Rethinking Recruitment - 2016

The New Year is just around the corner and with each New Year comes a new set of trends and challenges for workplaces the world over. In this week’s blog post we take a closer look at upcoming trends for 2016.

Industry Trends

According to the Department of Employment, Australia (2015) there are approximately 11,747,200 people employed in Australia (ABS trend data) full time and part time. Over the past five years, employment across all industries has increased by 7.2% and is forecasted to grow at a consistent pace.

Among industries with the highest predicted growth rates are healthcare, manufacturing, business services and telecommunications. However, there appears to be a growing trend of decreased recruitment rates when it comes to filling government positions.

Recruitment Trends

Every organisation is unique, and situated within varied industries, so trends don’t impact every business the same. However, it is still important to take notice and subsequently take consideration of these trends as they affect your candidates, suppliers, consumers and clients. Ultimately the effect on their behaviour influences how they engage with your organisation.

According to a study by LinkedIn (2015) wherein 4,000 talent acquisition decision makers were surveyed, here are some of the main trends forecasted for 2016:

Social Professional networks are the most popular option for finding the best candidates, above job boards and employee referral schemes
Employee referrals are seen as essential for making quality hires
Employer branding will be a top priority
Focus will be placed on retaining existing employees

From this survey, it shows that decision makers are seeing social media to continuously be an area of focus over the next year. It also presents the belief that the communication of your employer brand through these channels will not only help attract, but also retain, star employees.

Social professional networks are the fastest source of quality hires globally and this has increased 73% over the past 4 years. LinkedIn continues to be popular for recruiters, candidates and employers. It is an important place to network, present information and profiles, as well as maintain a personal or business brands. Social professional networks now account for around 59% of hires.

Lou Adler (2014) also point out further trends:

Candidates will be hired based on their ability to perform rather than on their absolute level of skills and experience. Lou Adler believes that current requisition-based hiring is flawed. He explains that having or not having the skills and experiences described, predicts neither success or failure. Furthermore, even those with the skills and experience described, won’t apply since they’re looking for progressive career moves, not lateral transfers. He says that Job profiles that define successful performance rather than list skills and experiences can eliminate this problem.
360° talent networking will become the primary external candidate sourcing process. As everyone in the workforce becomes connected by one degree of separation with everyone else (thanks to social media), it will be easy to instantly match potential prospects with opportunities.

Other big upcoming trends include:

Video will be prominent in all recruiting messaging (Sullivan, 2015). Online videos now exceed 50% of mobile traffic and 64% of all Internet traffic. And video usage is bound to continue to increase. Video usage is increasing because of it's high impact. If a picture is worth 1,000 words, think what a video is worth with its level of engagement. Most recruiting leaders find that videos are the very best way to reveal the excitement and the passion that can be found at your firm.
More Diverse Workforce (Lorenz, 2010). More females and those who identify with different cultural heritage or have different abled capabilities are joining the workforce. Certainly a more diverse workforce means new challenges in recruiting and engaging these various groups, however if employers are up to the task the payoffs can be great. Employers can leverage the experiences and backgrounds of a diverse workforce for a broader exchange of ideas, knowledge and opportunities.
The growth of work/life Flexibility. For younger generations like gen X, work is a significant part of their life, but they don’t compartmentalise it like older generations tend to (Lorenz, 2010). It isn’t about work-life ‘balance;’ it’s about work/life integration. While advancements in technology make it increasingly easy for employers to offer flexible schedules this may not work for every company culture. Employers who want to offer this benefit should take a good look at their company culture.