What's trending in recruitment?

Here at Dutton Recruitment, we strive to be at the forefront of the recruitment field…

We combine over 35 years of experience with ongoing learning about the latest industry changes to deliver the best recruitment service we can.

Part of learning about industry changes relies upon following recent news and keeping up with the latest trends. In this blog, we’re going to share a few of the biggest recruitment trends 2019 has seen!

1. Collaborative hiring:

While this has almost always been present in recruitment, there has been a large emphasis put on the value of involving your entire team in the recruitment process. There has been a large increase in the existence of employee referral programs and trusting the combined networks of your team members.

It has been found that in general, referred hires are more productive, more engaged with the company and even less likely to leave – so it makes sense for the industry to push this.

2. Future-proof soft skills:

Obviously, candidate specifications vary massively between the kind of job that is being sourced. However, there has been much more focus placed upon people’s soft skills, and how important these are.  Companies are often struggling to find candidates with softer, more inherent skills such as good communication, listening, and empathy.

This is emphasising the idea that often skills can be taught but finding someone that fits within your organisation and company culture is increasingly difficult. Take a look at how the Top 10 skills for work are changing:

3. Flexible working:

This is certainly not a new trend, however, we have seen an increase in companies integrating flexibility into their offerings this year, as candidates are placing it as a higher priority. Thanks to technology advancements we have seen a huge increase in remote working, with many based wholly in a different location, massively increasing the candidate search pool.

From compressed hours to working from home – work flexibility is very much becoming the norm and the main challenge is simply how fast organisations can implement it.

4. Embracing Artificial Intelligence (AI):

AI has been strengthening its position within the recruitment landscape for a while now, but it’s becoming much more of a must-have than an exciting add on.

In a recent survey, 76% of people said they believe AI’s impact on recruiting will be at least somewhat significant (Linkedin, 2018). We’ve picked out a couple of recent interesting uses for AI:

> Automated Candidate sourcing: Some recruiters are automating their sourcing process, using programs that can analyse over 300 million social profiles

> Facial Expression Analysis: This is a controversial one, where AI is used during video interviews to analyse people facial expressions and then make assumptions about their personality.

> Programmatic Job Advertising: Using predictive recruitment algorithms, market data and historical ad tracking these programs work in real-time to put the right job adverts on the right site at the right time.

> CV screening software: These programs can filter CV’s and rank them for suitability against specified characteristics or whole job applications. Some even contact the most qualified candidates to gauge their interest in the role before putting forward these select few to the recruiter.

5. Data Security:

After the implementation of GDPR in 2018, there continues to be a huge focus on protecting candidate data and the implications that advanced technology may have on this. 2019 has continued to see a consolidation of the rules and the bedding in period whilst the ICO begins to take a stand against those that are in breach.

6. Attracting the best talent:

As many of you will be aware, the recruitment industry is known for very high staff turnover. In an increasingly competitive world, the focus is very much on not only retaining great staff but attracting the best to begin with. To support this, 2019 has seen a significant investment into marketing strategies aimed at increasing employer branding and a switch of focus to more meaningful content.

If you found this blog post interesting take a look at some of these great resources:

LinkedIn – Global recruiting trends report 2019: https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/me/business/en-us/talent-solutions/resources/pdfs/global_talent_trends_2019_emea.pdf

The World Economic Forum - Future of Jobs report: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_Jobs_2018.pdf