It’s summer, which in recruitment marketing land means that fall and winter are right behind it. Believe it or not we are already over halfway through this year, which means it is time to start planning for a better-optimized 2018. Here are the recruitment trends we think will carry over into next year.
Algorithms are on their Way Up!
In a recent Wall Street Journal article called In Unilever’s Radical Hiring Experiment, Resumes Are Out, Algorithms Are In Kelsey Gee illustrated how big companies are changing their hiring tactics. Per the article, “To diversify its candidate pool for early-career roles that are a fast track to management, Unilever has ditched resumes and traditional campus recruiting. Its new process relies on algorithms to sort applicants and targets young potential hires where they spend much of their time: their smartphones.”
The article goes on to describe a process that has three steps prior to actual human interaction including quick applications for entry-level jobs, games and video submissions. At each stage the system they’ve developed uses an algorithm to decide if they are a good fit for the next phase. While hiring managers were initially skeptical of the process, it seems to be working well for them!
Due to this paradigm shift, it may be possible for recruiters to spend less time weeding out the candidates that don’t fit and more time focusing on the finalists. If this system becomes the norm, recruiters could be looking at incredible gains when it comes to ROI and time. We expect more companies to embrace algorithms for at least initial applicant sorting process in 2018.
Health Plan Leverage
With the new President comes a new healthcare plan. While it isn’t finalized yet, healthcare is bound to change soon. This may very well mean that benefits packages offered by employers could become even more valuable to potential recruits. The Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) echoed this point, “Millions of people would lose insurance coverage under the Senate's plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected on June 26. That could increase the perceived value of employer-provided coverage.”
It’s true - the plan hasn’t gone into effect yet, but changes are coming. We believe that recruitment managers would be smart to get ahead of those changes by promoting the fact that they offer comprehensive benefits.
More Competition for the Recruitment Market
Big companies are making a play for the recruitment advertising space. Most notably Facebook and Google. Facebook added a Jobs tab (though we’ve still found actual pay-per-click ads to be more effective in reaching the right audiences) and Google recently launched their own search engine. What’s unique about Google’s though is that as they are currently the premier search method, so they have the distinct advantage of dominating the space above the everyday person’ organic search results.
While only time will tell what this means for Google’s competitors (it could mean increased visibility in a free way that could adversely affect their pay-per-click models), this is a big development. We look forward to seeing how Google’s move into the recruitment sector goes in 2017-2018. One idea comes to mind – sponsored Google jobs much like Indeed positions.
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