Get ready folks, big data is about to revolutionise the future of corporate recruiting. This is what emerges from the closing section of the LinkedIn Global Recruiting Trends 2017, a survey that reflects the state-of-the-art in Human Resources and details the changes in corporate recruiting that we can expect by 2020.
The survey, based on interviews with more than 4,000 managers across 35 countries, stresses the importance for recruiters to continuously monitor their efficiency, seeking increasing specialisation and using data to measure performance.
While it is true that companies seek talent, they also need to optimise the timing of the recruitment process. Two parameters help to determine the effectiveness of the recruiting process: time to fill and time to hire. Time to fill specifies the number of days that elapse from publishing a job offer to filling the position. There are tools that monitor this data in real time for every single open position. Time to hire, instead, specifies the number of days that elapse from first making contact with the candidate to actually filling the position. Around 50% of interviewees says that the average time to hire in their company is between 1 to 2 months, while 30% says that the procedure takes less than thirty days to complete.
But data is not only useful to check efficiency. While, as highlighted in the report, the global trend is to progressively reduce the HR budget (also in terms of hiring recruiters), automation and big data looks set to come to the recruiter’s aid, in particular as regards screening candidates, managing CVs and evaluating soft skills.
Automation and big data looks set to come to the recruiter’s aid, in particular as regards screening candidates, managing CVs and evaluating soft skills.
Recruiting techniques and candidate assessments are changing fast, based precisely on the allocated budget. The LinkedIn report shows that employee referrals – whereby employees, or sometimes third parties, refer possible candidates to the company – are becoming an increasingly popular solution at a global level. The interviewees believe that this reduces the costs involved with searching for talent, improves relations with employees – who are often rewarded for providing referrals – and increases the chance of hiring long-term employees.
Although managers consider referrals one of the most reliable sources of quality hires, on average employee referral programmes account for just 9 % of the HR budget. Instead, most resources are allocated to traditional methods, such as purchasing advertising space (30%) and costs for campaigns entrusted to agencies (22%).
A small proportion of the budget (8%) is allocated to another key element of recruiting, i.e. employer branding. And yet, a remarkable 53% of interviewees would allocate any new resources to employer branding (while 39% of managers would prefer to invest in technology).
The employer brand, in other words an organisation's reputation as an employer, is mainly built through partnerships with online marketing and communication agencies. Contrary to expectations, however, the main channels identified by the interviewees – i.e. a website connected directly to the company (61%) and a LinkedIn profile (55%) – are far more appreciated than Facebook (30%); which goes to show that, while the popular social network is perhaps one of the best media for strengthening brands with customers, there is still huge, untapped potential for bringing companies and potential candidates together.