New Data: See What Your Candidates Want in 2025

When considering a new job, workers in the healthcare industry are nearly 10% more likely to prioritize an inclusive workplace, compared with all other professionals. 

That’s according to nearly 37,000 LinkedIn members surveyed in recent months about what matters most to them when they’re considering a new job opportunity. And that’s just one example of how candidate priorities can vary depending on what role they’re currently in. While there are a few things that virtually everyone cares about (more on those in a moment), LinkedIn’s data also reveals what priorities are uniquely important to specific talent pools. 

Learning what candidates want is crucial for attracting the right talent. Read on to discover which priorities matter most to all candidates; how priorities can differ across candidates in healthcare, operations, and sales; and how you can find data on what your specific talent pool prioritizes. 

Top priorities across all candidates — and what’s changing

Let’s start with the big picture: When LinkedIn asked members to select their most important factors when considering a new job, three priorities emerged as clear front-runners.

Compensation leads the pack, with 63% of candidates ranking excellent compensation and benefits among their top priorities. Work-life balance follows at 49%, while flexible work arrangements round out the top three at 44%. These three priorities have dominated candidate preferences for years, dating back to the pandemic. 

But while these top priorities have remained remarkably stable, there’s been more movement just beneath the surface. Recent LinkedIn data shows subtle but telling shifts in what candidates prioritize.

In the first quarter of 2025, the fastest-growing priority for candidates around the world was working at a company driven by values that match their own. 

That was particularly true in the United States, where company values saw a 4.3% rise in importance quarter-over-quarter (QoQ). The single fastest-growing priority in the U.S., however, was an inclusive workplace for people of diverse backgrounds, which rose by 9.8% in importance. 

Interestingly, flexible work arrangements also increased in importance around the world, growing by 1% QoQ. In our analysis of last quarter’s movement, flexible work had decreased by 1.5% — only to swing back this latest quarter. 

Moving on to priorities that declined recently, opportunities to learn new, highly desired skills ticked down a bit, continuing a trend we saw in the previous period. Given the uncertainty of the macroeconomic picture and the disruption of AI, candidates may be putting less stock in long-term value propositions. 

How candidate priorities differ across talent pools

While these broad trends offer valuable insights, the reality is that candidate priorities can vary dramatically by function, location, and skill set. 

Using LinkedIn Talent Insights, you can easily find what matters to your custom talent pool, whether you’re hiring marine biologists in Boston or machine learning experts in Mumbai. Simply create a Talent Pool Report, search for the talent pool you’re interested in (via job title, location, skills, industries, or other advanced filters), and click into the Employer Brand tab. Then scroll down to the section called “What employer value propositions are most important for this talent?” to see the results for your own customized talent pool.

For now, let’s take a closer look at three major functions and how candidates within each stand out. While the top priorities (compensation, work-life balance, and flexibility) remain important across all groups, each function shows distinct preferences that often align with their core work.

Healthcare workers, compared with others, seem to particularly care about their work environment: They want employees who are happy, company values that match their own, an inclusive culture, and flexible work arrangements. 

According to a recent survey in LinkedIn’s new healthcare report, 83% of successful healthcare recruitment teams work for companies that prioritize cultivating a positive workplace culture, while 74% work for employers who offer mental health support, and 70% work for companies that invest in career development. These efforts not only attract skilled professionals but also strengthen retention and long-term engagement.

Salespeople — consistently one of the most in-demand roles on LinkedIn — are significantly more likely than other workers to prioritize clear leadership and effective management. Company values, collaboration, and happy employees are also especially important for sales, perhaps reflecting the deeply interpersonal nature of their day-to-day work.

Operations is the largest job function represented on LinkedIn, with over 83 million members. That may also be why the distinctive features of this group are relatively muted compared with all others — they simply make up a big enough portion of the overall population that they inevitably tend toward the average. Still, the priorities of clear leadership and the ability to grow their careers internally stand out. 

Final thoughts

Taken together, the data paints a clear picture. Compensation, work-life balance, and flexible work remain the universal magnets that draw candidates’ interest, but the fastest-rising differentiators live one layer deeper: a mission-driven culture, authentic inclusion, and leaders who set clear goals. 

Healthcare talent weighs those cultural signals most heavily, sales professionals zero in on strong leadership and coaching, and operations workers look for advancement paths that keep careers moving.

For recruiters and employer branding teams, the takeaway is simple: When pitching a job opportunity, start with the nonnegotiables (competitive pay, balance, flexibility), then tailor the message to the function. Cite patient-centric values for nurses, quota-crushing leadership for account executives, and continuous-improvement road maps for ops managers. 

LinkedIn Talent Insights can surface those nuances in minutes — and that extra layer of relevance is often what turns passive prospects into enthusiastic candidates.

Understanding these nuances — both the broad priorities and the function-specific differences — can help you create more compelling job opportunities that resonate with your target talent pool. After all, the first step to attracting the right candidates is understanding what they truly value.

Methodology

Based on 73,856 responses from members around the world between October 1, 2024, and March 31, 2025. For quarter-over-quarter results in this analysis, the current quarter was compared with last quarter. The “last quarter” (October 2024 – December 2024) had 36,904 survey responses; the “current quarter” (January 2025 – March 2025) had 36,952 survey responses. To evaluate differences in personas, this analysis looks at the top functions on LinkedIn and compares their responses to the survey with the global population.