As the war for talent gets more brutal, companies are making large investments in technology to gain a competitive advantage. Randstad alone spent $393 million on IT last year!

Companies have been hiring more than ever and the recruitment and staffing industry has been growing and touching skies this year. In this article, Recruit CRM will talk about 5 popular recruitment trends that headhunters will need to look out for.

Much as we spoke about candidate experience, diversity hiring, technological changes etc., here are the top 5 recruiting trends you need to note down.

1. Employee Engagement

Employee engagement has become a hot topic recently. Employee demands are now taken into consideration more often and many employers are trying hard to provide the best employee experience possible. Why? Well, to keep attrition low.

Many employees today, demand a good work-life balance. This is nothing new, but the desire to have it has increased in recent times and clearly reflects in employee engagement levels.

Another factor that influences employee engagement is access to proper tools. A recent study by Randstad discovered that about 40% of employees said they left a company because they lacked access to proper digital tools. Providing state-of-the-art tools to your employees will definitely create some interest in the job

Moreover, since we are moving towards the digital age day by day, providing proper tools should be mandatory, given that the return on investment will be definitely high. This becomes a win-win situation for the employer and for the employees as well.

2. Social Recruiting

For recruiters, social media is a gold mine of passive candidates. Platforms like LinkedIn give you a deep dive into peoples work history in seconds. This really helps when you’re looking for the right fit for a hot opportunity you’re recruiting for.

Read More: 7 secret tips for hiring the best candidates from LinkedIn

Another advantage of social recruiting is the sheer volume of job applications you can receive by posting a job on places like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn & Reddit.

This means, you clearly have a higher chance of finding talent on social media more than ever, and these numbers are going up every year. Many ATS systems like Recruit CRM, offer Social Recruiting as a feature. If you have never tried Social Recruiting, maybe this is a good time to start. You can start by focusing on Facebook & LinkedIn.

Read More: How to hire candidates via Instagram?

3. Candidate Experience

Improving Your Process: Decreasing the time-to-hire will help you as well as your candidates, nobody likes waiting. Implementing an Applicant Tracking Software will help you get things on track. Resulting in a much-sophisticated & faster process.

Swift Replies: Received an application? Email the candidate right away (even a canned response would do!). This is really important and helps the candidate know that you have acknowledged his application. You can use these free email templates to get started.

Building Talent Pool: You don’t have to go out and source more candidates every time you have an open position. If you build and maintain a deep pool of candidates from previous applicants & interviews you may never have to go on a wild goose chase to find candidates again!

Doing this is simple. Communicate with candidates in your hiring pipeline that don’t make it and continue to nurture relationships with them through frequent newsletters.

Whenever you reject a candidate send them a message that says “If a relevant opportunity comes up, I will get back to you” and when that relevant opportunity actually comes up you will have a list of candidates in your database you can immediately reach out to.

4. Measure Performance

Data-driven decisions rarely go wrong. This is why you should measure stuff like your recruiter’s performance which might include KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) like candidates placed, assigned, Interviews Scheduled, Emails Sent & Notes added.

You can further track more information like which client is giving you most placements relative to the number of candidate submissions you make. Many ATS Systems available in the market today are capable of generating great reports to measure this in seconds.

Leveraging your agency’s data gives you an upper hand and let’s help you stay ahead of the game. Needless to say, having good statistical data handy will always help you.

5. Domain Knowledge

This won’t apply to everyone but if you are looking to move upmarket, You should consider spending some time to deeply understand exactly what skills the roles you’re hiring for require.

Read More: Common recruiting terms that recruiters must know by heart!

This is 2021! Candidates expect the recruiters to give them more information. Giving the candidate a Job Description & Salary Range just doesn’t cut it anymore.