Online recruitment has come a long way since its inception. While predictions run wild for the year, here are some fact-based trends making waves in the HR world.
The world of recruitment is undergoing rapid transformation. Mass adoption of new tools and technologies has made the talent acquisition process data rich and workflow friendly. We are a part of the millennial generation, who cannot imagine life without computers or smartphones. Recruiters understand the need to be millennial friendly as that’s where the raw talent lies. For the same reason, more and more organizations are now shifting their recruitment strategy to digital domain.
Here is the latest online recruitment practices the HRs are excited about throughout the globe:
Social Media finds an inherent place in hiring process
With social media coming up on the scene, companies have more information than ever on the job seekers. While earlier recruiters were dependent solely on the candidate’s resume, today they can easily perform a web search and find more information about them by scouting their social media profiles, and also examine their work samples, all through the use of web. Social media can also be a great way of discovering candidates who are employed but are open to changing jobs if offered the right opportunity.
Since the best jobs are hardly advertised out there on job boards, and a smart job seeker would probably know that, in order to find these prospective employees, recruiters will have to search through various communities such as Github (for engineering professionals). This makes social media a fascinating way of finding talent that one may not be able to find otherwise.
Further, while using social media is an immensely helpful tactic for recruiters, the job seeker is also at advantage here as he has more opportunities today to find the right job than he had ever before.
Mobile recruitment: the hottest topic doing the rounds
Even if you aren’t a part of the HR industry, chances are less that you must not have come across the immensely popular buzzword, mobile recruitment. More than half of the internet users now access the web from mobile devices. By the end of 2014, mobile devices will overtake computers as the most used tool to access the web. These statistics highlights the underlying need to invest in mobile recruitment by every organization that is serious about hiring in 2014. According to a recent LinkedIn survey, 59% of the candidates are using mobile to search for vacancies and 52% are using mobile to apply. However, these stats wouldn’t matter if you do not have a well developed mobile recruitment strategy at first place.
Using online media for brand building
Online media can have many more benefits if used in a more comprehensive manner against the piecemeal approach. Taking time to chalk out a detailed plan for utilizing all forms of online media towards strengthening brand presence of the company and its communication with potential candidates’ works even better compared solely to recruitment. Employers can use job ads to promote a consistent brand to prospective job seekers. With there being some tough competition for available talent, it ultimately boils down to how well a recruiter is able to communicate his brand to the prospective employees.
Talent CRM, the future buzzword
Most people know CRM as Custom Relationship Management tool, a platform for tracking existing and target clientele and measure the progress toward business goals. 2013 was the first time when this concept made its serious debut into recruiting. Talent-related CRM platforms like Avature, Talemetry, Jobvite Engage are being implemented in many of the Fortune 500 companies. The basic concept of Talent CRM is to establish relationships with passive and target candidates. The Talent CRM will help recruiters manage marketing content including job descriptions, photos, videos or any other media that optimizes recruiting. Effective Talent CRM will also help in offering localized content based on the target audience.
The recruiting landscape continues to evolve with the best candidates facing multiple options. The fusion between recruiting and marketing has been incredible. Leaders are companies big and small are focused on their employer brand and looking to attract passive candidates online. Social recruiting and other hot trends like employer branding, talent communities, recruitment videos, and mobile engagement leave no doubts that online recruitment is more of a digital marketing initiative now than ever before.
Contributor: Saurabh Tyagi
