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Integrating the Top Hiring Trends into your Talent Strategy

In 2015, 63% of leaders state that hiring volume will increase, while only 46% state an increased hiring budget. Hiring is picking up, but the landscape is changing. And as the gap widens, we must all start thinking how to do more with less.

LinkedIn conducted a study [1] with 4,125 talent recruiting decision makers in 31 countries to gain insight into the hiring arena for 2015. When asked “What do you consider to be the three most essential and long-lasting trends in recruiting for professional roles?” 37% of these decision makers said social and professional networks, 33% said upgrading employer brand, and 26% said sourcing passive candidates.

Let’s dive into these three hiring trends to help you maximize your hiring impact this year and enable you to do more with less:

Social and Professional Networks

It may seem a little obvious that this hiring trend is increasing as we all start to beef up our LinkedIn profiles and attend networking events and conferences to increase our reach. It’s also important to note that social and professional networks has increased on a global scale by 73% over the last 4 years – efforts that are made in the US can also be replicated internationally.

This is a quick and easy win for companies to increase their presence and promote opportunities to gain more quality hires. And it ties in well with the second point about employer brand. Regularly check your social media sites to ensure it is accurately reflecting your organization.

Upgrading Employer Brand

Countless companies undergo rebranding every couple of years to ensure their product is staying fresh in the eyes of their consumers… but it’s also incredibly important to focus on your Talent Brand (what talent thinks, feels, and shares about your company as a place to work). Arguably your new quality hires are your greatest consumer since they become your high potential employees paving the way for your products. “75% of global Talent Acquisition leaders say Talent Brand has a significant impact on their ability to hire great talent.” A strong talent brand reduces cost per hire [2] by over 50% and lowers turnover rates by 28%.

Unsure what your Employer Brand is, or you know what it is but not what to do with it or how to incorporate it into your talent acquisition plan? During a recent webinar series held by Emergenetics International, guest speaker John Hall of Influence & Co [3] spoke about how content marketing is increasingly becoming the best way to establish your company as credible and knowledgeable. You can watch the webinar replay here [4].

Sourcing Passive Candidates

First let’s define active versus passive candidates: an active candidate is someone who is seeking a role and contacts the organization, while a passive candidate is someone who is completely satisfied in their current role but is willing to hear more about your opportunity. Passive candidates could be someone from a different industry who worked in comparable technologies, a vendor who might have implemented similar solutions with their clients, or a consultant who worked on similar types of projects. Rather than choosing only from a pool of candidates who contact you, this level of experience might be the best quality hire for the role – so organizations need to be more active themselves in perusing these candidates. To get started, here is a great resource [5] from Lou Adler on his 10 Commandments of Recruiting Passive Candidates. This is a fantastic way to be doing more with less – time to do some research!

Are these your hiring trends for 2015? Is your organization increasing their use of social and professional networks? Have you given good thought to your talent brand? Are you researching and sourcing passive candidates?

At Emergenetics our Marketing & Business Development Team’s moto this year is Smarter Not Harder – we are optimizing our processes and working hard to do more with less. We are integrating the three trends above not only into our hiring practices, but also throughout our initiatives. As you dive into your hiring for 2015, I’ll ask you to reflect on your own hiring trends: will you be able to achieve your goals while doing more with less?