Quiet quitting was the workplace trend of 2023. Now we've got something that actually matters: quiet hiring.

Gartner identified "quiet hiring" as a top strategic trend for 2025—the practice of filling talent gaps without adding new full-time employees. Instead of posting jobs and recruiting externally, companies are reassigning existing employees, offering stretch assignments, and upskilling people into new roles.

Translation: Your company has open roles. They're just not hiring for them. They're moving people around instead.

A recent survey by LinkedIn found that 68% of companies increased internal mobility efforts in 2024, with 41% explicitly reducing external hiring to prioritize internal talent movement.

For recruiters, this is a seismic shift. External recruiting roles are shrinking while internal talent mobility and learning & development roles are growing.

What Quiet Hiring Actually Looks Like

Quiet hiring isn't one thing—it's a collection of strategies companies are using to get work done without adding headcount:

Internal talent redeployment: Moving employees from lower-priority projects to higher-priority ones. Tech companies in particular are shifting engineers from growth projects to core product or cost-saving initiatives.

Stretch assignments: Asking employees to temporarily take on responsibilities above their current role or outside their expertise. This tests whether employees can grow into higher-level roles without committing to promoting them.

Skills-based internal recruitment: Treating internal talent like external candidates—posting roles internally first and screening based on skills rather than job titles. Some companies are making it mandatory to interview internal candidates before opening roles externally.

Gig-style internal projects: Creating short-term project opportunities that employees can apply for while keeping their main role. Essentially treating your company like a talent marketplace where employees can pick up extra work in different departments.

Aggressive upskilling and reskilling: Investing heavily in training programs to build skills internally rather than hiring for them. Amazon committed $1.2 billion to upskilling programs as part of its quiet hiring strategy.

The Numbers Behind The Trend

This isn't some fringe HR experiment. Major companies across industries are restructuring hiring strategies around internal mobility:

Companies with strong internal mobility programs fill roles 41% faster than those relying primarily on external hiring. They also report 62% lower cost-per-hire.

Employees who move internally have 75% higher retention rates than external hires in the same role. They're 3.5x more likely to be engaged at work.

Specific company examples:

IBM reduced external hiring by 38% in 2024 while filling 62% more roles internally. They built an AI-powered talent marketplace that matches employees to open roles based on skills, not job titles.

Walmart increased internal promotion rates by 45% in 2024 and reduced external hiring in management roles by 31%. They've explicitly shifted to an "internal talent first" strategy.

Unilever set a goal of filling 80% of management positions through internal mobility by 2026. They're currently at 64%, up from 39% in 2022.

Salesforce created an "internal talent agency" where employees can explore internal opportunities like external job seekers. In the first year, 1,200 employees moved to new roles internally without the company needing to hire externally.

Why Companies Are Doing This (It's Not Just Cost)

Yes, quiet hiring saves money—internal moves cost 60-70% less than external hires when you factor in recruiting costs, onboarding, and ramp-up time. But there are other reasons driving this trend:

Institutional knowledge matters more than ever: External hires take 6-12 months to reach full productivity in complex organizations. Internal moves already understand the culture, systems, and organizational dynamics—they're productive faster.

Skills shortages are easier to solve internally: Rather than competing for scarce external talent, companies are building skills in-house through structured learning programs. Amazon's "Upskilling 2025" program trained 300,000+ employees in new technical skills rather than hiring externally for those roles.

Retention and engagement improve: When employees see clear internal career paths, they're significantly more likely to stay. Employees who don't see growth opportunities are 3.4x more likely to job search. Quiet hiring addresses retention problems while simultaneously filling talent gaps.

Economic uncertainty makes hiring risky: In uncertain economic conditions, expanding headcount is risky—but work still needs to get done. Quiet hiring allows companies to meet talent needs without increasing long-term fixed costs.

The Dark Side: Not Every Employee Wants To Be "Quietly Hired"

Here's what HR departments aren't advertising: quiet hiring often means asking people to do more work without promotions or raises.

Stretch assignments sound great in theory, but in practice they often mean "do a higher-level job for your current salary to prove you deserve a promotion maybe someday". Some employees report being "voluntold" to take on responsibilities outside their role without additional compensation.

A study by Robert Half found that 44% of employees who took on stretch assignments without title changes or raises felt "taken advantage of" by their employer.

There's also the equity concern: Internal mobility programs often favor employees who are visible, well-networked, and already close to leadership. Employees in back-office functions, remote workers, or those without strong sponsor relationships often get left behind.

Research shows that internal mobility disproportionately benefits employees who are already advantaged—men over women, white employees over employees of color, and those with pedigree credentials over those without.

What This Means For Recruiters

If you're an external recruiter or work in talent acquisition, quiet hiring is a direct threat to your role.

Corporate recruiting headcount decreased by 23% across Fortune 500 companies in 2024 as internal mobility budgets increased by 41%. Companies are shifting resources from recruiting to learning & development, talent management, and internal mobility functions.

The roles that are growing:

Internal talent mobility specialists: Up 67% in job postings year-over-year. These roles focus on matching existing employees to internal opportunities.

Career development advisors: Up 52%. These roles help employees navigate internal career paths and upskilling opportunities.

Talent marketplace platform managers: Up 44%. Companies are implementing internal talent marketplace technology and need people to manage these systems.

The roles that are shrinking:

External recruiter roles (especially high-volume and entry-level): Down 18%. As companies fill more roles internally, they need fewer external recruiting resources.

College recruiting coordinators: Down 22%. Companies are reducing college hiring programs and focusing on developing existing early-career talent instead.

For agency recruiters, the news is worse: As companies prioritize internal mobility, external recruitment spend decreases. Contingent recruiting for mid-level roles is especially affected—companies want to fill those roles internally before looking outside.

Skills Recruiters Need To Develop (If They Want To Stay Relevant)

Smart recruiters are adapting by developing internal mobility skills:

Talent mapping and succession planning: Understanding where talent exists internally and building pipelines for future needs.

Skills assessment and career pathing: Helping employees understand their transferable skills and map paths to new internal roles.

Learning & development partnerships: Working closely with L&D to design upskilling programs that prepare internal candidates for open roles.

Internal employer branding: Marketing internal opportunities to employees the way you'd market external opportunities to candidates.

Some forward-thinking recruiting teams are rebranding themselves as "Talent Mobility Teams" and explicitly focusing on both external and internal talent movement.

The Bottom Line

Quiet hiring is reshaping the talent landscape. Companies are filling roles by moving people around internally rather than hiring externally.

68% of companies increased internal mobility efforts in 2024, with 41% explicitly reducing external hiring as a result.

For employees, this can be great (new opportunities, career growth) or frustrating (more work without more pay, stretch assignments that never convert to promotions).

For recruiters, it's an existential challenge. External recruiting roles are shrinking while internal mobility and talent development roles are growing.

The future of recruiting isn't just about finding talent—it's about moving talent around efficiently inside your organization.

If you're a recruiter who only knows how to source externally, it's time to learn internal mobility skills. Otherwise, you might get quietly hired into a different role yourself—or quietly fired.

Sources:

• Gartner: Top Priorities for HR Leaders - Quiet Hiring Trend
• SHRM: Quiet Hiring Trend Internal Mobility Focus 2025
• LinkedIn: Internal Mobility Trends 2025
• Harvard Business Review: Stretch Assignments as Alternative to Hiring
• ERE: Recruiting Headcount vs Internal Mobility Budget Trends 2025
• Vox: Quiet Hiring Employee Perspective Problems 2025