The recruiting industry is marked by constant change and innovation. While this is certainly a good thing — giving organizations new ways to connect and engage with top talent — keeping up with these changes can be overwhelming. But for companies to remain competitive, a firm understanding of the latest market trends and solutions available is integral to a successful talent acquisition process. So if your company is looking to refresh its recruiting strategy, it is important to consider these latest developments and how they can be applied to your organization to attract the right talent.
So, how do we know what these trends are? By looking at the techniques in use or under development by the more than 60 companies designated as winners of the 2013 Candidate Experience Awards. The program found that there are three primary areas that these organizations were squarely focused on in 2013:
- Mobile services: With candidates no longer tethered to their desktop computers, organizations must provide a simplified, mobile-enabled application process to truly engage today’s job seekers. An effective strategy is more than just making the career site available on mobile devices; it should enable candidates to learn about the company and its positions as well as apply directly from their devices.
- Candidate relations management systems: The use of CRMs to manage interactions with candidates continues to rise, and most recruiters reported that they would rather spend more time in the CRM cultivating talent than working through the applicant tracking system. The CRM continues to become more of an interactive tool for working with future talent, as well as current, ready and available talent.
- Video interviewing systems: If you spend any time online, it’s clear that video truly is the next generation. Whether video interviewing, video job descriptions or realistic job previews or interactions, video should now be a core component for recruiting across the board.
Each of these trends put the candidate center stage, providing new ways to interact with potential employees that connect with them where they are and how candidates search for jobs today. If your organization isn’t at least considering implementing these strategies, you run the risk of being behind your competition. It’s never too late to improve your recruiting practices, either with the options above or the ones that I believe are the biggest trends this year. These include:
- Credentialing and authentication: As candidates continue to demand and expect a streamlined application process, credentialing and authentication is one immediate way to improve the application process. By enabling candidates to apply via LinkedIn, Dropbox, Monster and other applications, they benefit from a simplified process that connects data they have already created about their work history, education and resume elements, without the need to create it over and over again.
- Virtual presence: As video continues to be pervasive in the recruiting process, companies will seek to take it a step further to add more context to their relationships and conversations. Expanding the video/connection beyond the interview aspect, into the job content presentation and through the onboarding efforts incorporates interactive gamification, collaboration rooms/hangouts and assessments — creating a dynamic community model vastly improved over the flat, email of forms, paperwork and expensive travel to create a connection with a future hire.
- Predictive as a baseline: With more systems and more data in recruiting than ever before, organizations have the ability to look at this information to guide their talent acquisition decisions. The integration and the visualization of this data is the foundation for determining recruiting efforts, estimated costs and complexity before posting a position. The integration of market data and internal succession planning data have the opportunity for recruiting to see around the corner and anticipate the business needs and prepare for them like never before.
As recruiting technology continues to evolve, it is essential that companies understand where the market is today and where it is heading in the future. With a greater understanding of these trends, employers can not only benefit from more efficient ways to connect with talent, but also provide an enhanced candidate experience.
