In just a few years the world has changed so much that it took us a huge effort to accept the new reality and adapt to it. Putting aside everything we have been bearing, it merits saying that things are slowly getting better and to some extent, we have managed to adjust. Yet, the world is not going to stop changing and so we are. 

In this light, recruitment has become one of the industries that had to undergo significant transformation. As it is noted in the LinkedIn “Future of Recruitment” report: 

“Recruiting isn’t just more important today — it’s also more difficult. That’s because companies’ talent needs seem to change day by day.” 

Sure enough, after riding through a lot of uncertainty, we find ourselves in an almost completely different recruitment market compared to the one just two years ago. Hiring practices we used back then are now dated and ineffective. And it seems a lot is yet to keep changing.

Therefore, understanding what is coming and how to react to it has now become one of the vital skills for businesses. Identifying new trends and the existing ones that are getting stronger makes it easier to evolve and become even more efficient despite the global setup. 

So here comes a reasonable question: what does 2022 hold for recruiters all across the globe? 

We have researched the recent studies and are ready to give the answer.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 

The necessity for a fairer representation and inclusion in businesses throughout the world has been growing stronger over the past few years. And though it is still going through a rapid transformation, it seems to have now finally become an essential constituent of modern recruitment. It is no longer a “nice to have skill” for businesses, but a solid, “must-have” attitude and a key focus.

Findings from McKinsey’s “Diversity Wins” report prove with numbers that businesses with more gender and ethnic diverse executive teams are more likely to have above-average profitability. The likelihood of financial outperformance is 25% higher for companies in the top-quartile for gender diversity in leadership and 36% higher for those with ethnic diversity.

Not only businesses become more conscious in this regard. According to the JobVite “2021 Recruiter National Report”, the number of job seekers who are inquiring about the DE&I commitment and initiatives in companies, is steadily growing year on year. Moreover, 49% of the surveyed recruiters have experienced candidates turning down an interview or a job offer because of the lack of diversity in the workplace.

By the way, recruiting technology can be of great help when it comes to building more diverse teams. For instance, AmazingHiring sourcing software allows its users to set Diversity & Inclusion filters while searching candidates and activate blind hiring mode when sharing results with a hiring manager.

Data-driveness & automation

Nowadays, with data getting accessible to anyone, understanding and capitalizing on analytics is rapidly becoming a must-have skill in recruitment. According to the LinkedIn “Global Talent Trends 2020” report, the number of HR pros with data analysis skills has increased by 242% over the last 5 years.

Indeed, more TA leaders tend to ensure their teams have a data-driven mindset and the right technology to collect, analyze and capitalize on the talent market statistics. Sourcing and pipeline growth metrics, engagement, and acceptance rates — real-time analytics and insights help recruiters stay agile in the background of continuing stresses and challenges in the market.

Besides getting advantage of numbers, automation comes in as one of the most powerful recruiting potentiators that can help simplify and optimize processes. For example, manual communication is one of the biggest recruiting hurdles as it has proved to be ineffectual due to time and labor-intensiveness. It creates unnecessary complexity and wasteful time consumption. Thankfully, these days recruiters can build personalized candidate outreach with automated nurturing.

That is, the right technology can be a key to enhancing your company’s recruitment. According to the survey provided in the “Future of Recruitment” report, 68% of recruiting pros point out investing in better-recruiting tools and technology as the #1 performance booster over the next 5 years.

For sure, even the best technology cannot be a solution to all recruiting needs. However, it can act as an invaluable resource of data, help reduce busywork, augment the team’s skills and free up their resources to focus on engaging candidates and delivering on the talent strategy. For one, AmazingHiring’s functionality includes a brand new Talent Intelligence feature for market insights and an advanced Messaging platform with automated sequences, built-in & customizable templates, and personalized variables.

More strategic sourcing & passive candidates

In recent years sourcers’ role has been significantly re-evaluated by businesses. Times, when the talent market was mostly represented by active job-seekers, are long gone and passive candidates sourcing has become the new black.

The modern talent market, especially when it comes to software engineers and other technical specialists, is a battlefield for companies competing for the same skill-set and thus, the same candidates. It has never been more candidate-driven. And indeed, passive candidate sourcing expands the potential talent pool dramatically as according to the Stackoverflow “2020 Developer Survey” only 17% of its respondents are actively looking for a job while the remaining 83% of developers can be qualified as passive candidates.

Many companies now devote much attention to forming sourcing teams that are fully dedicated to the process of searching, identifying, and reaching out to potential candidates. Such separation of duties has proved to deliver more quality-oriented and thus much better results.

Another best practice is to equip sourcers with technologies that can save precious time by providing an open-web database and simplifying candidate search. For example, AmazingHiring’s search engine gives instant access to 600 million profiles of tech specialists aggregated from more than 80 social and professional networks.

Employee’s retention & internal mobility

2021 has already been named the “Great Resignation” due to the record number of people who have quit their jobs. Now with many positions still left unfilled, employers have to focus not only on recruitment but on retention as well. As in, despite the urge to fill those positions, it would have been much more cost-efficient and productive to keep those workers in the first place. 

Given that the modern talent market is extremely competitive and hiring a well-qualified candidate has become a major issue, retaining existing employees has turned vital. Among the other means, companies can:

• create clear career paths for their employee;
• offer re- and up-skilling;
• provide stipends for certifications and conduct in-house trainings;
• etc.

In other words, employees should feel they can grow their skill-sets and enhance every opportunity to move up within the company, and this leads us to internal mobility. 

According to LinkedIn’s “Workplace Learning report 2021”, businesses with high internal mobility have twice the length of tenure as those with low mobility — 5,4 and 2,9 years respectively. 

Working on employees’ retention and internal mobility will allow avoiding attrition and curbing the worker “churn”. That, in its turn, alleviates pressure on TA teams and does not affect their sourcing goals.

EVP, employer branding & company culture

Having a strong Employer Value Proposition (EVP) is fundamental for both candidates and existing workers. It now might be a real competitive differentiator — the reason why.

According to the Corporate Leadership Council’s research, a clearly outlined and well-executed EVP can decrease annual employee turnover by 69% and thus, lower recruitment costs. Moreover, it can also boost employee advocacy from 24% to 47% which results in a better quality of hire and mutual understanding between both employers and employees.

A strong EVP also includes a healthier company culture. The latter comes with personalized performance management, more transparent real-time connection, prioritizing mental health and work-life balance, a shift to working hybrid & remote, and comprehensive health benefits.

As a whole, it builds better employer branding which has become a crucial business investment for many companies. 

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Conclusions

Recruiting trends come and go. Most of those that were popular a few years ago, we can barely remember now. However, others stay longstanding in order to quietly become an essential part of the culture one day. That remains to be seen.

What is clear now is that evolution comes with adapting and changing and the last two years have proved that. Businesses that can identify trends, follow the change and adjust to it will not only survive but thrive and be ahead of the field. 

The great news is that with our new feature it is much easier to track changes in the market and re-define your hiring strategy according to emerging trends and patterns. We are launching a brand new Talent Intelligence feature — a talent market footprint represented by a set of real-time visual dashboards. Stay on top of things with AmazingHiring.