How working patterns impact your recruitment strategy

The working landscape seems to have reached a natural plateau regarding work patterns.

After what felt like a few years of tug of war between different ways of working, 2026 seems to finally be the time when companies and teams have figured out what works best for them. But that doesn't mean there can't still be room for a few tweaks depending on the types of candidates you want to attract to your company. 

Different ways of working naturally attract a different crowd, so here's a rundown of how each working pattern can benefit your recruitment strategies.

Onsite work

The classic work pattern. For a little while, it felt like this was to become a relic of the past, but many companies have called for a full return-to-office over the last 2 years. The driving factor for this call was to foster an environment of direct collaboration between employees, as well as the ease of access to other functions in your organisation.

In terms of recruitment, fully onsite work can be a popular approach for those early in their careers who want to quickly build out their networks and value the mentorship and face-to-face feedback that can come from working full time in an office environment. There are also more experienced candidates who value onsite work due to the clear boundaries it creates between work life and home life; this is becoming more sought after due to years where the line between the two was often blurry (or non-existent). Close collaboration can be a great force behind innovation, a crucial element of successful teams in this industry.

The main drawback that comes from this work pattern is the geographical limitation it sets. Realistically, the pool of talent you're drawing from for a fully onsite role is within an hour's radius of the office. This drastically reduces the number of candidates available to you, which can make hiring for niche skillsets a difficult task. There are also many candidates that cannot commit to travelling to the office every day due to parenting or carer responsibilities, or who simply choose not to after years of working remotely or in a hybrid capacity. 

Remote work

This is a work pattern that was almost forced into the mainstream during 2020 and now has cemented itself as a genuinely beneficial option for many companies across the Smart Industry. The sophistication of virtual communication software means teams can be spread out all across the world and work just as effectively as if everyone were in the same room.

Remote work gives you the immediate boost of an increased talent pool. Other than a few legalities, there's not really a limit to where in the world someone can work from if the role is fully remote. This gives your talent team a wide array of options to choose from when filling a role, an excellent perk to have when you're looking specific set of skills and experience. If your suite of products is set to launch (or is already launched) across the globe, having access to people working elsewhere in the world can actually be hugely beneficial in bringing a different perspective that can make transitions into new geographical markets smoother.

The key benefit can also be its key drawback: too many candidates to choose from. Naturally, if you're advertising a fully remote role on a job board, you can be left with a real influx of applicants. For entry-to-mid level roles that don't have as many requirements, the number of applicants can get to an overwhelming level. As much as it's a case of 'suffering from success', it can be hard as a talent team to fight through the noise of this amount of CVs to find the top candidates. Having a water-tight, organised process for reviewing candidates at the first stage is a necessity when dealing with a huge influx of applicants.

Hybrid work

A blend between the previous two options, hybrid working is seen by some as the best of both worlds and an unhappy middle ground for others. This can range anywhere from one day of homeworking a week all the way to coming into the office once a month; it's down to the individual and the company to agree on a hybrid pattern that works for both parties.

The benefit this gives to your recruitment strategy is, again, somewhere in the middle of the previous two options. You open the geographic pool up a little wider; there are candidates willing to travel further for work if it's only a few times a week. You can also attract those candidates who are looking for a role with face-to-face contact with their team and those who want a clearer line between work and home life.

In terms of drawbacks, I mentioned it briefly but there are some who view hybrid work as not committing to either way. You may be missing out on top talent that are specifically looking for one or the other, not an amalgamation. Hybrid working also requires a bit of negotiation with each candidate individually as they will each have different priorities; there is a risk that you can lose great candidates during a negotiation if the hybrid approach doesn't meet their needs, wasting time and resources in the process.

Overall, there are many different reasons why a team may choose one of these patterns, way more than simply the way it impacts recruitment. But we wanted to give a slightly different perspective on what has been a hotly debated topic of conversation over the last few years.

Have a particularly sticky hire that you could use some help with? Reach out to me on zak.bainbridge@fmctalent.com and let's chat about how we can work together to solve this!