highlight your company culture and the benefits of not discussing presidential candidates at work
• Using interviews to communicate how your commitment to a politics-free environment contributes to a harmonious workplace culture
• Highlighting your commitment to a respectful environment on your careers page, job descriptions, and recruitment marketing materials

13. Appeal to the hidden workforce

As much as 14 to 17% of the US workforce comprises hidden talent, packed with skills, but whose resumes are often overlooked in favor of more traditional candidates. These hidden workers may include:

• Neurodiverse employees
• Workers forced into retirement who would relish the opportunity to return to work
• Caregivers who have left the workforce to support their dependents
• Ex-inmates struggling to find an employer willing to give them a second chance
• Veterans who haven’t yet found a civilian role
• Menopausal employees who have been forced out of work due to their age or symptoms
• People with long-term physical or mental health problems

These candidates may never have been employed or may have been forced out of the workplace due to their situation. Whatever their individual circumstances, they have limitless skills to offer an employer.

How can you implement this recruitment strategy?

To tap into this hidden talent pool, consider implementing these steps:

• Partner with organizations that specialize in helping individuals from these groups to find employment
• Review your recruitment processes and job descriptions for language or requirements that may deter these candidates from applying
• Offer flexible working arrangements, such as part-time or remote work options
• Implement a returnship program for caregivers or retirees looking to re-enter the workforce to demonstrate your commitment to supporting employees at all stages of their careers
• Follow up with candidates who have requested recruitment accommodations to understand how you can support them throughout the hiring process
• Assert your commitment toward skills-based hiring, and how you plan to use skills assessments to find the best person for the job.

Where does Toggl Hire come in?

If you want to fill more positions, attract better-quality candidates, and decrease your time to hire, these 13 effective recruitment strategies offer some easy-to-implement ideas.

Combine every strategy we’ve covered with skills testing to give your hiring metrics an extra boost! This is great for candidates, too, as it provides a more exciting way to showcase their talents and gives them instant feedback.

Incorporating hiring tests into your recruitment strategy has many benefits

• Gamify the application experience to attract top talent and passive applicants
• Improve the quality of hire & speed to hire, as it’s easier to recognize top talent
• Reduce unconscious bias for more diverse talent
• Higher quality candidates at every stage of the pipeline
• Create a talent pool in Toggl Hire with extensive information on candidates’ skills & past applications

Remember, the ultimate key to a successful recruiting strategy is creating a slick and efficient hiring process. Try Toggl Hire’s skills testing for free today.

As 2024 comes to a close, we’re thrilled to share our latest updates designed to make your time tracking experience smoother, more secure, and more insightful.

Here’s what’s new in Q4:

• New automation options for time tracking in the Chrome Extension, auto-tracking calendar events, and creating autotracker rules in the Windows Desktop App.
• Improved approvals: Assign multiple timesheet approvers, approve or reject in bulk, and spot overlapping time entries.
• Passkeys — a more secure and seamless way to log in.
• Expanded Audit Log capabilities to see changes to Clients, Tags, Workspace settings, and billable and labor rates.

More Ways to Automate Your Time Tracking

No clicks, no reminders, no extra burden — this is how we want to reinvent time tracking. Here’s what we launched in Q4 to enable more auto-tracking options.

Enable “Always Track This Page” in Your Extension

We spend much of our workday in our browsers. Now, you can set specific pages (like Notion, Jira, HubSpot, or other frequently used websites) to automatically enable time tracking. You decide how long you need to be on a page before tracking starts — and it stops automatically when you close the tab.

Here’s how to set it up:

1. Go to your browser extension settings.
2. Under Integrations, select “Auto track” for the pages you want.
3. Specify when auto-tracking should start.

Auto-Track Calendar Events

Calendar integrations have already helped teams save up to 80 hours per month on time tracking. Now, we’ve made it even better. With auto-track for calendar events, your events will convert into time entries automatically within 15 minutes of starting.

To enable:

1. In the Calendar view, click on the Calendar Settings dropdown.
2. Switch on “Auto-track calendar events.”

Create Auto-Tracking Rules in Windows App

Drag your cursor over any open window, and — voilà! — you’ve created an auto-tracking rule. You’ll be prompted to set details like description, project, and tags. Once set, a time entry starts automatically whenever that window is opened.

Here’s how it works:

1. Drag your cursor over an open window to create a rule.
2. Set details such as project, description, or tags.
3. Specify how much time should pass before tracking begins.

Improved Approvals

Improvements include assigning multiple timesheet approvers and approve timesheets in bulk.

We’ve made timesheet approvals more efficient:

• New flexibility: Assign multiple users or user groups as timesheet approvers to streamline the approval process for larger teams. Learn more here.
• Save time: Approve or reject multiple timesheets in a single action — no more one-by-one reviews.
• Better accuracy: Easily identify overlapping time entries for cleaner, more reliable timesheets.

👉 Read more on reviewing Team Timesheets.

Approvals are available in our Premium and Enterprise plans.

Hello, Passkeys!

We’re stepping up account security with Passkeys, a faster and more secure login option. No more password fatigue, and no more phishing worries.

🔑 To enable Passkeys:

1. Go to Account Settings.
2. Click “Enable” under “Passkey” in Additional Login Options.

👉 Learn more about Passkeys here

Expanded Audit Log Capabilites

For better transparency into Workspace changes

We’ve expanded the Audit Log to provide even more visibility into workspace changes. In addition to Projects and Time Entries, the Audit Log now tracks:

• Clients
• Tags
• Workspace settings
• Billable and labor rate changes

These updates help admins maintain transparency and build trust with their teams.

👉 Learn more about Audit Log

Audit Log is available with Premium and Enterprise plans.

Catch Up on Key 2024 Launches

Missed some updates earlier this year? Here’s a quick recap:

• Q3 2024: Toggl Track Goals, Historical Labor Costs, the Audit Log and more. Check them out.
• Q2 2024: More Invoice Flexibility, task-specific billable rates, and shared time entries for team collaboration. Learn more.
• Q1 2024: QuickBooks integration, duration-only time tracking, and more. See the details.

The labor market never sits still, so every year, we’re challenged with new recruitment trends. While it might feel exhausting trying to keep up, understanding what’s happening on the market (and why) is the only way to improve your hiring strategy. 

From gaping skills gaps to shifting employee preferences regarding remote and hybrid work, let’s first recap the impact of top hiring trends of the past few years on today’s market — then analyze what’s on the agenda for 2025.

Key shifts in the recruitment market in 2024

2024 was a year of recalibration in the labor market.

Amid economic uncertainty, layoffs in the tech sector persisted, with companies restructuring to focus on profitability. Companies like Tesla, Microsoft, Amazon, TikTok, Snap, and Google all made cuts, with the industry losing around 130,000 people across 457 companies.

A similar story exists in the financial services sector, where the top 12 investment banks slashed 100 front-line dealmakers in Q1 of 2024 alone.

You’d imagine, then, that the talent market would be filled with highly skilled people, ready to slide into place at other organizations. In the case of bankers, this appears to be the case. Eric Li, research director at Coalition Greenwich, explains:

Investment banks remain laser-focused on costs. What we’ve seen is that while the big banks are cutting, smaller boutiques and other investment banks are picking them up. Around 60 of those who lost their jobs have found new roles elsewhere. It’s a great chance for them to pick up talent that would otherwise be too expensive to hire.

However, many other industries report that skill shortages have made it challenging to find the caliber of candidate they need to fill their open vacancies. SHRM’s Talent Trends report reveals that over three in four organizations have had difficulty recruiting for full-time regular positions. Highly skilled medical positions and skilled trades have been the most difficult-to-fill positions in 2024.

One in four organizations indicate full-time regular positions filled in the past 12 months demanded new skills. Organizational growth (55%) and evolving technology (51%) are the primary drivers of these new skill requirements. However, three out of four organizations report facing moderate to significant challenges in finding candidates with the necessary skills.

Talking of skills challenges, SHRM also finds that 37% of candidates don’t have the required technical skills, 30% lack adequate soft skills, and 18% don’t even have the basic skills needed to join their organization.

At the same time, some traditional hiring incentives are being scaled back. For example, the percentage of organizations offering flexible work arrangements has reduced by 16% in 2024 compared to 2022. Improvements to compensation packets, including salary and employee benefits, also fell by 16%. These declines highlight a move away from some of the more generous pandemic-era recruitment strategies, even as the need for top talent remains.

So, what do companies have up their sleeve to deal with these gaps in their organizational lineup?

Top recruitment trends to expect in 2025

Effectively, last year’s recruiting trends serve as a springboard for the new developments in the market. So, here’s what we expect to see through 2025.

1. The evolution of AI adoption

Hirers and job seekers have moved beyond the excitement of artificial intelligence’s arrival and are now experiencing it as a mainstay of the recruitment process. Some 57% of applicants relied on OpenAI during the application process in 2024 (which is hardly surprising) either to speed up or refine their applications.

Professional resume writers, job coaches, and other online tools have been around for decades. AI is just another version of the same. So, well-trained HR managers are well aware that the resumes they’re reviewing may not have been written by the candidates (and that’s one reason why Toggl eliminated resume screening long ago). 

The lesson here? To hire top talent in the age of AI, you need to adapt your recruiting process. 

Instead of giving candidates problems ChatGPT can solve, try testing their skills with open-ended homework assignments or soft skills assessments. Modern assessment tools like Toggl Hire include anti-cheating and anti-AI protection, which also prevents candidates from using apps during tests. 

In a world where everybody is using AI to boost productivity and improve efficiency, it might seem “wrong” to prevent candidates from using AI to help them apply for your job listings. However, doing so allows you to assess the candidates’ actual skills and personality traits rather than evaluate how well they can use ChatGPT to look up the right answers. 

It’s not all about preventing AI usage, though. Hiring teams are also exploring ways to use AI for good in the hiring process. For example, T-Mobile relies on an AI-powered tool to remove biased, non-inclusive language from job descriptions.

New HR technology, powered by advanced algorithms, can help hiring teams:

• Streamline repetitive, manual tasks such as interview coordination and scheduling, ad publishing to multiple job boards, satisfaction survey management, new hire onboarding, employee payroll management, and more.  
• Create automated communication channels to both strengthen employer branding and improve candidate experience. Thanks to natural language processing (NLP), chatbots can easily provide candidates with updates on their application status, answer questions about company culture, and handle a ton of other recruitment marketing activities.  
• Automate document processing.  Artificial intelligence can document cross-checks and information lookups at cruising speed with high accuracy. Streamline candidate identification and document checks with new KYC tools. Save time with AI-generated summaries of new regulatory or compliance documents.
• Get more data for decision-making. Whether you’re doing workforce planning for the new year or trying to evaluate your diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) metrics, AI can crunch the numbers. Thanks to predictive analytics, you can also look into the future and model the volume of future applicants or estimate talent attrition using historical data.
• Build bigger talent pools. Leverage AI to cross-check past candidates’ or current employees’ skills and match them with new job opportunities. Personalize outreach to potential prospects on social media and across job boards to get more people into your recruitment funnel. 

AI already has ample practical use cases in recruiting, and we expect more talent leaders to embrace it by 2025.

Practical tips for making better use of AI in recruitment

• Learn about the different types of AI. Machine learning, predictive analytics, generative AI, and robotic process automation (RPA) — each of these technologies is better suited for specific tasks in a recruiting process. For example, Generative AI excels in content generation, while predictive analytics helps with advanced forecasting and modeling.
• Brainstorm use cases. Identify the most time-consuming, error-prone, and manual elements of your talent acquisition process. Brainstorm with hiring managers how different AI products can address the inefficiencies. 
• Start with pilot projects. Select several test use cases. For example, test different AI apps for recruitment marketing tasks or employer branding activities (e.g., job ad copy generation or personalized nurturing sequences for candidates in your pipeline). Set clear success criteria for each and measure the impact to estimate ROI. 

2. Increased commitment to skills-based hiring

As the cost and time-to-hire increase, every new employee becomes a critical hire. The increased emphasis on talent quality will require companies to tighten the recruitment process. Hiring managers will be eager to vet job seekers more rigorously and at a wider scale with the help of skills-based hiring. 

For 78% of HR professionals, SHRM reports that pre-employment assessments, which test skills, knowledge, and abilities, have improved the quality of their organization’s hires. 80% of recruiting pros claim to be committed to creating a more diverse workforce, and a skills focus is central to this initiative. Note: A skills focus increases talent pools by 10x, according to LinkedIn.

That’s because skills-based recruiting moves away from basing hiring decisions on gut feelings toward actual data on candidates’ competency. You can practice collaborative hiring by giving each manager the power to select people with the skills they need. 

Practical tips for implementing skills-based hiring in 2025

• Conduct a job task analysis to better understand the role’s competencies. Shift the focus from degree or work experience requirements to the skills, qualifications, and aptitudes of an ideal hire.
• Determine the optimal use cases for pre-employment tests. Use basic skill tests to quickly check if applicants have the skills needed. Then, apply a combination of different interviewing methods and take-home assignments (case studies, coding challenges, language tests, time-boxed competency assessments) to find the perfect skill matches.
• Drop questions about the candidate’s background to eliminate interviewer bias. Instead, ask more behavioral and problem-solving questions to understand how a candidate thinks and acts rather than what shaped them personally and professionally. By combining structured interviews with pre-employment tests, you can get a more comprehensive picture of a candidate’s skill set and team fit. 

3. Strong labor market optimism

Prepare for the labor market to open back up again in 2025. Although the current unemployment rate in the US is expected to remain around 4%, and a stable 6% in the EU, more opportunities will exist.

Over 80% of employers across tech, financial services, and healthcare plan to expand hiring in 2025, signaling renewed labor market optimism after two years of declines. Easing inflation and stabilizing interest rates are fueling employer confidence. 64% say macroeconomic conditions will support hiring in 2025.

Julia Pollak, ZipRecruiter’s Chief Economist

At the same time, EY reports 38% of employees are likely to quit in the next year due to poor pay and work-life balance.

For recruiting professionals, the above trends translate to a bigger talent pool…and bigger workloads, too. With an increased supply of candidates and an increase in open roles, there will be a heck of a lot of movement. Recruiters can expect to spend more time wading through hundreds of applications, pre-screening for hard skills, and scheduling rounds of interviews. 

And without a strong talent acquisition strategy, you risk getting some bad hires on board. 

Skills assessments can help hiring teams quickly find the most suitable candidates. Sadly, many job seekers lack essential hard and soft skills for the jobs they are after. That’s where proof of competence will become synonymous with recruiting top-level talent. 

Skills assessments can help hiring teams quickly whittle down the initial flood of applicants and highlight the most suitable candidates. AI for process automation, in turn, can help with secondary hiring processes (background checks, job offer management, onboarding, etc.), helping you reduce time-to-hire and boost productivity.

Practical tips for managing your candidate pipeline in 2025

• Refresh job descriptions with new skills to better reflect the kind of talent you’re seeking for vacant positions. 
• Be upfront about non-negotiable criteria. State if the role doesn’t support remote working or is strictly limited to candidates from a specific location. 
• Combine different pre-screening methods like resume checks, competency assessments, cognitive abilities, and aptitude tests (among others) to get more qualified candidates to the next stages. 
• Use cultural fit interviews and job simulations to secure both proof of competence and a strong team fit. 

4. Increased focus on closing skills gaps

Although the overall candidate supply is higher this year, skill shortages aren’t going away. Digital transformations, an aging workforce, a decreasing number of STEM graduates, and lower participation among women negatively affect today’s labor market.

Since 2015, the skill sets for jobs have changed by 25%, and that number is expected to be 65% by 2030. Yet, both existing employees and active job seekers are behind in developing new competencies. 

Modern-day jobs also require softer skills. As AI advances, businesses need to balance robotic output with human instincts, making interpersonal skills highly sought-after.

The most in-demand skills? Here they come:

1. Communication
2. Customer service
3. Leadership
4. Project management
5. Management
6. Analytics
7. Teamwork
8. Sales
9. Problem-solving
10. Research

Talent upskilling and reskilling will be a major recruiting trend in 2025.

To address the problem, HR leaders will need to first gain visibility into existing organizational skill gaps and evaluate the effects of tech disruption on the existing roles. 

Practical tips for addressing skills gaps in 2025

• Schedule a talent gap analysis to deconstruct the work your people already do and the skills they have (and lack) to perform their jobs better. Identifies areas for strategic recruitment, training, and development.   
• Introduce career coaching sessions. Improve employee engagement and talent retention by introducing new professional development plans for employees and walking them through different training programs available. 
• Offer a training budget. Instead of superimposing training from above, let employees choose any professional training, workshop, or conference they fancy. At Toggl, we give each employee €4K annually as part of our benefits program, and this helps us maintain a highly skilled workforce. 
• Launch an apprenticeship program. Expand your campus recruiting program with a digital apprenticeship — a fixed-duration program aimed at teaching fresh grads suitable hard skills.

5. Using contractors to plug operational gaps

Since 2020, business leaders have been increasingly turning to contingent, seasonal, or consultant employees to address skills gaps, better respond to changing market conditions, and maintain a competitive edge. 

In fact, Robert Half’s State of US Hiring report finds that 63% of companies plan to add contract professionals in the first half of 2025.

Contingent labor is expected to comprise 35% to 40% of the global workforce by 2025.

Gartner

This trend translates to extra workloads and complexities in compliance management for recruiting teams. Faster hiring cycles, proper worker classification, rapid onboarding (and offboarding) — a lot of grunt work is required to maintain a contingent workforce. 

To streamline external workforce management, create a set of processes, projects, or roles you want to fill in with contractors and map these to anticipate engagement duration. Determine: 

• Which roles have temporary or fluctuating demand?
• Which roles are need-driven? 
• Which roles require long-term support? 

Instead of standard job descriptions, highlight specific job tasks that contractors will need to complete (e.g., produce three blog posts per month) or processes you’d want them to handle (e.g., payroll management). 

Finally, don’t forget about compliance. Be upfront about any specific requirements you have — mandatory liability insurance, a valid professional license, the ability to perform on-site work, and so on. 

You will need to change your hiring strategy to recruit and onboard contractors. But the payoff of doing so is greater operational agility, faster hiring cycles, and easier access to in-demand skills. 

Practical tips for hiring contractors in 2025

• Understand the different service models. Some contractors do mostly deliverable-based, fixed-price gigs. Others prefer retainers, charge hourly for fractional engagements, or take a day rate for consulting work. Check if your current accounting setup can accommodate their proposed payment cycle and payment terms.
• Rely on social media recruiting. Contractors and freelancers don’t frequent popular career sites. Instead, they hang out in online communities and on social media. Prioritize LinkedIn and Twitter to build relationships with independent workers. 
• Offer fair compensation. Contractors save companies a lot of payroll costs since most taxes are passed on to them. This means few can (or will) afford to charge the same hourly rates as regular employees. Don’t lowball the proposed rates, and try to negotiate the scope of work instead if you have budgetary constraints.  

6. Employee engagement is in crisis mode

Over the past years, we’ve seen the Great Resignation, Quiet Quitting, Quiet Firing, and Rage Applying. That’s hardly surprising, given that employee engagement has been sinking year-over-year.  

Evaluating employee engagement is a top priority for HR professionals in 2025.

Rising cost of living, salary freezes, forced returns to the offices — a lot of factors have made the global workforce less optimistic about the future. 

The latest recruiting trends, including increased reliance on contingent talent, accelerated adoption of AI, and the return of a recruiter’s market, are making people even more anxious about their job security. 

To patch things up in 2025, HR professionals will need to first evaluate the job satisfaction scores and then drill down to the causes of poor engagement. 

Collect feedback on all levels:

• Survey managers about their levels of happiness, motivation, and recognition, plus their perception of the team’s morale and satisfaction. 
• Ask lower-level employees to anonymously share feedback about their managers. Do they get enough recognition, timely feedback, and the ability to bring up new ideas? 

Compare the sentiments to better understand the gaps and overlaps in perception and determine the best course of action. 

Practical tips for improving employee engagement in 2025

• Coach your managers to lead better. Middle managers are responsible for 70% of the variance in employee engagement. Identify leaders with strong people skills (and likely higher team engagement scores!) that you already have and look to hire more people with similar skill sets for open roles. Invest in extra training for current staff to help them develop better soft skills, curb micro-management tendencies, and learn some new ways to empower and recognize their employees.  
• Advocate for employees’ ideas. Don’t just ask for feedback; act on it. Create a transparent system for accepting, evaluating, and executing employee ideas. Show that your company listens, cares, and implements suggestions from people at every level. 
• Double down on your remote and hybrid policies. 34% of businesses plan to extend their return to office policies to five days a week in 2025. But this doesn’t mesh well with employees who value a more flexible working model. 60% of employees would stay in a job they hate if it offered flexible hours, and 22% would quit their employer if it enforced an RTO mandate. If remote-first isn’t the right fit for your organization, consider the more flexible hybrid approach, which could be a gamechanger for your employee engagement levels.

7. Internal mobility is on the rise 

The recruiting landscape will remain dynamic, with people moving internally and even cross-border to keep progressing. And by offering this, employers can hang onto their top talent and avoid the expense of recruitment. KornFerry finds that 67% of internal employees would remain with their employer if they received adequate opportunities for upskilling and advancement.

As costs continue to soar into 2025, sourcing talent from within an organization can be a first step in saving expenses during the recruitment process. Hiring talent internally and promoting talent mobility schemes not only helps save on recruitment expenses like interviewing candidates and working through agencies but it also helps convey business confidence in existing employees’ skills while also providing current staff career growth and development opportunities.

Julia Braun, Chief HR Officer for software provider, SoftwareOne

A tough job market, combined with sinking employee engagement rates, means that businesses will likely be forced to keep flexibility on the agenda. However, these recruitment trends allow for hiring more diverse candidates, optimizing operating costs, and increasing corporate resilience.

When done right, a strong internal mobility strategy helps close the knowledge and skills gaps, improve employee engagement rates, and minimize the impact of local labor shortages on business operations.

Create a strong internal mobility strategy to boost employee engagement rates.

Practical tips for improving your talent mobility strategy in 2025

• Brainstorm new talent mobility opportunities. Instead of only moving talent geographically or vertically up the career ladder, consider alternative schemes: lateral moves to other teams or projects, job shadowing or mentorship to support cross-function mobility, and virtual “experience exchange” assignments. The current state of technology allows you to effectively combine in-person and virtual collaboration across functions. 
• Create a dedicated internal hiring process. Don’t force existing employees to go through the same process as any other job seeker. Streamline and simplify the application process by using competency assessments rather than resume pre-screening and peer interviews instead of culture pre-screeners with HR. 
• Mind compliance. Work-from-anywhere arrangements come with a new pane of tax, immigration, and employment law risks. New remote work-related tax rules may also emerge. Ensure that your policies remain in close sync with the current compliance regulations to avoid unnecessary risk exposure. 

8. Talent retention remains a top priority 

Telenet retention is an important part of workforce planning, and even more so in 2025 as the wave of resignations continues. 90% of organizations are concerned about retention, according to LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report. They consider “offering learning opportunities” as the top retention strategy.

According to employee recognition platform Nectar, 29% of employees have quit a job within the first 90 days of starting. Clearly, HR teams need to focus more on improving the candidate experience and employee experience. 

To do better in 2025, focus on addressing the necessities. Poor compensation is the top reason for candidates seeking a role elsewhere, which makes sense given the economic climate.

But if cash bonuses and pay bumps will strain corporate cash flow, prioritize alternative options. To improve talent retention and engagement, career progression and work flexibility could also persuade your employees to stay, according to the Achievers Engagement and Retention report.

Practical tips for retaining top talent in 2025

• Refresh your succession plans. Look into creating new vertical and horizontal growth opportunities for experienced employees. Standardize performance reviews and industry benchmarks to make compensation offers more competitive. Use data-backed KPIs to clearly set performance expectations and recognize the best candidates for promotion. 
• Introduce better perks. 87% of employees would consider leaving a company that does not focus on their wellbeing, and perks are an important part of supporting them. With inflation rising, fewer people appreciate fancy gym memberships or having access to an in-office meditation room. Among the most in-demand employee retention perks for 2024 were lifestyle spending accounts that allow workers to spend a fixed monthly allowance on benefits meaningful to them. For example, health and well-being support, family care (sponsored daycare, elderly care), adoption assistance, catered food, and better work-from-home support.
• Improve the workplace ambiance. Mass layoffs, budget cuts, workplace automation — a lot of the latest recruitment trends make employees wary about their job security. Combined with a tougher leadership style, these factors dramatically reduce the employees’ comfort with taking risks and making mistakes without fear of negative consequences. Only 58% of workers feel psychologically safe at work and, by proxy, less engaged and productive. Measure how your company performs in the area of psychological safety and implement better practices like a “no-blame culture” and “fail fast-learn fast.”

Stay ahead of recruitment trends in 2025

From the growing importance of employee engagement to skills-based hiring, the latest recruiting trends for 2025 feel more like an evolution of effective HR practices than a revolution in hiring. And that’s a relief, right? Sure, but it’s definitely not a sign to kick back and relax because the job market will be anything but steady this year. 

Sync with new candidates and current employees’ expectations to avoid higher talent attrition. Empower your hiring team with AI tools that simplify and automate the recruitment process. Evaluate how contingency workforce and new talent mobility models can help you address skills gaps. 

If improving the quality and speed of hires is your priority for 2025, check out our skills-based hiring pipeline that helps screen, shortlist, and hire the most qualified people for the job. Get started for free!

As a recruiter, few things feel better than sourcing a high-quality candidate for your hiring manager. However, it’s difficult (to say the least) to accurately predict which applicants have the abilities to do the job well, will fit into the company culture, and ultimately be able to make an impact on the team.

Unless…you’ve already integrated pre-employment tests into your hiring process or are currently figuring out how to do so. Oh, what is pre-employment skills testing? You’re about to find out!

TL;DR — Key Takeaways

• Pre-employment testing offers a standardized, data-backed way to evaluate job applicants’ core competencies, role-specific skills, personality traits, and general cognitive abilities. 

• Unlike traditional screening methods, standardized tests are scientifically more likely to predict job performance and employee engagement. Skills tests also allow companies to attract applicants from a broader talent pool and prioritize people with the right skills rather than credentials.  

• Pre-employment tests help recruiters filter candidates who lack the right skills for the role and shortlist the best candidates faster. Other advantages include deeper talent insights, better candidate experience, faster new employee onboarding, and operational cost savings. 

• Popular types of pre-employment skills tests include technical skills tests, soft skills assessments, cognitive ability tests, competency assessments, emotional intelligence tests, language proficiency tests, and risk tests. 

• Different types of skills tests serve different purposes in your recruitment cycle. Basic tests help pre-screen candidates, while advanced role-based assignments and personality tests can help with candidate shortlisting and selection. 

What is pre-employment testing?

Pre-employment testing (sometimes referred to as a pre-hire assessment) is a standardized measure for evaluating a candidate’s abilities. Pre-employment tests help assess skills, competencies, personality, and other aptitudes to determine their fit for the role. 

Unlike resumes and pre-screen interviews, pre-employment assessments offer more objectivity (thanks to comparable scores or consistent rating systems) and promote informed hiring decisions.

In other words: You get to compare people on what they know, rather than how well they market their abilities.

Why pre-employment testing works better than traditional screening methods 

Skills-based hiring may sound like a new concept born out of necessity due to the competitive, digital age we live in, but back in the 1980s, researchers were already arguing that “professionally developed cognitive ability tests are valid predictors of performance on the job and in training for all jobs,” based on a backlog analysis of over 50 years worth of employment testing data and several workforce management theories. 

Their key finding? Hiring for skills was 5x more predictive of job performance than hiring for education and more than 2x more predictive than hiring for work experience. 

Fast forward to now, and skills-based hiring is among the top recruitment trends. A recent SHRM survey found that 56% of employers use pre-employment tests to evaluate candidates, and one in four plan to use skills assessments more often in the next five years. 

What gives? Why such a big shift towards pre-employment testing?

There are several reasons, but as the workforce composition changes and more people choose alternative career paths of freelancing and gig work, portfolio careers, or apprenticeship-based programs over traditional education, standard assessment criteria may no longer provide good benchmarks for decision-making during the hiring process.

After all, when you can learn to code via an eLearning platform or master video content creation by being active on TikTok, criteria like “years of experience” or having a “relevant degree” lose their efficacy for pre-screening. 

It’s part of the reason why seven in ten US workers believe that employers should hire based on skills, rather than experience — and many companies are following the lead.

The state of Maryland, for example, eliminated degree requirements for almost 50% of positions in healthcare, skilled trades, and engineering to attract more applicants. Walmart plans to remove college degree requirements for a fraction of its corporate jobs, too. 

Moreover, skill sets evolve faster than traditional educational programs. Since 2015, the skill sets for jobs have changed by 25%, and that number is expected to double by 2027. Few curriculums also include tutoring on specific project management software or influencer marketing best practices — these are skills people learn on the job. 

The bottom line? Pre-employment tests help effectively identify people with the right skill sets, competencies, and character traits rather than impressive educational credentials, inflated accomplishments, or fake job experience on a resume. 

How we use pre-employment skills assessments to hire top talent

We don’t believe in pre-employment skills tests because they’re the “cool” thing in hiring. We believe in them because they work.

At Toggl, our parent company that includes Toggl Track, Toggl Plan, Toggl Work, and, of course, Toggl Hire (hey, that’s us!), we rely on a combination of short multi-question skills assessment tests and open-ended homework assignments to pre-screen and shortlist job candidates. 

Across all Toggl products and teams, our standard hiring process goes like this: 

1. Screening job knowledge test: Using pre-made questions from our test library, our hiring managers can create competency-based tests in 15 minutes or less to quickly pre-assess any number of applicants.

2. Cultural interview: Everyone who scored above the testing threshold gets invited to a culture-fit interview. Since we’re a mission-driven remote company, we want to hire people with similar values, working styles, and collaboration preferences. 

3. Homework assignment: Once the technical and cultural fit is confirmed, the shortlisted candidates will move on to a longer homework assignment. Modeling a real-life job task, such standardized assessments help us evaluate the candidates’ practical knowledge and predict job performance. 

Depending on the role, we may also opt to do asynchronous video interviews to screen for soft skills, such as critical thinking and communication, early on. Most of our roles also include a paid test day (or even a whole week), offering a realistic job preview where candidates interact with the team and show their chops in the field. 

By structuring our recruitment process around pre-employment assessments, our hiring managers spend 22 hours less on sourcing, screening, and shortlisting job applicants. We’ve hired over 150 new employees with a skills-based approach and now help others do the same. By implementing similar practices, other companies screen candidates 80% faster and reduce time-to-hire for new tech roles by 85%. 

What are the advantages of pre-employment testing?

Pre-employment tests are a low-effort, high-impact action that boosts recruiting metrics like the number of applicants, qualified candidate rate, time-to-hire, plus candidate experience scores. Other benefits include the following.

Data-driven hiring decisions 

With pre-employment skills testing, it’s much easier to gather objective data on candidates’ skill sets, personality traits, and cognitive abilities. With the right tool, you can automatically filter out the applicants who lack technical knowledge and move the best candidates faster through your hiring process. Pre-employment testing also helps reduce hiring bias and promotes fair hiring practices.

Extra talent insights 

Skills tests help you see more sides of the candidate, a bit like a 2D image vs. a 3D model. You get a better idea of how the candidate’s experience and skills match up to the job description and whether their personal characteristics fit with your company. Internally, they can also help you measure emerging skills gaps and the general talent market dynamics.

Better candidate interviews 

Use data from a pre-employment assessment to guide your selection of job interview questions. For example, you can focus more on evaluating the applicants’ critical thinking abilities and situational behaviors rather than probing their job knowledge to learn more about their behavioral traits, management styles, and interpersonal skills.

Cost savings 

Reduce the cost of bad hires and high turnover costs by increasing the likelihood of both a good fit and stronger job performance with job knowledge tests. You can also save time (and money) for the entire hiring team by reducing the time spent on resume reviews and endless job interviews. 

Better employee onboarding 

Use data from pre-employment tests to create an onboarding plan or career development plan for new hires. Help new hires be more productive faster by helping them develop the right skills needed to succeed in their role. For example, instead of shoehorning all new IT hires to complete cybersecurity training, allow candidates with strong skills to skip it to learn more about your CI/CD pipeline design.

What about the disadvantages of pre-employment testing?

Few things in life don’t have a flip side (except for chocolate chip cookies, maybe, because the flip side of cookies is still delicious). So, although applicant testing provides hiring teams with ample data for decision-making, it can also have some downsides. 

Risk of a higher candidate drop-off 

Some candidates may find standard pre-employment tests off-putting (especially if they’ve applied for similar roles and have had poor experiences with clunky tests). 

To encourage more job applications, start with a shorter pre-employment screening assessment. Time it to 15 to 30 minutes and state the duration upfront. Test primarily for hard skills and leave other types of assessments (e.g., an integrity test or personality test) for a later stage.

The cost of administering pre-employment tests 

Pre-employment tests may seem like yet another overhead cost, sure. But the real question is…can your team afford to keep wading through endless resume piles, dealing with interview scheduling conflicts, and ultimately — the cost of a bad hire? 

When we spoke to Dunja Lazic, VP of Marketing at Sked Social, she recounted when her team had to review 200 resumes and schedule over 15 screening interviews. They felt absolutely burned out by the final interview round. With Toggl Hire’s pre-employment tests, they can now screen 800 applicants in one hour, identify the best hires, and hire for new roles twice as fast!  

Candidate cheating on skills assessment tests

“But aren’t people going to ask someone else to complete pre-hire assessments or use ChatGPT?” Well, some will try. However, modern skill assessment platforms are ahead of the game and can quickly flag their behavior, saving you from a potential mis-hire. 

Toggl Hire, for example, offers various anti-cheating measures to help ensure reliable assessment results. Flag candidates for suspicious behavior that includes:

• Completing several tests from the same browse

• Copying and pasting the test questions

• Detecting how likely it is that a test answer was generated using AI

The likelihood of cheating depends on the test you offer candidates, too. For example, popular personality questionnaires have dubitable accuracy since candidates can easily choose more favorable character traits. Soft skills assessments or situational judgment tests, on the other hand, can help evaluate how a person thinks, acts, and behaves in different situations. 

7 common types of pre-employment tests 

Ready to incorporate more data into your hiring decisions? Here are the seven common pre-employment test types we recommend using: 

✅ Technical skills tests

✅ Soft skills assessments 

✅ Cognitive ability tests

✅ Language proficiency tests 

✅ Competency assessments 

✅ Emotional intelligence tests

✅ Risk tests

Here’s how each one can improve your hiring process.

1. Technical skills tests

Most employers use pre-employment testing to screen for technical skills. After all, you want people who can perform their job in real life, not just on their resume. 

Technical skills assessments evaluate the candidate’s knowledge and expertise in their domain. For example, you may test a software engineer’s knowledge of Java, Python, Ruby, or another programming language. Or, you might evaluate a broader technical skill set, like those required for an SEO manager or Growth Marketer role.

2. Soft skills assessments

Soft skills (or power skills, as we call them) are as important as strong technical skills. Teaching a person a new technical method or project management workflow is way easier than fixing their (lack of) personal accountability or a natural tendency for non-constructive criticism.  

Soft skills assessments (sometimes called personality tests in the hiring world, although personality tests are technically a subcategory) help determine whether the candidate’s personality or behavioral tendencies fit well with a particular role and the company culture. 

By asking situational, behavioral, and role-play-styled questions in an online test, you can quantitatively evaluate applicants’ communication, problem-solving, time management, and remote work skills, among other things. Combine test data with real-world feedback from culture-fit interviews to get the most suitable candidates on board! 

3. Cognitive ability and aptitude tests

Cognitive ability tests (also called simply aptitude or IQ tests) measure a person’s ability to think, learn, reason, and apply information. These tests can measure specific abilities like:

• Critical thinking

• Numerical reasoning

• Verbal reasoning

• Logical reasoning

• Mechanical reasoning

Aptitude tests help recruiters learn more about a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses. They are often used in screening for mid- to senior-level roles. These tests could be particularly helpful for technical roles like engineers or in roles where high-level problem-solving is needed, like project managers.

4. Language proficiency tests

As work goes global, you may be hiring remote team members internationally or looking for multi-language candidates to support your expansion to a new market. If you’re hiring for roles that require native-level fluency in one language, plus good English language skills, use a simple, standardized language test. 

Language assessments evaluate a candidate’s spoken and written proficiency in a second (or third, or fourth!) language. If you require flawless communication language skills for roles like tutors, pre-screen candidates using internationally recognized certificates like CELTA, TEFL, or TESOL for English language or DALF for French. 

5. Competency assessments 

Competency assessments measure a person’s skills, experience, and specific competencies against job requirements. They are role-specific, which is why you might see them called job knowledge tests, and help benchmark the candidate’s potential against the set hiring criteria.

For example, if you’re hiring an Account Executive, a competency skills assessment would include questions about their knowledge of the sales cycle, customer relationship management skills, and experience with specific markets and/or nurturing techniques. 

Examples of competency assessments include: 

• Role-based tests: Based on the job analysis, determine the key functional competencies for the role. Use Toggl Hire’s test database to build customized competency tests for different roles. Our questions draw on expert knowledge and cover a wide range of roles — from accounting to sales and support. 

• Interview-based assessment: Competency-based interviews include standardized questions for each applicant, designed to assess their core competencies, like critical thinking or analytical skills, and specific hard skills, like data analytics skills. A hiring manager then receives a scorecard and a candidate evaluation form with fleshed-out assessment criteria and ratings. 

• Homework tasks: To assess the candidate’s skills in context, you can give out longer take-home assignments — a coding challenge, a client case study, a presentation demo, or any other well-scoped task. Toggl Hire provides over 500 ready-made homework templates with in-built assessment criteria to test a wide range of competencies. 

6. Emotional intelligence tests

An emotional intelligence test is a good complement to a general soft skills assessment if you are hiring for managerial, executive, or senior customer-facing roles. 

Emotional Intelligence is commonly defined by four attributes: Self-management, self-awareness, social awareness, and relationship management. 

Marc Brackett, Ph.D., founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence

Test takers with a high EQ may have the same skills and job knowledge, but they’re also more likely to navigate the social complexities of the workplace better, show strong leadership qualities, and communicate effectively with diverse groups.

7. Risk tests

Some employers use pre-employment tests to weed out candidates who may not meet workplace safety criteria. These risk assessments help reduce the likelihood of poor workplace behavior that could endanger other employees’ safety and corporate operations. 

There are a few types of risk tests:

• Integrity tests evaluate a candidate’s likelihood of following the company’s rules and root out counterproductive tendencies, such as absenteeism or safety violations. Integrity tests are often used for entry-level positions to ensure potential employees will take responsibility for completing their tasks efficiently.

• Safety assessments look at how likely a candidate will behave in a way that creates or heightens the risk for themselves or their coworkers. While this isn’t a personality test, the test results of a safety assessment are crucial to the hiring decision for high-risk workplaces.

• Physical ability tests determine if a person meets the physical requirements of a job. While not always relevant, especially as more companies go remote, physical ability tests are relevant for very physical work like jobs in construction or firefighting.

How to decide which type of pre-employment assessments to use

Pre-employment assessment tests work best when you use a combination of them. Combine role-based aptitude tests with more specific questions about the candidate’s numerical reasoning, problem-solving, or good critical-thinking skills, for example. 

Ultimately, your choice of tests will depend on the ideal candidate profile you’ve created for the job description and role you’re hiring for. General cognitive ability may be key for an entry-level role, while specific skills in marketing, sales, or engineering are essential for others. 

Example of implementing pre-hire assessments

Let’s say you’re just starting the hiring process for a junior UI developer and a senior full-stack developer.

For the junior role, a good mix of tests could include a programming skills test (adjusted to the candidate’s level of knowledge) with some probing questions about their general mental ability. This would give candidates with good potential a fair shot. 

Starting with a basic, short technical skills assessment can help you whittle down the applicant pool quickly. Then, invite the best candidates to do a structured interview (to check their communication and problem-solving skills) and consider doing extra interviews if you still have doubts. 

For the senior role, you’ll want to drill down further into the candidate’s skills from the start. Combine a basic pre-employment test with an open-ended coding assignment to evaluate a broader scope of skills. 

Next, you could add an asynchronous video interview — a pre-recorded video Q&A that candidates create, sharing more info about their skills, experiences, and knowledge. Video interviews are a great way to screen candidates for initial culture fit and emotional intelligence.

If the senior role assumes managerial duties, add a behavioral interview to evaluate the candidates’ situational judgment, communication skills, and overall people management skills. 

Where do pre-employment assessments fit in the recruitment process?

As you’ve learned by now, skills assessments have many use cases. But too much choice often breeds confusion. To avoid alienating candidates with multiple tests (and making your job harder than it should be), here’s how to slot pre-employment tests into your hiring process.

Candidate screening

Identify qualified candidates faster at the beginning of the hiring process through short, standardized tests designed to evaluate the applicants’ core competencies and aptitude for the role. 

Examples of candidate screening tests: Cognitive ability tests, role-based job knowledge tests, language proficiency pre-employment assessments, and technical skill assessments

Candidate shortlisting 

Use a combination of open-ended assignments and structured interviews to get extra data for decision-making. Reduce bias by focusing on candidates’ abilities and character values, which predict future job performance. 

Examples of shortlisting tests: Soft skills and personality assessments, homework assignments, and async video interviews.

Candidate selection 

Get the final proof of “fit” and competency by evaluating the candidates’ skills in action with job simulations that represent real-world tasks and challenges in their new role.  

Examples of candidate selection methods: Culture fit interview, live exercise, role-play, and paid test days.

Try a pre-employment assessment with Toggl Hire

Pre-employment testing is a much more modern, fair, efficient, and engaging way to screen candidates for qualifications. These kinds of modern-day skills tests improve the recruitment process and enable data-driven hiring and smarter HR decisions.

With Toggl Hire, you’ve got hundreds of pre-employment tests available to help you evaluate candidates’ cognitive abilities, core competencies, job knowledge, interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence, language proficiency, and many other skills at every stage of your recruitment process.

Don’t just take our word for it, though. See why we love pre-employing skills testing and create a sample assessment using questions from our skills test library! It’s free…so you have no reason not to. 👀

If you set out to bake a cake, you first step is to check you have all the right ingredients at home. A similar principle works for hiring and upskilling employees — you need to know what’s available internally before making any changes.

To do this, you can use a skills matrix, a valuable tool for creating an overview of your organization’s current skills.

In this context, you can think of a skills matrix as the ingredient list for hiring managers looking to bake a recipe for business success. Not a fan of analogies? Don’t worry. We’ll walk you through what a skills matrix is, why you need one, and a step-by-step guide to create one.

TL;DR — Key Takeaways

• A skills matrix is a hiring and talent management tool for assessing employees’ skill levels and interests in those skills.

• A skills matrix uses a list of skills to identify skills gaps, enhance decision-making, manage resources more effectively, track employee development, and support workforce and succession planning to make better hires.

• Skills matrix and competency matrix are two terms used interchangeably, but the latter is broader in terms of skills covered (skills are also slightly different from competencies).

• To create a skills matrix, you only need to follow five steps: identifying missing skills, creating a scoring system, evaluating individual skills, evaluating interest levels, and creating a visual representation of your data.

• Don’t have time to create a skills matrix from scratch We’ve included a handy skills matrix template below to get started!

What is a skills matrix?

A skills matrix is a tool hiring and talent management teams can use to assess their teams’ skills and competencies. It’s a visualization of the skills your team has, and their level of proficiency and interest in each skill.

Skills matrices do more than just help assess each employee’s skill levels, though. They also:

✅ Identify and close skills gaps causing low productivity and engagement levels

✅ Use a rating system to rank the proficiency in each skill across teams and employees to assign each team member to the correct department or job

✅ Improve succession planning, project management, resource allocation, training and development, and much more

Plus, they’re relatively easy to create and can be a powerful tool to guide your talent management and acquisition efforts — especially if you’re engaging in skills-based hiring.

7 benefits of using skills matrices

Whether you’re looking to upskill your existing team or engage in an aggressive talent acquisition campaign that requires you to hire employees with the most in-demand skills, skills matrices can be a useful tool for determining relevant skills for those roles.

Here are seven ways to use them to benefit your internal talent management or hiring efforts.

1. Identify skill gaps

A skills matrix determines which skills your existing team is missing by offering a data-driven approach to skills mapping. By laying out all the technical skills in a matrix, you can determine if your team has what it takes to meet and exceed their goals or if there is a skills shortage.

If your skills aren’t falling short now, they likely will be soon. Kornferry’s latest skills data highlights an $8.5 trillion talent shortage — more than 85 million jobs are expected to be unfilled by 2030 if employers don’t get ahead of the game by focusing on skills. Consider this your nudge.

But what does this look like in action? Imagine your development team needs to implement five new features in the next quarter. With a skills matrix, you’ll determine you’re missing a particular skill — customer feedback collection. With that knowledge, you can fill that gap by hiring a customer-focused product manager.

2. Effective resource management

After creating your matrix, you may realize your organization has all the skills needed to succeed, but they’re not distributed where you need them. If that’s the case, you have a skills mismatch in your team, and a skills matrix will give you the relevant data to prove it.

For example, you have a rockstar customer success manager who previously worked in sales. Instead of hiring new sales team members, you can ask this person to step in and teach your team a new tool or a process.

3. Track employee development

A skills matrix isn’t something you set and forget. As each employee grows and develops themselves in a role, you add specific skills to their matrix. If they’ve acquired new skills or upgraded the key skills they need for their role, jot it down in your matrix.

For example, 4 in 5 people are keen to learn more about how to use AI in their work. Once they’ve mastered Chat-GPT or taken a course in AI prompt engineering, update your matrix accordingly.

This makes it easy to track the impact of employee development in particular skills and determine which employees are more eager to grow in their roles. When the time comes to promote someone to a leadership role, a glance at your skill matrix will determine who has the core skills for the job.

4. Improve employee training programs

Once you introduce a new training program to bridge a skills gap, you’ll want to track its effectiveness. Compare your skills matrices in any team over time to see whether your training program is working or needs further modification.

A well-structured skills matrix also effectively tracks if your team has the most in-demand skills required to stay competitive in your industry. Add those in-demand skills to the matrix as they change (and they do…every year). For example, Coursera highlights the following skills most valued by employers in 2025:

• Generative AI
• Data analysis
• Software development
• User experience
• Web development
• Project management
• Account management
• Content creation and management

5. Enhance workforce planning efforts

Workforce planning involves a comprehensive analysis of skills, competencies, and resources your organization needs to achieve its goals — now and in the future. A skills matrix identifies your existing competencies to determine if they’re sufficient to reach your future goals.

Without thought-out workforce planning, you may find yourself in a situation where you have ambitious goals and not enough people (or the right people) to achieve those goals. Skills matrices help you prevent these mishaps, highlighting where to upskill and train existing employees or when it’s time to hire new ones.

6. Better succession planning

Succession planning is the process of identifying high-performance individuals on your team who will fill critical leadership and management roles in the future. It’s absolutely vital to an organization’s stability, yet 28% of large companies haven’t committed to this process.

A skills matrix complements your succession planning initiative by pinpointing which team members have a high proficiency in your most desired skills, and a commitment to developing specialist or leadership expertise. With a mix of self-assessment and testing methods like Toggl Hire, a skills matrix can identify high performers early on.

Over time, you can invest training and development resources in these employees to better prepare them for their future roles.

7. Hire better employees

Ultimately, a skills matrix determines which specific skills your team is missing to meet your business objectives in the future. With a skills matrix as a tool, you can refine your hiring process and create better job ads.

You won’t need to require all the skills for a particular role. Instead, your human resources department can focus on the skill level and type to fill your skills gaps and form a better team and company.

Skills matrix vs. competency matrix

The terms “skills matrix” and “competency matrix” are used interchangeably, often used in employee performance reviews and other assessment methods to measure employee capabilities. But honestly, depending on how an organization uses them, there may be some overlaps in the definition and use cases.

👉 A skills matrix focuses on the skills and abilities of individual employees in relation to a job role. It includes the soft and technical skills required to perform a certain job, as well as the interest level of each employee in each skill. Most of all, a skills matrix quantifies the proficiency in those skills, helping you identify skills gaps or “rank” employees.

👉 A competency matrix is broader and encompasses the skills, knowledge, and behavior necessary to perform well in the workplace. It covers a broader set of skills, such as cognitive, behavioral, and interpersonal skills. It measures the general competency level of an existing or potential employee, often showing the results on a scale.

You might also choose to use a skills matrix vs. a competency matrix in any one of the following situations.

Adapting to major industry changes

When a major industry change happens, a skills matrix determines what relevant skills your employees already have and which ones they need to adapt to those new changes.

For example, the recent rise in artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT turned the creative world upside down, and everyone with an OpenAI account suddenly became a writer. While we know that’s not actually the case, a skills matrix could have helped analyze internal skill sets to assess who might benefit from upskilling or even AI training.

That’s not to say that a competency matrix isn’t useful in this situation. You could use a competency matrix to determine the level of proficiency in AI skills, for example, or to assess if your employees have the broader skill sets necessary to adapt to a major industry transformation.

Implementing a new L&D program

When you invest in your employees, they tend to stay longer with you. And employers know this. LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report highlights that 90% of organizations are concerned about their employee retention rate and use learning opportunities as their top retention strategy.

A skills matrix can support both your retention and your L&D strategies by determining your training needs. In this context, a skills matrix would identify missing skills and highlight professional development opportunities.

When analyzing the skills matrix, you can choose the right type of learning and development program to fill the gaps you have. On the other hand, a competency matrix allows you to align the L&D and training programs with the broader competency requirements of your company.

Combining different teams

Let’s say you need to create a task force to launch a new feature. You’re going to need a blend of customer success, customer support, marketing, and sales teams.

With a skills matrix, you can take one quick glance at your available employees and determine the best people to join a new team and which tasks to assign them. You can even use the skills matrix to identify people with exceptional teamwork skills, or those who are potential team leaders.

How to create a skills matrix in 5 steps

We’ve included a free skills matrix template below, but it helps to know how to create your own skills matrix from scratch so you know what you’re testing for and why. As you start to analyze your employees’ skills, follow these five steps to create an accurate overview of everybody’s skill sets.

1. Identify missing or essential skills

Skills are the key ingredient in every skills matrix, and you should choose them intentionally. Choose the skills in a matrix according to the:

• Overall business needs
• Departmental needs
• Specific role requirements

It ensures you assign equal importance to hard and soft skills. For some roles, soft skills are even more important than the technical ones. Additionally, group relevant skills together. For example, empathy, active listening, and confidence all belong to the broader communication skills category.

2. Create a skills matrix scoring system

You’ll need a grading or scoring system to assess your team’s skills accurately. Here’s an example you can use:

Beginner: Any employee with basic proficiency levels or the most general skills required to perform a job at a very basic or beginner level.

Professional: An employee with the skills required to perform well in a job, extensive experience, and the ability to guide more junior employees when needed.

Expert: An employee with all the desired skills to perform and exceed in a role and the capability to manage junior employees and improve team performance. They should also stay abreast of important industry trends and know how to communicate the product or service’s value to your customers.

Depending on the complexity of your skill matrix, your HR professionals can add different levels to the scoring system and make them more or less detailed.

3. Evaluate each employee’s skills

To create a skills matrix, you’ll need to define the strengths and weaknesses of each of your employees. There are many different ways to do that, and you can choose one that best suits your needs, time frames, and budget. For example:

• Software: Using skills assessment tools such as Toggl Hire
• Self-reporting: Asking employees to rate their skills on a certain scale
• Feedback: Gathering feedback from managers about the skill sets of individual employees
• Other: Getting certifications from third-party sources

You can use one or combine multiple ways to assess employees’ skills.

4. Evaluate employee interest levels

Assessing proficiency level is one thing; evaluating an employee’s interest in improving that skill is entirely different.

Let’s say you want to improve your marketing team’s skills in paid media. While this is a relevant skill for the business, employees may have no interest in learning it. This is what makes a skills matrix important and so useful. You can use it to identify employees with a passion for upskilling and receiving training for Google Ads, for example.

Evaluating interest is ultimately a valuable tool in guiding your employees’ learning and effective talent management. Managers can identify employees with the drive and interest to qualify for a promotion and give them ample opportunities for learning.

5. Create a visual representation of the data

The last step is creating your very own employee skills matrix — what it actually looks like, we mean. For most companies, this is an Excel spreadsheet with employees’ names, skills, and competencies, all ranked according to their level of proficiency and interest levels.

However you choose to design it, a quick glance at your skills management matrix should show you:

• If you have all the necessary skills in your team to take your business to the next level
• If someone is well-equipped to perform in a particular role
• What skills and competencies you’re missing to have more productive teams

🔥 The bottom line? A skills matrix benefits your entire company — not just key stakeholders and individual employees. When you do it the right way, it can show you whether you need to replace, upskill, or hire new team members.

Download our free skills matrix template

Our internal team of hiring experts worked hard to create this skills matrix template that you can copy and customize according to your needs. No skills matrix software needed — just download the template and supercharge your talent management and hiring processes!

⬇️ Click to download your copy (no email required!)

Close skills gaps with Toggl Hire

A skills matrix is a talent management and hiring tool that can identify skills gaps in your existing workforce and either guide you to reskill existing employees or hire new ones. However, to accurately assess your current (or potential) employees’ skill levels, you’ll need a few skills tests first.

Toggl Hire’s skills test library includes 150+ pre-made, customizable skills tests you can use to test for 180+ soft and hard skills. Use these tests alongside your skills matrix to identify and fill any gaps you discover.

The best part? It’s free to create an account and start creating skills assessment tests. Browse our test library to learn more about our available tests, or sign up today and get started for free!