6 Recruitment Trends You Should Know for 2019

The year is coming to an end. For most, this means drawing up plans for the incoming year. The question is, are you prepared for the ever-changing landscape of recruitment? 2019 will usher in new trends that can help improve your recruitment strategy. The ultimate goal: uncovering high-potential and high-quality talent.

Here are 6 recruitment trends you can (and should) add to your incoming plans. These will help you stay competitive, relevant, and improve your chances of finding the right candidates.

Promoting your Employer Brand

The candidate market is a very competitive arena. Nowadays, businesses need to compete for candidates more than they had to in the past. This means that the job market is candidate-driven, where talent picks you.

One of the ways you can attract the right candidates is by promoting your employer brand. Your employer brand is your reputation and how popular you are as an employer. It also shows what makes your company special. In other words, this is your employee value proposition or unique selling point.

Studies done by LinkedIn show that 75% of job seekers search a company's brand before applying. If candidates see that you have a bad reputation, you’re going to struggle to find and retain candidates.

Showcasing your brand means showcasing your culture and the heart of your organization. This will help you attract candidates who share the same values as you.

When looking for an online recruitment service, be sure you get to promote your employer brand. Do they offer pages like your own company profile? There, you can add your mission/vision, employee engagement activities, perks, etc.

Creating a Positive Candidate Experience

As we mentioned earlier, today’s job market is candidate driven. This means you have to ensure they have a positive experience. Believe it or not, your recruitment process can reveal a lot about how you operate. This can affect the way your candidate perceives the company.

Why is this important? Because a candidate who had a positive experience during the recruitment process will more likely accept your job offer, reapply in the future, or refer your company friends. A positive candidate experience can make them feel valued even before they join the company.

In the same way, a candidate who has a bad experience will tell their friends about how they had to wait 2 hours for the interviewer who didn’t even apologize or the endless documents they had to fill up with the same exact questions.

The problem is that a lot of companies still have a mindset that they don’t owe candidates anything. They don’t care about making candidates wait for hours, don’t bother replying to inquiries, or generally don’t care at all. This type of mindset is a surefire way to never find candidates.

Managing Candidate Relationships

Candidate Relationship Mangement is a great way to keep track of your candidates and manage your relationships with them. Having a proper system that can handle your candidates can save you time and reduce the chances of you losing a candidate. This is especially true for companies who are always hiring.

Proper CRM systems will allow you to track the status of applications throughout the recruitment process. Other features to look for is the ability to message candidates through the platform. That way, you don’t have to leave the platform to send an email.

Utilizing Social Recruiting

Social Recruiting is using social media channels to help you with recruiting. You can use it to attract candidates or transact applications. With many social media channels available you can reach more people than years ago when these social media channels weren’t as popular as they are now.

Social Recruiting doesn’t stop at posting job vacancies. You can use these channels to actively search for candidates and reach out to them. Numerous studies show that around 90% of recruiters use social media for recruiting so it is something worth looking into.

The Power of Referrals

Referrals are gaining more popularity now as companies see the value that it offers. It is a proven way to find high-quality talent for your company. Many studies state how referred employees onboard faster, stay longer, and cost less than other methods.

Normally, referrals are only available as employee referrals, but Recruitday.com has launched a new way of recruiting through non-employees – the Recruitday Scouts. This uses the same principles as employee referrals but opens listings to anyone who signs up as a Scout. This grows reach even more and speeds up the process of finding candidates.

Automated Recruitment and the rise of AI

Recruitment Automation tools make the process of recruitment automatic. This means it should be easier and quicker to manage than without automation. Some popular recruitment automation tools are an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and Recruitment Marketing Software.

These tools and systems help you streamline the hiring process to make it faster and more efficient. Who doesn’t want that?

Developments in AI or Artificial Intelligence and its transition to recruitment gives recruiters other benefits. There is AI technology that helps you screen candidates before you interview them, or can conduct a recorded interview for basic questions. Chatbots can help answer frequently answered questions so you don’t have to.

There is still a lot of development with AI so the possibilities continue to grow.

As the days pass, more trends appear. Staying up to date means having a competitive advantage and improving your chances of finding the right candidate for your company.

Ly Poticar

Ly Poticar

Head of Recruitment at Recruitday