5 powerful recruitment trends impacting your time to hire.

Timely acquisition of top talent can make or break competitive success, as any delay in hiring negatively impacts productivity gains.  To successfully manage and quickly fill talent gaps, organizations must take a strategic approach, where the talent acquisition is ably supported by a quick turnaround process. As simple as this may sound, the typical recruitment process is plagued by multi-dimensional challenges – evolving employment trends, advancements on the social and technological front, changing demographics and so on.  

A clear recruitment plan supplemented by these five powerful recruitment trends can help your organization reduce its ‘time to hire’.

Leveraging data analytics

Data analytics has emerged as a definite game changer and decision enabler in many functional areas, including recruitment. Recruitment agencies that use data analytics in their recruitment process have seen significant transformation in their outreach and hiring processes through access to right data and insights. Companies like Novartis, Nielsen and Jetblue are using analytics to quickly identify the right talent and understand patterns in advance to make smart and strategic hiring decisions. However, many organizations still do not fully realize the potential of data analytics. According to a research, only 29% of companies responded in favour of utilizing robust analytics tools to measure the effectiveness of the recruitment process. 

Deploying mobile-friendly recruitment processes

Millennial and Gen Z members are mobile-first generations. Using a mobile platform to engage with young candidates across the recruitment process can help slash time to hire. Mobile platforms help quickly build and maintain communication with candidates, exchange information and messages, and promote the employer brand. The only caveat: deploy an intuitive user interface (UI) to help your recruiters and hiring managers post job offers, upload videos, view and process applications, schedule interviews, and perform other admin related activities  – directly from their mobile devices. 89% of job seekers believe that mobile devices are an important tool for job searching and 45% of the survey respondents use it to search for jobs at least once a day. 

Consider Artificial Intelligence (AI) 

 According to a survey by The Harvey Nash Human Resources 2017, close to 15% of HR leaders across 40 countries vouch for the impact that automation and AI bring to their workplace. For example, using AI-enabled recruitment software helps in automating the process of searching for candidates, and providing instantaneous and accurate results.  AI-based chatbots are already helping recruiters answer various employment related questions from candidates online, enabling them to focus on higher value activities. Insights from a LinkedIn survey shows how AI is proving to be highly beneficial to recruiters in sourcing candidates: it removes bias (43%), helps save time (67%), and delivers the best candidate match (31%).  

Use the latest recruitment tools and technologies 

Traditional methods of screening and interviewing candidates to assess the fitment fall short in today’s fast-paced digital world. 56% of talent professionals and hiring managers say that new interviewing tools are the top trend impacting how they hire. Emerging tools and technologies help assess candidate’s soft skills and weaknesses which are otherwise hard to evaluate in a traditional interview process. Online soft skills assessment is another great example of a tech-based recruitment tool that helps measure various traits like teamwork and curiosity. Many global companies like Citi bank have implemented such assessments for their campus hiring programs. Video interviews are also helping companies tap into the global talent pool in far less time and in a more cost effective manner. 

Make diversity and inclusion an ongoing priority

Diversity in workforce, in terms of gender, cultural background, ethnicity, age and so on is high on the HR agenda of organizations today.  78% of talent professionals and hiring managers say that diversity is the top trend impacting how quickly they hire. Building an employer brand that focuses on fostering diversity in an organization brings rich benefits to the companies, in addition to faster time to hire. These include ability to better represent customers (49%),  enhance company performance (62%) and improve culture (78%). 

As the talent war heats up and candidates get increasingly choosy about their career opportunities, the ability to attract top talent quickly and efficiently can provide clear competitive advantage. Staying in sync with evolving regulations and industry standards, deploying effective recruitment practices, and offering personalized hiring experiences can help you get a leg up on your competition by reducing time to hire.