With fierce competition for high-quality talent, hiring managers need to leverage recruiting trends to stay ahead.
In a competitive job and economic landscape, business leaders and hiring managers face a handful of obstacles when it comes to recruiting, hiring, and retaining top talent. Not only is the traditional work environment itself changing, but the recruitment process is evolving rapidly.
For hiring managers and small business leaders, understanding the new trends in the recruitment field is key to staying competitive in the job market. By leveraging new technology like artificial intelligence and virtual reality, embracing diversity and inclusion initiatives, and creating a positive candidate experience, organizations can reduce their time-to-hire, recruit higher-quality candidates, and retain those employees for longer.
In its 2023 Recruiting Innovations Bullseye report, Gartner finds that:[1]
Automated sourcing is a top priority for finding talent in a complex labor market.
Recruiting technology usage is increasing to improve the candidate experience and accelerate recruiting capabilities.
Bias mitigation is increasingly important in building more diverse workforces.
4 recruiting trends to follow in 2024
Recruiting is especially difficult for small to midsize businesses (SMBs), as they face fierce competition for top talent. Add in the additional hurdle of finding candidates who align with the company’s values and culture, and it’s difficult for small internal hiring teams to sort through the thousands of applications.
Take a look at the emerging recruitment trends that are changing the way small businesses hire talent:
1. Artificial intelligence is automating recruiting tasks
Artificial intelligence (AI) is used in recruiting to streamline candidate sourcing, automate manual and repetitive tasks, and even identify top candidates through applicant tracking systems.
Gartner finds that 33% of recruiting leaders are using AI for automated candidate sourcing, and 23% are using AI for recruiter chatbots.
For small businesses, this highlights the importance of streamlining and accelerating time-consuming tasks such as sorting and reading resumes. Small companies are tight on resources, time, and internal team bandwidth, and it’s critical to embrace artificial intelligence to speed up hiring.
Not only does this save time, but it allows hiring managers and internal recruiters to focus on other complex tasks such as creating a top-notch, polished candidate experience. They can spend more time with individuals, answer questions, provide feedback and support, and even invest more time into preparing for interviews and on-sites. This helps candidates feel included and valued throughout the entire recruitment process, resulting in a more positive brand perception and a higher likelihood of accepting an offer.
Here are a few examples of how recruiting tools can help automate pre-employment assessments, pre-screen, and shortlist candidates:
A platform for automated candidate sourcing that uses predictive analytics to engage passive job seekers who might be a good fit for a role
A platform with machine learning technology to analyze resumes at scale and predict candidate–employer fit
An AI-driven recruitment management platform to build and nurture an always-on talent pipeline
2. Mitigating bias is a top priority of recruitment strategies
Employees are demanding a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable (DEI) workforce and workplace environment, so DEI initiatives are continuing to gain importance. Even during recruitment, leaders are using AI-enhanced bias mitigation tools to limit potential discrimination factors.
Gartner's research found that in 2022, recruiters identified bias mitigation as having the top greatest future importance on their recruiting outcomes in two years.
For SMBs, limiting bias in recruiting leads to a more inclusive workforce, and recruiting bias is, unfortunately, a very real concern. Unconsciously, recruiters and hiring managers can judge based on location, gender, education, or even first and last names. Mitigating bias helps enhance organizational performance, attracts top talent, reduces turnover, and even improves existing employee morale and engagement. A more diverse workforce can reflect positively on customers as well, building a more positive brand reputation and meeting corporate social responsibility goals.
Here are a few examples of how recruiting tools can help hiring managers mitigate bias:
Job description language assistants to craft more inclusive, unbiased job descriptions that lead to a more diverse applicant pool.
Natural language processing tool that removes personally identifiable information that allows candidates to shine through “blind auditions.”
A platform with data-driven insights to mediate bias during screening, providing analytics on how diverse candidates progress through the hiring pipeline.
3. A positive, polished candidate experience is key to attracting top talent
Whether a job offer is extended or not, all candidates walk away with an impression of a company during a recruiting process —good or bad. For employees who do not receive an offer, a positive and empowering candidate experience is still important. These job seekers might return to the talent pipeline one day, and they might accept an offer from a company within the same field. For candidates who do receive an offer of employment, it’s critical for businesses to start out on the right foot with a positive and polished candidate experience.
Also, positive or negative experiences can make a significant decision in the candidate’s ultimate decision to accept or reject a job offer.
Gartner’s research shows that from 2021 to 2022, candidate experience feedback saw an uptick in future importance from number 6 to number 2.
Positive candidate experiences are reflections of company culture and leadership, and negative experiences can act as a deterrent. For example, candidates who experience slow responses or disjointed points of contact can walk away with a negative perception of the organization.
As organizations compete for top talent, it’s critical to not lose high-quality candidates due to a mismanaged or negative experience. Hiring managers should be cognizant of the factors that make up a positive candidate experience such as centralized communication, responsiveness, transparency, and speed.
Take a look at how software platforms can help create a positive, organized candidate experience:
Simple interview scheduling and transparent communication hubs for a personalized candidate experience.
All-in-one platforms for both recruiting and HR that streamline communication from application submission to onboarding.
A video interviewing platform that streamlines the scheduling and coordination process while providing crystal-clear audio and video.
4. Virtual and augmented reality technology may be trendy, but might not be worth the investment
When talking about recruitment trends, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are bound to come up. The recruiting field is no stranger to the hype and buzz around artificial intelligence tools such as VR and AR. While they might promise to deliver an exciting, immersive candidate experience, the actual technology might not currently be up to par.
Gartner's research shows that 80% of recruiting leaders report that immersive technology is only providing moderate value to their overall strategy, and 83% do not have current plans to implement these tools.
For a multitude of reasons, virtual and augmented reality is not currently delivering on its value. Candidates might not know how to operate this new technology, platforms can be glitchy and confusing, and the cost of implementation is often very high. In their current state, AR and VR tools might detract and distract from the candidate experience more than enhance it. At its core, hiring and recruiting is about meeting and connecting with the right candidates to build your organization, and any technology that creates friction between those relationships isn’t worth it.
Instead, hiring managers and small-business leaders should stay focused on the core goals of the recruiting process—to find top-quality candidates and successfully hire them in the shortest amount of time possible. Hiring leaders should use AI tools that are proven to streamline processes, create efficiencies, and save human workers time without sacrificing the relationship-building of recruiting.
If you're interested in tools that can actually save your team time, check out "4 Key Recruiting Software Features and Top Products That Offer Them."
Leveraging recruitment trends
As the labor market and economic trends shift yet again in the new year, hiring managers will have to adapt to new emerging recruitment trends to stay competitive. When companies don’t stay at the forefront of recruitment trends, they risk being seen as outdated, slow to adopt, and behind.
From value-driven AI tools to streamlining processes to DEI initiatives for more engaged, inclusive workforces, adapting and leveraging these new technologies help navigate the future of talent acquisition. By building a stronger candidate experience and ignoring shiny objects that don’t deliver value, forward-thinking organizations can attract and hire top talent.
If you're ready to adopt some of these new technologies to help out your recruitment team, check out Capterra's directory of top-rated recruiting software where you can read user reviews and learn more about the software features.