The world around us is constantly changing, and the recruiting, staffing and HR industries are no exception to this rule. As a recruiter, one of the biggest challenges is staying on top of industry trends and hot topics.

So what is the current state of the recruiting industry? Here’s what industry experts and business leaders are saying.

“Talent is extremely important. It’s like a sports team, the team that has the best individual player will often win, but then there’s a multiplier from how those players work together and the strategy they employ.”

— Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, on the importance of investing in recruiting.

“The ‘yelpification’ of recruiting has made one thing crystal clear: Companies can’t fake a remarkable recruiting process.”

— Whitney Sorenson, VP of platform infrastructure at HubSpot, on how recruiting has been affected by candidate experience and the digital age.

“It creates some tough choices.”

— Steve Clark, spokesman for Oregon State University, on how student employment will be affected by Oregon’s new minimum wage of $14.75 in Portland, $13.50 in midsize counties and $12.50 in rural areas.

“Today’s recruiter must be a marketer, sales person, career coach and psychologist all in one.”

— Josh Bersin, author and founder of Bersin by Deloitte, on what it takes to be a modern recruiter.

“There isn’t a day that I don’t see gender diversity, gender equality covered in the media. It’s finally sinking in, certainly to leaders, and they realize this external pressure is going to impact the demand for having women in senior leadership positions.”

— Leslie Gaines-Ross, chief reputation strategist at Weber Shandwick, on the need for gender diversity in the C-Suite.

“If I was Larry [Page], I’d do the same thing: throw a few more million at people and cut off everyone else’s oxygen.”

— Tom Chavez, founder and CEO of Krux, on the difficulty for small tech companies to compete with tech giants like Google when recruiting for data scientists and computer engineers.

“We need to be better at allowing or encouraging senior women to stay in the industry. We have to ensure that we’re allowing flexibility.”

— Rikki Jones, London market leader at CGI Health, on ways to promote gender equality in the public relations industry.

“Technology is the equalizer for small companies to compete.

— Harold Mills, founder and vice chairman of ZeroChaos, speaking at the 25 Years of Staffing Industry Success keynote panel at SIA’s Executive Forum conference.