Job seekers flooded companies with applications even if they weren't remotely qualified for the positions, and recruiters, overwhelmed by the deluge, stopped reviewing them all togetherIncreased confidence in the economy has led to 68% of employers expecting business activity to increase over the next 12 months and 74% looking to hire additional staff.
Over the 10 year period to mid-2022, the UK population is projected to increase by 4.3 million to 68.0 million. The population is projected to continue ageing with the average age rising from 39.7 years in 2012 to 42.8 by mid-2037. Job growth is projected in high level occupations (managers, professionals, and associate professionals) and some lower skilled occupations (in caring, hospitality and leisure).
In line with these demographic trends, Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) research has showed that a shortage of candidates with appropriate levels of skills and experience is the top concern among recruiters with a third (34 per cent) saying they already face the issue.
So how will Hirers respond to these challenges in 2017?
4 key themes will shape these hirers as they investment in hiring technology;
- Increased use of social media to find and connect with candidates
- Move to mobile recruitment (Career websites, Applicant Tracking Systems, job boards, social media)
- Increased focus on candidate referral
- Embracing video to promote your brand, connect with and select candidates
10 years ago, Monster and CareerBuilder were the starting point for any respectable professional job search. Companies posted ads, job seekers responded, and within a day recruiters had hordes of potential hires to choose from. But over the years, the boards seemed to sabotage their own value proposition by supporting ‘spray and pray’.
Job seekers flooded companies with applications even if they weren’t remotely qualified for the positions, and recruiters, overwhelmed by the deluge, stopped reviewing them all together. This caused serious job seekers to abandon the big boards, turning instead to social media, referrals, and niche recruiting sites for job leads, leaving recruiters with a less and less compelling candidate pool for their job posting pound.
According to a survey conducted by Jobvite, 73% of recruiters use social media to find candidates; 61.5% use LinkedIn, 30.7% use Facebook, 23.1% use Twitter, and only 7.7% are using only job boards. An Onrec survey found that 93% of recruiters said they review a candidate’s social profile before deciding to hire.
LinkedIn is a great tool to find and connect with professional Talent. It was developed on the principle of ‘six degrees of separation’ but it wasn’t developed with recruitment in mind. Many recruiters are frustrated about the fees charged and the stranglehold the tool has on the market at present.
Aggregators such as Adzuna and Indeed are proving popular with candidates by hosting 1000’s of opportunities in one place but candidate quality remains the paramount measure of success for Hirers and these often fail to provide the quality of profile and information offered by social media.
Internal recruiters can clearly adopt several approaches including developing their own solutions (mobile enabled career sites) or engage established players such as LinkedIn to help promote your brand and provide access to social recruiting.
So, what’s next for the recruitment market? Ultimately hirers are looking for ways to combine job posting, aggregation and social connectivity to make hiring smarter and free up time to work more closely with clients and talent.
In response to this, Victoria Butt founded Talentgapp.com:
“We wanted to build a tool that was easy to use, saved Hirers and Talent time and connected Hirers and Talent with recruitment in mind. We ultimately wanted to connect Talent with Hirers to enable an ongoing and meaningful digital relationship with recruitment in mind throughout their career.
Victoria continued:
“Being able to see Talent availability in one place is unique. Talent are actively invited to maintain their availability status, that way Hirers don’t spam people who aren’t active in the market and can target their time on those who are. Talent can also manage their profiles to define who can see them and who can’t. This enables Talent to focus their job search and their current employer unaware of their activity.”
By Victoria Butt, Founder of Talentgapp.com.
Join Over 40,000 Recruiters. Get our latest articles weekly, all FREE – SEND ME ARTICLES
Recruiters love this COMPLETE set of Accredited Recruitment & HR Training – View Training Brochure
