2017 RECRUITING TRENDS REPORT
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oday’s most successful organizations are thoughtfully assembled by highly empowered talent teams. These talents teams – driven by data, designed for engagement, and led by a breed of globally diverse leaders – are not the same talent teams of years past. They hold a place at the executive table and are critical to accomplishing key company business objectives. They represent the new generation of talent acquisition. The research presented in this report is an attempt to capture the knowledge of those leading the change in the talent acquisition industry. By identifying and understanding emerging trends, we can anticipate what lies ahead. We can determine where new market opportunities lie, prepare for the future, and maintain a competitive advantage.
INDEX Candidate engagement strategy & hyper-personalization
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Inbound & recruitment marketing
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Diversity & inclusion
10
Data, automation & predictive analytics
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Parting thoughts
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Methodology
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About Entelo
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Authors & researchers
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andidate engagement strategy is paramount and companies are increasing focus on hyper-personalized outreach. At a time when hiring is more competitive than ever, going the extra mile to understand, reach, and attract talent is no longer optional, it’s expected. Talent acquisition professionals are quickly adapting to the tolerance candidates have built up to impersonal messages through outdated, mass communication channels. New technologies and social avenues are making it easier for recruiters to research, automate, and track hyper-personalized communication to potential new hires.
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he ability to consistently identify and engage talent remains the single biggest competitive differentiator in recruiting efficacy and is a foundation upon which the success of the entire talent acquisition function is built. People who rely on sending InMails alone and that attempt to shoe horn a job without any prior relationship or knowledge shouldn’t be surprised by continued dissatisfaction and dismal results. Those who strive toward understanding the person at the other end of their outreach will lead in this next generation of sourcing and recruiting.
Martin Lee
Partner, Brain Gain Recruiting EMEA & APAC Lead Instructor, People Sourcing Certification Program
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Which channel do you use most commonly to engage with candidates? Which channel is most effective? FREQUENCY OF USE 52.9
53%
Email is by far the most commonly used communication channel for engaging with candidates.
Nearly half of respondents expect to increase spending on social media sourcing and recruitment. On average, recruiters use 8.9 different social media sites to source passive candidates.
EFFECTIVENESS
On average, recruiters spend 10.4 minutes reviewing social media profiles of candidates to determine fit within their company.
24.5% of respondents most commonly use
LinkedIn Inmails to engage candidates,
11.2%
but only believe InMails are the most effective way to reach candidates. 4
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s the business landscape evolves, social media is becoming increasingly more important to the talent acquisition process. Today’s candidates are digital natives. They learn, share and engage online. Before even applying, they are using Glassdoor to read employees’ candid reviews, Instagram or Facebook to check out a company’s culture, and Twitter to catch up on current company news and announcements. Engaging candidates where they’re already active is a crucial part of getting your message across and moving candidates through your funnel.
Jim Conti
Director of Talent Sprout Social
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nbound is becoming more strategic for organizations to meet hiring goals. Recruitment marketing grows to support inbound efforts. Talent acquisition professionals have long appreciated the benefits associated with inbound candidates; these direct applicants typically decrease time-to-fill and improve overall recruitment spend. Unfortunately, recruiters have historically reported inbound applicants as lower in quality when compared to candidates from passive sources. Recent trends in spending and behavior point to talent acquisition professionals working to remedy this dichotomy. More than ever before, talent acquisition professionals are taking advantage of employer branding to make their companies and positions easier for their ideal candidates to find, driving high quality leads into their recruitment funnel. Many companies are seeing inbound recruiting as the modernized classic strategy that restores their competitive edge in hiring. A huge opportunity lies ahead for companies that invest in employer branding and structured inbound workflows.
Talent acquisition professionals often have low faith in inbound applicants, and rightfully so.
50% of inbound applicants do not meet even the basic requirements for the roles they apply for.
34.8%
4.7%
11.6%
d n 6 ra 1 B 0 2 oyer ing d l n p e m p E S
48.9%
Nearly half of all companies surveyed report they will increase spending on employer branding this year.
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he concept of ‘employer branding’ has existed forever in that there have always been more attractive places to work than others. But the strategic branding that differentiates employers has really emerged recently as companies fight to draw top talent in. All employees want to work in a healthy and stable environment, but younger generations have started to demand more. How the company makes a difference in the world, how employees are valued, the organization’s commitment to environmental sustainability, or having a culture of wellness all carry a lot of weight. A clear understanding of a company’s core values and what ‘a day in the life’ looks like is resonating with candidates more than ever. It’s no surprise that companies are putting more thought and budget into capturing the essence of the organization and effectively marketing those brand messages to attract candidates who would be the best fit for their team.
Meghan M. Biro Founder & CEO TalentCulture
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Still, companies building out strong inbound processes have problems to address.
8.8 minutes
The average amount of time a recruiter spends reviewing an applicant’s resume before moving that candidate forward in the next stage of the interview process.
1/5 of large enterprises
admit they do not have tools in place to ensure their resume review process is fair and unbiased.
94.2% of respondents
report finding candidates for one role by searching through applicants for a different or related role.
47% of recruiting managers/leads frequently or very frequently worry about good inbound candidates applying to the wrong role.
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he future of talent acquisition is bright, especially as recruitment marketing continues to mature and evolve as a critical component of success in modern talent acquisition. Each of the many moving parts of recruitment marketing (e.g. talent prospecting and pipelining, talent attraction and engagement, etc.) presents its own unique opportunities for employers to do more and do better. Organizations who invest in recruitment marketing early, demand strong integrations from recruitment marketing technologies, and plan early for changes in their tech stack to accommodate new tools will be well suited to compete in the future.
Kyle Lagunas
Research Manager, Emerging Trends, Talent Acquisition & Staffing,
IDC
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rganizations are embracing diversity and inclusion initiatives, but change is incremental. More than ever before, organizations are acknowledging the business case for diversity and pushing D&I discussions to the top of the agenda. Promisingly, the focus on and commitment to diversity continues to increase, with the majority of survey respondents reporting that their companies currently have diversity initiatives in place. But as well-intentioned as the growing number of talent acquisition professionals tackling diversity are, it appears efforts are coming up short. Many companies struggle to turn intent into results and fail to hit goals.
Companies with diversity initiatives in place
YES 46.8%
NO NOT SURE
40.8%
12.4%
67.4%
of talent acquisition professionals report that
their management team either supports or strongly supports workplace diversity as a goal.
While many small companies are implementing diversity initiatives early, large organizations are 2.5x more likely to have a diversity initiative in place.
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How TA professionals rate the success of their D&I efforts Neither successful nor unsuccessful Successful
4.5%
6.8%
35.8%
Somewhat successful Very successful
25.3%
Unsuccessful
27.8%
46% of large
organizations say their initiatives are ‘SUCCESSFUL’ or ‘VERY SUCCESSFUL,’ while only 31% of small orgs believe the same.
Year-over-year change in MINORITY employees
Average change is
Average change is
+0.33%
+2.12%
Year-over-year change in FEMALE employees Food / beverage & transportation industries may still be struggling with diversity the most – these two industries have the highest rates of unsuccessful diversity initiatives.
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hese results show how difficult it is to move the needle on diversity. With two-thirds of talent acquisition respondents indicating that their management team is pro-diversity and large companies saying that their initiatives are successful, why has there been only one-third of 1% progress on hiring underrepresented people of color? Given the steadily growing number of people of color in the workforce and with the majority of kids in K-12 education being kids of color, these results shouldn’t qualify as ‘success’. Clearly, diversity initiatives are not all created equal. Moving the needle requires a comprehensive approach, backed by leadership with resources and actions, that identifies and mitigates biases in all aspects of the workplace, from recruitment and hiring to retention and promotion. As Project Include states: “True diversity is inclusive, comprehensive, and measurable.” The responses represent only a small subset of the talent industry’s population, but if these reflect the cutting edge, the data tell us we’re very far from the goal.
Dr. Freada Kapor Klein
Partner, Kapor Capital and Kapor Center for Social Impact Founder, Level Playing Field Institute
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alent acquisition processes are becoming increasingly data-driven and organizations are looking to predictive signals to understand which talent sources yield the best hires. For years, untapped technologies have held the promise of transformation for the recruitment industry. Data and analytics have held the power to determine hiring needs, identify candidates, and even predict whether those candidates will succeed in an organization. But unlike their colleagues in sales and marketing, many recruiters have been slow to shift to a harddata, number-processing mindset. But trends are beginning to shift. We predict this year will be the year recruiting technology moves from theory to action when it comes to talent acquisition data, automation, and predictive analytics.
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n the current market climate for hiring, where demand for talent severely outstrips supply, you
have to recruit from nontraditional channels in order to have a fighting chance. To do this effectively, it’s important to go beyond the usual approaches and utilize hard data to decide what strategies and channels work best. This means being receptive to new tools, quickly measuring their effectiveness, and then quickly making the decision to adopt or ditch. It also means tracking the effectiveness of your sourcing strategies to determine if people are opening your messages, responding to you affirmatively, and accepting your offers.
Aline Lerner
Founder & CEO Trends interviewing.io 13
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ata-driven recruiting is no longer just another square in buzzword bingo – It’s become a critical
business requirement, evolving how recruiters operate
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and measure success. We’ve seen the demand for
Nearly half of all companies are tracking email open and reply rates. Over a third are also tracking click-through rates. Over ⅓ (37.2%) of companies plan to increase spending on email tools and tracking technology in 2017. 70%
70% of respondents say they have the data to assess the performance of their sources of hire.
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CURRENT EMPLOYEES 69.8
Outreach performance analysis
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PASSIVE SOURCING 71.2
IDC
CURRENT APPLICANTS 74.2
Research Manager, Emerging Trends, Talent Acquisition & Staffing,
EMPLOYEE REFERRALS 77.5
Kyle Lagunas
THIRD PARTY 25.5
50
FORMER EMPLOYEES 36.1
expect this to increase in 2017.
PREVIOUS APPLICANTS 48.0
60
EXTERNAL (NON-EMPLOYEE REFERRALS) 56.8
improved analytics across the board, and we can only
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Sources of hire ranked by ability to satisfy recruiting goals 14
TAKEAWAYS
Talent acquisition professionals are increasing focus on personalized messaging to catch the attention of passive candidates. Building and continually refining candidate engagement strategy is a top priority.
The rise in employer branding is bringing higher quality candidates inbound. Companies that streamline inbound candidate management and automation processes early will be well equipped to engage with top talent quickly.
The majority of companies have diversity initiatives in place, but efforts are coming up short. Moving the needle requires a comprehensive approach, backed by leadership, that identifies and mitigates biases in all aspects of the workplace, from recruitment and hiring to retention and promotion.
Historically, many recruiters have been slow to shift to a hard-data, numberprocessing mindset, but trends are beginning to shift. Analytics, automation, and predictive recruiting technologies are evolving how talent teams operate and define success.
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Methodology The data presented in this report was obtained from a 2016 annual survey conducted by Entelo. Respondents were 741 global talent acquisition professionals. Participants were selected based on their human resources or talent acquisition job function. Job roles included chief heads of human resources, heads of talent, recruiting team leads / managers, recruiters, sourcers, and hiring managers. Respondents represented a variety of industries, company sizes, countries, and professional experience levels. Respondents opted in to participate in this research study and completed a survey containing 35 questions related to their talent acquisition activities and behaviors.
4.9% HIRING MGR 5.1% CHRO 5.4% TALENT OPS 8.8% SOURCER
3.2% AGENCY/VENDOR/CONSULTANT 11.5% RECRUITING MGR.
JOB TITLE
11.5% HEAD OF TALENT 24.0% RECRUITER 12.2% OTHER
COUNTRIES SURVEYED Algeria Australia Belgium Bulgaria Cambodia Canada Denmark Dominican Republic Germany India Indonesia Ireland Israel Italy Japan Jordan Netherlands Philippines Poland Portugal Russian Federation Saudi Arabia Singapore Slovenia Sri Lanka Turkey United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uruguay Vietnam
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About Entelo Entelo is a new and better way to recruit. The Entelo platform combines machine learning, predictive analytics, behavioral listening and social signals to help recruiting organizations identify, qualify and engage with talent. To learn how leading companies like Facebook, Cisco and UPS are building their teams using Entelo, visit www.entelo.com.
Authors and Researchers
Ashley Kiolbasa Research Team Lead & Author
Chau Mai Researcher & Editor
Kathleen de Lara Researcher & Editor
Scott Jones Chief Marketing Officer
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