In the current challenging candidate driven market, coupled with the likes of Brexit, a new generation of demanding candidates and an unstable economy, recruiting the best candidates for a job could become harder than ever.
Whereas once upon a time companies had to make no effort to recruit the best talent, in 2019 it’s a very different game. This year, to increase their chances, companies should be marketing themselves as best they can.
To give you a head start here are the top recruitment trends to look out for this year, and some advice on how we can help you implement them.
Trend #1: Recruitment Marketing
Recruitment marketing is one of the most popular topics in HR in 2019. As the recruitment process becomes even more competitive with the likes of LinkedIn, job comparison sites and an increasing number of job board sites, companies have to work harder to get their job advertisements noticed by the right candidates.
With 86% of HR professionals agreeing that recruitment is becoming more like marketing, these days advertising jobs is very similar to advertising products to attract potential customers.
Recruitment software, Talentlyft, state the 4 main goals of every recruitment marketing strategy are to:
- Make potential candidates aware of your company and opened positions
- Trigger their interest
- Make them consider you as their next employer of choice
- Drive talent to apply to the open positions your company has available
The good news is it doesn’t have to be all that complicated. By using a recruitment specialist like CK Group, we can take care of marketing your job openings for you, ensuring that they are marketed on all the right sites and to all the right candidates. Furthermore, we can ensure your company’s identity stays anonymous if needed.
Trend #2: Inbound Recruitment Marketing
Inbound recruitment marketing takes recruitment marketing a step further.
It’s all about proactively engaging and attracting candidates, with the aim of attracting candidates to your company instead of you having to search for them.
Inbound recruiting leads candidates through three stages: awareness, consideration, and interest. It involves working hard to create a strong and trustworthy employer brand and uses creative ways to provoke interest. This can be done through:
- Content marketing – creating interesting and informative content you are confident your target candidate market will find compelling
- Social media targeting – assessing and monitoring where your targeted potential applications spend their time online, therefore putting a budget into this area
- Personalisation – which creates trust and brand awareness for the company with a higher percentage of conversions
Ideal for a long-term solution to recruiting, inbound recruiting is a successful way to continuously attract and recruit high-quality applicants and employees.
Trend #3: Employer Branding
As candidates are now prioritising work-life balance and job satisfaction over their paycheck, it is more important than ever for companies to portray themselves as an appealing place to work to job seekers.
In fact, research by LinkedIn has proven that more than 75% of job seekers research a company’s reputation and employer brand on sites like Glassdoor before applying.
2019 candidates will be judging companies based on their staff perks and incentives, working hours flexibility and the perceived company corporate identity, based on the website and social media.
Linkhumans reported that 72% of recruiting leaders around the world agree that the employer brand has a significant impact on hiring, and even more so has a significant impact on your business’s success. It will enable a company to have a consistent stream of applicants and job interest.
Trend #4: Candidate Experience
The candidate experience reflects the current, past, and potential candidates’ feelings and perception of the company’s job application and recruitment process. The candidate experience starts with the first exposure to a potential employer, and the candidate’s feelings and attitudes they experience through the entire journey, from applying, interviewing, hiring or the unfortunate rejection.
Candidate experience has been proven to be directly tied to recruitment performance, and with the use of social media being so high, it is incredibly easy for candidates to spread the message of a positive or poor candidate experience. A survey showed that nearly 60% of candidates have had a poor candidate experience, with 72% of those candidates having shared their bad experience online or with someone directly, which creates a negative reputation of the company.
In contrast, a positive candidate experience can lead to better applicants, lowering recruitment costs.
By outsourcing your recruitment to specialists such as CK Group, we can ensure candidates have the best customer experience possible, helping to improve your employer branding and avoiding those bad reviews.
Trend #5: Social Recruiting
Social recruiting is quite simply using social media as a recruitment tool, and over the last couple of years has become a vital part of recruitment.
A range of social media channels can be used to find, attract, post job openings and hire talent such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Furthermore, there are many websites that can be used, such as blogs, forums, job boards, and review sites such as Glassdoor.
Surveys showed that at least 84% of organizations are currently using social media for recruitment and that 9% of those who don’t yet use it are planning to.
This is definitely a trend to adopt in 2019 if you are wanting to target millennials, with 73% of 18 to 34 years olds finding their last position through a social media platform.
Trend #6: Contractor Recruitment
With the uncertainty in the economy and the confusion about what exactly Brexit means for the country and many businesses, there has been a rise in demand for contractors rather than permanent candidates. According to a study by the Freelance Union, by 2020 half of the workforce will be made up of contractors – increasing from 35% of the workforce in 2014.
There are many benefits for hiring contractors, such as:
- Flexibility: Contractors can be hired on a short-term or permanent basis.
- Access to specialised skills set: Contractors have all the necessary skills and come already trained.
- Contract recruitment has proven to lower recruitment costs.
- It gives companies a ‘Try Before You Buy’ opportunity.
These are just a few recruitment trends which are going to continue to grow in popularity over the coming years. The recruitment and HR processes are continuously developing and changing, which is why it is so crucial that companies stay on top of these trends to ensure they attract and hire the best talent. For any advice regarding this subject please contact us here.
