We recently hosted a webinar featuring our own talent experts – Customer Success Manager M.T. Ray, Talent Acquisition Manager Josh Jones, and Recruiter Jaylan Fisher – to get an inside perspective on the 2021 Recruiter Nation Report and how recruiters are using agility to adapt in today’s job market.
Don’t worry if you missed the webinar – we’ve wrapped up our top takeaways from these experts.
Top Five Takeaways from the Recruiter Nation Report
5. Prioritize candidate AND recruiter experience
If we’ve learned anything from the last year, it’s that candidate and recruiter experiences need to be the top priority in any organization that hopes to retain top talent. During a time of high employee turnover and tight competition for qualified workers, 65% of recruiters are experiencing even more stress than last year.
“We’re seeing roles open at a faster rate than probably any time in history.” – Jones
Talent acquisition (TA) leaders are increasing support for recruiters with additional budgets for automated tools to lighten the load of daily tasks. Improved recruiter experience will lead to a better candidate experience – and that will attract qualified candidates to your career sites. Recruiters are finding that prioritizing things like an easy application process, candidate communication, and job descriptions can lead to better quality-of-hire and time-to-fill.
4. Agility helps TA teams meet goals
An agile recruiting strategy has helped teams adapt to the changing market by prioritizing flexibility and technology to fill in the gaps – especially on teams that are short-handed. Two of the newest challenges for recruiters from this year’s report focused on communication during the hiring process. Misalignment between recruiters, hiring managers, and/or interview panelists (23%) and communications with candidates throughout the hiring process (28%) emerged in the last year as concerns for recruiters.
TA teams are finding success by proactively managing these challenges by implementing an agile recruiting strategy. Agility helps TA teams to evaluate the recruiting process at its different steps to spot ways it can improve communication and efficiency.
3. Recruiting budgets have increased to hire better candidates
A shortage of qualified candidates AND recruiters has led to companies stepping up their budgets to help recruiters easily find the right talent. We love to hear it! A whopping 64% of recruiters expect their budgets to increase in the next 6-12 months.
Additional budget for recruiting means that priorities have also shifted for TA teams. Recruiters reported that they’re focusing on these priorities in the coming year.
- Improving quality-of-hire (48%)
- Improving time-to-hire (28%)
- Growing talent pipeline (25%)
- Updating recruiting technology (21%)
- Improving diversity (18%)
2. Quality of hire is the top metric for success
Although the number of recruiters stating that they were prioritizing quality-of-hire as a key metric has decreased since last year (38% in 2021, down from 48% in 2020), it remains a top metric for TA teams. High turnover in the job market has made it more important to have a strong employer brand in order to find quality candidates that see a future in your company. These channels are the favorites of recruiters for growing employer brands:
- Social networks (63%)
- Career sites (48%)
- In-person or virtual recruiting events (30%)
Yet, even during high-stress times, recruiters need to keep an eye on quality-of-hire.
“Never settle. Always make sure you’re assessing (candidates) properly and you’re holding hiring managers accountable to what they said they wanted and needed for their teams.” – Ray
1. Communicate frequently with hiring managers for more agile recruiting
Communication and agility go hand in hand when it comes to recruiting. One of the most important decision-makers in the recruiting process is the hiring manager, but often this is where communication breaks down. Recruiters are finding that agility is helping their teams to overcome hurdles with a requisition by improving communication with hiring managers.
“Meet with hiring managers about each job requisition in detail helps to find the right talent as quickly as possible.” – Fisher
Discuss with them things like required skills, areas of compromise, preferred experience, and even flexibility for salary negotiations. All these details can hold up the recruiting process and cause companies to lose top talent to better-organized competitors. But communication should be prioritized with all hiring managers, not just ones that have open requisitions.
Final thoughts
Thanks to everyone that joined us for this session! See upcoming events and webinars on our schedule here. Download the 2021 Recruiter Nation Report and stay up to date on the latest in HR tech by subscribing to our blog and resource library.
