What Are Hiring Managers in Canada Really Looking For in 2025?

– By Sharon Graham, Founder and Chair of Career Professionals of Canada –

Job seekers often ask career professionals, “What are hiring managers really looking for these days?” It’s a smart question, but not an easy one to answer. In 2025, hiring decisions are shaped by more than résumés, skills, or qualifications. They’re influenced by shifting priorities, workplace trends, external pressures, and even silent biases that job seekers may never be aware of.

As career professionals, we’re trained to help with the fundamentals: refining the résumé, preparing for interviews, improving online presence. But today’s hiring landscape demands more. It’s constantly evolving and layered with nuance. If we want to serve our clients well, we must move beyond surface-level strategies and into the heart of what’s really happening in the world of work.

Career professionals are translators of the labour market, interpreters of change, and navigators of our clients’ futures. We help people prepare for their next opportunity, but we also help them build confidence in unpredictable times. That means tuning into the concerns that hiring managers have, what they’re asked to prioritize, and what makes them hesitate. When we understand these perspectives more deeply, we can equip clients not just to stand out, but to connect authentically and meaningfully with what’s needed now.

Let’s explore the lesser-known trends and behind-the-scenes realities shaping hiring in 2025, and what career professionals can do to respond with clarity, care, and strategic insight.

The Emotional Climate of Hiring

In a post-pandemic, economically uncertain world, emotions are running high in hiring, especially on the employer side. Many hiring managers are exhausted, cautious, and quietly anxious about making the wrong decision. Some have had recent bad hires or failed onboarding attempts. Others are struggling to balance pressure from leadership with tight budgets and even tighter timelines.

Employers are not just looking for skills, they’re looking for ease. They want to hire someone who makes their life easier, not harder.

Coach clients to show calm, not desperation. Ease, not ego. The energy they bring into the room (or on to the screen) matters as much as their credentials. Teach them to be clear, kind, and communicative before, during, and after the hiring process.

Hiring Manager Readiness

Here’s a tip that is lesser known to some job seekers. Many hiring managers are not trained in hiring. In smaller organizations, a team lead, with no formal recruitment training at all, may be evaluating résumés.

Good candidates can get missed if they assume the manager understands career terminology, transferrable skills, or even standard résumé formats.

Guide clients to use clear, jargon-free language. Focus on readability. Consider using a brief “Career Snapshot” or “Key Highlights” section at the top of the résumé to help managers see a fit quickly.

Emerging Biases Around AI Use

AI-generated cover letters, automated applications, and bot-enhanced portfolios are flooding the job market. Some employers are impressed; others are sceptical. A quiet bias is forming. Candidates who seem too polished, answer questions too quickly, or appear too generic may be flagged as inauthentic.

Hiring managers want to see signs of effort, originality, and personal alignment with a candidate’s job search documents. Authenticity is key because hiring officials are learning to spot “AI-speak.”

Guide clients to personalize and humanize their documents. A unique insight in a cover letter or a brief but meaningful story in a LinkedIn summary can set them apart from AI-generated content. We can still use tools but should coach clients to add their own voice.

Reputation Analytics in Hiring

Some employers, especially in large organizations, are using reputation tools and behaviour prediction software in hiring. These programs pull data from publicly available social media posts, blogs, and even user-generated content (UGC) platforms such as Reddit, Quora, and GitHub, to score candidates’ professionalism, collaboration potential, and tone.

A client’s online presence is no longer “nice to have.” It can actively influence shortlisting.

Offer digital brand audits. Encourage clients to contribute thoughtfully to professional discussions on community-driven knowledge and social media platforms, and maintain a values-aligned online identity. One insightful article or comment can elevate their visibility.

Digital Body Language

With so many interviews and meetings happening virtually, digital body language has become a key evaluation factor. Eye contact, responsiveness, screen presence, and tone all influence perception.

A candidate might have the perfect résumé, but if they seem disengaged or inattentive on screen, they’re often disqualified.

Run mock interviews with attention to posture and facial expression. Ensure that they have adequate lighting and an appropriate backdrop for virtual meetings. Help clients practise concise storytelling and speaking in a friendly tone. Encourage a professional but warm on-camera presence.

Invisible Labour: How Clients Can Be Seen

Some clients, especially women, caregivers, and racialized professionals, carry invisible labour that often goes unacknowledged. This includes mentoring others, managing emotional dynamics at work, or being the “go-to” for problems outside their formal job description.

Hiring managers are often looking for emotional intelligence and team players, but don’t always know how to probe for those qualities in an interview.

Support clients in framing these kind of experiences as strengths. For example: “In addition to my role, I was often called upon to mediate team issues and mentor new hires.” Help them place it under soft skills, leadership, or people management, even if it wasn’t in their title.

Career Gaps Are Being Reframed

The stigma around career gaps is fading, but not automatically. Hiring managers are open to non-linear paths, but they want to understand the story. Gaps without context create hesitation.

Many Canadians are navigating caregiving, mental health recovery, or post-pandemic career changes.

Coach clients to confidently explain gaps using framing language like: “During this time, I was focused on family care and continued to build skills through volunteer work and online learning.” Normalization, not defensiveness, is key.

Non-Linear Career Paths Are the New Normal

Gone are the days of neat career ladders. Hiring managers are increasingly open to people who’ve taken winding roads if they can connect the dots.

Many professionals have portfolios full of experience across sectors, roles, or gaps.

Help clients craft a unifying narrative that connects their journey. Use consistent themes, such as “problem-solving across contexts” or “supporting people through transition.” Encourage document titles like “Career Pivot Résumé” or “Bridge Skills Portfolio” when appropriate.

The New Value of Cross-Sector Experience

As Canada’s economy undergoes structural shifts, particularly in energy, health care, and education, more employers are valuing cross-sector experience. For example, a former hospitality worker may be welcomed into a customer experience role in finance. A social worker might move into human resources. Skills are migrating.

Unconventional backgrounds may now be seen as assets, not liabilities, when framed correctly, .

Use résumé language that highlights industry-agnostic strengths: stakeholder engagement, conflict resolution, performance measurement, operational improvement. Remove jargon that locks clients into one field.

Proof of Learning Agility

In this age of rapid change, learning agility is no longer a soft skill. It’s a core hiring metric. Hiring managers want evidence that a candidate can handle the unknown, pick up new tools, and adapt when priorities shift.

Job descriptions may not mention this explicitly, but interview questions often test for it.

Encourage clients to develop a few anecdotes that show how they navigated something new. For example, “When the team introduced a new CRM system, I took the lead in learning it and training others, even though I had never used it before.”

Quiet Trends in Internal Mobility

With tight budgets and high external hiring costs, many Canadian employers are quietly prioritizing internal talent development. However, many internal roles aren’t posted publicly. They’re offered informally through manager networks, succession plans, or “tap-on-the-shoulder” opportunities.

Clients may be waiting for a posting that will never appear. Others may assume they’re not “ready” unless someone tells them so.

Teach clients to initiate internal conversations. Help them draft a “career conversation” script for their current manager. Encourage them to signal interest in growth and stay visible through projects, peer support, and cross-team collaboration.

The Rise of Value-Alignment Interviews

We’re seeing more employers conduct values-based interviews. These go beyond competencies to explore whether a candidate’s worldview, ethics, and purpose align with the organization.

In non-profits, social enterprises, and public sector roles, values alignment can outweigh experience.

Encourage clients to reflect on their core values. Practise articulating how their personal mission connects to the company’s goals. Use SAR (situation, action, result) stories that include a values element such as fairness, inclusion, or sustainability.

We Can Help Clients Satisfy the Needs of Hiring Managers

In 2025, hiring managers aren’t just selecting candidates. They’re making decisions under pressure. They’re expected to manage risk, support diversity, integrate AI tools, protect culture, and align hires with evolving business goals. Their choices must be thoughtful, future-proof, and often made without full certainty.

At the same time, job seekers are carrying their own weight. They’re navigating résumé scans by algorithms, applying for shifting job titles, and trying to be seen in systems that sometimes feel impersonal or overwhelming. Many feel anxious, unseen, or unsure how to tell their story in a way that truly resonates.

The labour market isn’t linear anymore. Traditional job paths have splintered. Credentials evolve. Skill sets overlap. Roles get renamed or redefined. This ambiguity can be frustrating for clients, but it’s also where career professionals shine. We are not just advisors; we are pattern-seekers, sense-makers, and trusted allies in our clients’ working lives.

Final Reflections: How Career Professionals Will Create Impact

To be truly effective, we must keep expanding our own understanding. That includes confronting outdated assumptions, asking better questions, and staying alert to social, economic, and technological change. We can help clients prepare for what matters, not just what’s listed on the job posting, when we understand what hiring managers are really looking for.

Let’s not underestimate our impact. We help clients make informed decisions, but we also help them hold onto their hope, voice, and sense of direction in a rapidly changing world. That’s no small thing.

Our role calls for curiosity, empathy, and courage. Every coaching conversation is a chance to spark clarity. Each résumé update is an opportunity to elevate someone’s value. Every question we ask might lead a client to a breakthrough they didn’t know they needed.

Our clients place enormous trust in us and that trust deserves more than generic guidance. It deserves attentiveness, fresh thinking, and a deep commitment to professional excellence. When we go further, look deeper, and lead with purpose, we don’t just help people land jobs. We help them step confidently into the future.