The hiring method is no longer transactional and recruiters are no longer “order takers”; rather subject matter experts who are instrumental in moving your business forward. The consultative, collaborative, and strategic approach to recruiting has led to a shift in strategic planning and management of talent.
Has your organization kept up with the latest recruiting practices?
Let’s look at some of the top changes in recruiting talent today compared to a decade ago.
Top 6 Recruiting Trends for Today’s Workplace
Trend #1: Recruiters are Aligned with Strategic Business Goals
The present role of recruiters has evolved into creating hiring strategies that incorporate the needs of the business and hiring manager(s), and to foster these relationships for ongoing success. During the planning process, it’s important to incorporate the type of talent you need based on your workforce plan for today and in the future.
What current or potential future skill gaps exist on your team? Does your business need more steadiness (people who may likely stay longer), advanced technical skills, top performers, innovators, or college grads, for instance?
A strategic recruitment plan should include the go-to-market candidate strategy on where to find that talent, evaluation, and measurement for effectiveness, a recruiting budget and of course, align with the overarching business goals to achieve business growth.
Recruiters now take on a more integrated approach to hiring and focus on implementing SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Reasonable, and Time-Based) goals and designing plans on how to achieve them. Common goals include the employer brand strength, determining your open/fill target ratio, hiring manager satisfaction, candidate experience ratings, no significant revenue loss, and no project delays.
What SMART goals do you have set?
Trend # 2: Recruiters are Broadening Diversity in the Workplace
One of the key recruiting trends I’ve observed over the past few years has been the focus on increasing diversity in the workplace. Leaders have realized the significance of diversity and inclusion and how it not only affects the company’s profitability and growth but also sets them apart from their competitors. Leveraging diversity as a recruiting strategy is critical for top-performing teams.
Today’s recruiters should be sourcing and presenting a diverse pool of candidates with varying ethnic, socio-economic, and cultural backgrounds because it brings different ideas, experiences, and perspectives to your business which will help you innovate and grow. It also provides the workforce with an opportunity to interact and learn about other cultures, which directly results in high employee engagement.
Has your talent diversified?
Trend #3: Recruiters are Building an Ongoing Network
Gone are the days when recruiters could just reach out to a candidate to offer them a job or simply respond to a resume that was submitted. Recruiting used to look a lot like sales, delivering pitches to prospective candidates to quickly lure them towards a job and move on. Now, the function looks more like marketing and long-term lead nurturing. (Although, we still want to quickly lure them to our jobs!)
We all have been spectators of the social media outburst, which has not only helped us reconnect with our childhood buddies but has also impacted us professionally. Recruiters are using various social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to create employer brand visibility, connect with people in different fields, and build a network for their talent pools. Social recruiting makes it easier for Recruiters to connect and stay connected with colleagues, candidates, hiring managers and acquaintances. These sites allow for targeted job ads, talent sourcing, increased employee referrals, and collaborative hiring.
Building an ongoing network is also not online. Recruiters should continue to attend various networking events like conferences, seminars, job fairs, and other professional events to meet and create connections with a wide range of candidates. Then, nurture those relationships for the long-term with the help of new technologies.
Are your recruiters still “posting and praying” or are they proactively building their network?
Trend #4: Recruiters are Utilizing Technology
Like most functions, technology has shifted the productivity of recruiting. Almost a decade ago, recruiters did not have any means to organize the candidate pipeline and effectively complete the hiring process. Sorting through piles of resumes on hard paper was not only time consuming, but also affected productivity.
With access to technology such as Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) tools, HR Information Systems (HRIS), and Recruitment Marketing software, recruiting is more streamlined and efficient than ever. Today, we’re even seeing recruiting departments adopt artificial intelligence (AI) into their processes.
A recruiter’s role is now focused on optimally utilizing the platform and spending time in developing candidate relationships. Due to advanced capabilities, mundane tasks like pre-screening applicants and posting jobs have become automated. Recruiters use these technology systems to help build and develop relationships, proactively communicate, create a strong brand name, and set great first impressions with their talent pools.
What technology is your recruiting team utilizing?
Trend #5: Recruiters are Leading the Candidate Experience
Since the current job market is candidate-driven, recruiters today must lead the candidate experience since they are often responsible for the first impression. Positive candidate experiences ultimately lead to a higher probability of a person accepting the job and potential candidate or customer referrals.
Career pages, review websites like Glassdoor, and social media reflect the organization’s brand and how appealing it is to interview with and work for. Along with the deficit of talent, this is also one of the reasons why companies are now reviewing their recruiting processes and finding ways to reduce their time to hire to compete more quickly in such a hot market. Recruiters are making sure there is constant communication with the candidates, and they are respectful of their time. Changes are being made to reflect short and easy job descriptions, transparency in the hiring process, the simplified application process, and structured interviews – both phone and in-person. It’s also critical for recruiters to keep candidates updated about their hiring status, be available to clarify any questions, and always act professional as a representative of the organization.
Do you know what your candidate experience is like?
Trend #6: Recruiters are Focused on Analytics and Metrics
Back in the day, Recruiters relied mostly on traditional channels of recruiting and had no source of measuring the effectiveness of recruitment.
Now, with access to robust and budget-friendly technology platforms Recruiters can leverage these tools to determine time-to-fill positions, total cost, and quality per hire, establish areas of improvement, and optimize and streamline the overall hiring process. By utilizing this data, recruiters can have better insight into the effectiveness of the recruiting strategy and make necessary improvements. This trend is driving new developments in the market like Gartner’s TalentNeuron or LinkedIn's Talent Insights to help make better talent decisions.
As a leader, are you reviewing recruiting metrics regularly?
Given these rapid changes, one thing is for sure – the role of recruiting is evolving faster than we can imagine and it’s essential for organizations to keep up if you want to compete for growth. If you are unsure if your recruiting is functioning at its highest potential, download our Hiring Manager's Guide to Recruiting or give us a call to learn more about conducting a Recruiting Assessment.
