As many industries finally experience rapid growth, the war for top talent is becoming more cutthroat than ever. A one-size-fits-all recruiting strategy no longer serves employers well. To attract the best and brightest, organizations must develop a new approach to talent acquisition in order to effectively engage candidates and top-performing employees. Here are five key recruiting trends likely to continue throughout 2015.
Employer-driven approaches to hire top talent are now a thing of the past. Eighty-three percent of employers reported a shift in power away from employers to the candidate in a recent MRINetwork study. The market has become candidate driven, with a high demand for skilled labor but a short supply of quality candidates to fill open positions. Turnover rates are also high, with about 38 percent of new hires averaging only 3-5 years at a company before moving on to other opportunities.
Talented people understand their worth and are unlikely to stick around unless the work remains stimulating. Recruiters must work harder to provide a great candidate-driven experience and keep their employees happy, engaged and motivated.
The rise of new digital technologies and social networking platforms offers unlimited potential for HR managers and recruiters to tap into an even larger talent pool database. Social media sites allow employers to source, contact and screen both active and passive job candidate directly. In fact, 38 percent of companies now use social networking sites as an HR tool, an increase of 73 percent since 2011, with numbers only expected to grow.
Do some research to find out which online networks will be the biggest asset for your business and announce job openings through that channel. Just remember: social networking is a two-way street, meaning employees are looking just as closely at you as you are them.
As the saying goes, quality always trumps quantity. According to the 2015 LinkedIn Global Recruiting Trends, quality of hire ranks as the most valuable metric in measuring recruiting performance. To determine which employees are quality hires, organizations can use both quantitative and qualitative methods such as employee surveys, turnover rates, time to contribution rate and workload per employee.
When screening potential employees, it’s important to remain focused on the organization’s short-term and long-term talent needs. A few best practices to enhance the quality of new hires include capitalizing on employee referrals, offering realistic job previews to candidates and selecting candidates who fit in with the company culture.
Findings from the 2015 LinkedIn’s report show that 75 percent of global talent leaders consider talent branding to be a top priority. A talent brand is the highly social, public image of your employer brand that incorporates what the talent thinks, feels and shares about your company.
Establishing an authentic talent brand to promote the unique attributes of an organization’s workplace cultures and values ensures the most qualified candidates will be drawn to the company on their own accord. One of the most effective ways to build a credible talent brand is to enhance the company’s social media image to better connect with and fully engage prospects.
More candidates are learning about job opportunities from mobile devices, with about 28 percent applying directly via mobile. However, only 33 percent of companies overall report mobile optimization of their job postings, even though a CareerBuilder study on candidate behaviors shows that 65 percent of these individuals will immediately leave a website if it isn’t mobile friendly.
Job seekers expect convenience and accessibility. Going mobile with your recruiting strategy will not only provide a positive candidate experience, it will also improve your bottom line.
The recruitment landscape of 2015 is highly competitive, with more job openings and less skilled workers available. To stay ahead of the competition, recruiters must focus on the current recruitment trends and develop new hiring strategies to meet their talent needs.
