Key Trends in Talent Acquisition [Webinar Recap]

This week, we partnered with Madeline Laurano from Aptitude Research and Chris Hoyt from CareerXroads on a webinar titled Key Trends in Talent Acquisition Technology.

In it, they explored the data from their most recent research report, which compiled 6 months of survey data, interviews, and vendor briefings into a comprehensive overview of the TA technology landscape. Webinar attendees also received a complementary copy of the report.

Missed the Webinar? Watch it here

Overall, the recruiting technology market has become very complex. But, the research uncovered, there are still very specific trends that are emerging in TA that every company (regardless of industry and size) are struggling with right now.

Madeline and Chris identified 4 of these key trends:

1. Recruitment Automation
2. Assessments
3. Candidate Communication
4. Recruitment Marketing

In many cases these address the same challenges recruiting teams have faced for over 15 years.

1) Recruitment Automation

According to Aptitude and CareerXroads’ new research, recruiters spend the most time:

• Communicating with candidates
• Scheduling interviews
• Finding candidates in their ATS
• Scheduling calls
• Meeting with hiring managers

Most of these activities are highly administrative and repetitive, and not the reason recruiters get into recruiting.

This is why companies’ #1 priority is trying to figure out how recruitment automation can help them. Technology that pre-screens candidates, lifts recruiters’ administrative burden, and converts leads to applicants are the highest priority. All of these are geared toward the recruiter, and making the recruiter’s life easier.

These are the key approaches TA leaders are using at each step of the hiring process:

1. Attract. Organizations are exploring how to attract applicants with personalized content, integrated sourcing, and consistent candidate engagement.
2. Recruit. To streamline and increase hiring process efficiency, organizations are deploying platforms for candidate communication, automated screening, automated assessments, and interview self-scheduling.
3. Hire. To increase offer:hire conversion rates, teams are leveraging automated forms and workflows, as well as social media.

One of the lowest-hanging fruit opportunities Madeline and Chris identified is scheduling automation. Most recruiters still spend a large amount of time just scheduling interviews with candidates. Freeing up that time means recruiters can get more involved in high-impact strategic activities like planning, market research, and competitive intel.

2) Assessments

Over the past several years, Madeline and Chris have seen a huge uptick in assessments. They revealed that companies that use pre-hire assessments:

• See a 4x improvement in quality of hire
• Are 42% more likely to improve the candidate experience
• Are 3x more likely to reduce turnover

There’s a lot of appetite for pre-hire assessments, and their promise to deliver more science and less bias. 57% percent of companies have more than one assessment provider.

There’s also a shift underway: organizations with legacy assessment providers are beginning to ask if old-school traditional assessments are really the best choice to engage and evaluate talent. The old way of delivering assessments (an online test) tends to give the impression that companies are trying to see if a candidate is lying or crazy - not a great candidate experience.

Rather than continue using the same services they have for decades, recruiting leaders are looking for true partners. This may be why 30% of companies are currently considering game-based assessments.

Learn about the other two trends in TA tech - candidate communication and recruitment marketing - and get a complimentary copy of Aptitude and CareerXroads’ new report:

Watch the Webinar On Demand