Nearly half (46%) of human resources leaders plan to invest more in HR technology in the coming years to improve daily workflows and become higher-performing HR teams, per Gartner.

It’s encouraging to see CHROs getting budget to bolster their team’s tech stacks.

However, it’s important to remember the best tools can only help human resources departments carry out their day-to-day tasks and contribute to high-level business goals when they have a structured, well-planned HR strategy in place. Specifically, one with two key objectives in mind:

1. Centralize all workforce information to make it easy for HR team members to track insights tied to employee engagement, satisfaction, output, and retention, and use those insights to recommend data-backed actions and adjustments to leaders and managers.
2. Develop an analytics-oriented talent acquisition strategy that helps the recruitment side of human resources operations enhance every element of their hiring efforts.

It’s this second objective some CHROs neglect to factor into their annual HR strategies — but one that deserves just as much attention to ensure HR helps drive the business forward.

Essential elements of a successful HR strategy

High levels of burnout and fatigue, a candidate-centric market, and adjusting to the transition from mostly in-office work to remote and hybrid models have all made work more difficult for human resources over the past few years.

It’s understandable that HR strategy planning, execution, and optimization isn’t always top of mind with CHROs. On the talent acquisition side of HR teams, the 2023 Employ Recruiter Nation Report found there are many reasons TA leaders and recruiters are experiencing high levels of stress today: 

• Not enough qualified candidates (45%)
• Competition from other employers (35%)
• More open roles to fill (34%)
• Fewer resources to support hiring (33%)
• A lack of AI-powered recruiting technologies (30%)
• More employees leaving the organization (30%)

Despite these stressors in human resources departments — particularly those at enterprises such as yours — these teams are still tasked with developing an HR strategy for their businesses that helps them achieve important goals.

So, what do human resources teams, including CHROs and other talent leaders, need to establish a well-coordinated HR strategy that ties back to organizational objectives?

Across your enterprise, chances are human resources is one of the most malleable departments. That’s because HR team members often have multiple roles and responsibilities.

Some HR generalists may focus on workforce management activities, like payroll, but that doesn’t mean these individuals work solely on the same set of limited tasks and initiatives year-round.

Look at leading, large-scale organizations today, and you’ll typically see human resources practitioners focus on both sides of the HR strategy coin: workforce planning and talent acquisition.

“[Human resources] must partner with executive leaders to manage future talent risks,” Gartner analysts recently wrote. And the best way to do this is assign specific HR team members to both tasks: some to focus on retention and turnover, and others to focus on recruiting and hiring.

Regardless of the distinct HR processes and activities you’re tasked with, you need top-rated, easy-to-use tech that streamlines your work and enables you to find the info you need to succeed.

The two tiers of technology for your HR strategy

“[Human resources] technology has become increasingly sophisticated and intelligent,” HR tech and business expert Josh Bersin recently shared with SHRM. And, of course, he’s right.

The HR software marketplace continues to grow, with new artificial intelligence tools and human capital management systems making it easier than ever for companies of all kinds to develop, track the performance of, and improve their HR strategies.

Building a best-of-breed HR tech stack requires your business leaders to factor in the two talent management approaches mentioned above — and to distinguish HR software leaders from laggards, so they don’t regret their eventual investment.

1) Human resources management software

Within this tier, there are three subsets of tools that drive modern enterprise HR strategies.

Human capital management (HCM) software

Your HR department needs to manage payroll, track compensation and benefits, set up and routinely update org charts, monitor employee engagement and productivity, and generally keep an eye on workforce-related trends. These workforce patterns, in particular, can help execs with SWOT analysis and inform workforce planning changes in the short and long term.

Consider the HCM software Jobvite connects with. Our customers sync their UKG, ADP, and BambooHR instances to transfer data tied to hired candidates into these systems to automatically create official employee profiles and records and, in turn, automate a once-laborious, manual task.

Culture, learning, and feedback tools

An equally critical tier of human resource planning technology is one that:

• Helps strengthen the company culture through proactive messaging and community-building
• Provides training and development to employees to aid their career advancement efforts
• Enables HR to send eNPS surveys and use results to realize both a better working environment and better business outcomes

The common thread among these kinds of HR solutions? They help human resources work with business leaders and people managers to help employees realize internal mobility goals.

“Pursuing a mobility- and retention-centered model will mean finding ways to integrate hiring and talent management databases to better match internal candidates with interdepartmental needs,” Employ SVP People & Talent Corey Berkey wrote for Forbes. “These tools can also help provide channels that support employees through the internal application process.”

Other niche workforce technologies

There are too many niche workforce tools to list here that enterprise HR professionals need to execute their human resources strategy. That said, some increasingly popular technologies focus on:

• Tracking the mental health and well-being of their workforce, particularly in times of disruption
• Analyzing the effectiveness of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives
• Executing change management plans with their C-suite during periods of structural change
• Creating a corporate “wiki” to act as a single source of truth of company info for employees

The effect of using tools like these is they help your HR team keep tabs on and improve workers’ well-being and aid the enterprise in achieving company goals tied to the overall business strategy. That includes improving workforce diversity and showing a commitment to employee wellness.

2) Enterprise applicant tracking system

“Besides streamlining your recruitment processes, technology can also improve the candidate experience while driving speed and efficiency,” Corey wrote for SpiceWorks. “However, there are too many shiny objects … that will fail on some core level to deliver what recruiting leaders actually need.”

“Take as objective a view as possible on what your team needs from your [recruiting and hiring] technology and where you can optimize current tools,” Corey recommended. “Then, search for a [talent acquisition] partner with the expertise and knowledge to work collaboratively with you.”

One of the most common partnerships CHROs and TA leaders form are those with their applicant tracking system vendors. Notably, those that not only offer a world-class ATS, but also provide ongoing, hands-on support to help HR recruiting orgs thrive with their platforms.

Once you’ve secured tools from the first tier, turn your attention to enterprise recruitment technology. For example, with Jobvite’s Evolve Talent Acquisition Suite, your HR team can:

• Realize more predictable hiring outcomes, thanks to built-in recruitment analytics
• Brand your career site with highly optimized messaging and visuals to boost applications
• Execute a high-volume hiring initiative using our advanced recruitment marketing features
• Leverage AI and automation to put a variety of formerly arduous tasks on relative autopilot
• Source, nurture, and convert candidates at scale to speed up hiring and close reqs faster
• Provide exceptional recruitment experiences for your HR staff and engaged candidates
• Make more data-driven decisions across your full-cycle recruiting strategy

Your HCM software may offer some applicant-tracking functionality. But, what your enterprise really needs to take your talent acquisition approach to new heights in the years ahead is built-for-purpose recruitment technology intended for large organizations like yours.

If your business is included in the half of large-scale companies struggling to identify and engage qualified candidates today, a holistic solution can address this part of your HR strategy.

Learn why strategic human resources teams continue to invest in Jobvite — and how our enterprise recruiting platform can accelerate and improve your hiring efforts.

The post Developing an Effective HR Strategy for Your Enterprise first appeared on Jobvite.

It can be overwhelming for enterprise talent acquisition teams to research the numerous types of recruitment tools on the market and determine which ones merit investment today.

Arguably the two most important questions TA teams must ask when evaluating tech options are:

1. What facet(s) of our daily recruiting and hiring efforts would X tool enhance/streamline?
2. Can X tool directly (and seamlessly) integrate with our team’s applicant tracking system?

It should be fairly easy to discern if a given recruiting tool can solve for a particular talent acquisition activity (e.g., sourcing passive candidates more effectively, syncing data with an HRIS).

And if you have an advanced ATS like Jobvite, chances are any popular tech you want to connect to our enterprise hiring software is a part of our expansive recruitment tool marketplace, which features dozens of industry-leading solutions used by today’s top talent teams.

Recruitment tools that can transform your talent strategy: 8 Jobvite partners to know

We could list a 100-plus recruitment tools below that can help transform your talent strategy for the better (e.g., ones that can help you improve your employer branding, write inclusive job descriptions, post to niche job boards universally, promote job openings via targeted ads).

For the sake of brevity, though (and to highlight some of the most widely used partners in the Jobvite Marketplace) here are eight helpful recruiting tools we think you should know about — a mix of well-established platforms and newer hiring-centric solutions.

1) ADP

We’ll call this a post-recruitment tool. The Jobvite Connector for ADP Workforce Now® enables talent teams to seamlessly sync new-hire data directly into their HR colleagues’ ADP instance.

This direct connection ensures human resources has all historical records associated with new employees sent directly to ADP, in turn reducing the risk for manual data entry issues.

Specifically, all available info tied to hired candidates in Jobvite is automatically sent to the New Hire Wizard in ADP once prospects are officially designated as new hires in our ATS.

2) UKG

It’s not just ADP that Jobvite has a direct connection with. We also integrate with UKG Pro to simplify the initiation of the onboarding process for hired candidates and ensure data across the entire talent acquisition lifecycle syncs into the HCM to provide HR with a holistic view of employees.

The transition from offer acceptance to new-hire orientation is simplified and streamlined, thanks to this built-in connection with our ATS. The bonus benefit? Enhanced collaboration between TA and HR means they can both contribute to a positive candidate experience for new staff members.

3) Bryq

Utilization of artificial intelligence tools continues to rise at enterprise talent acquisition teams.

While AI will never replace the human component of hiring (i.e., building relationships with potential candidates), it’s still an increasingly critical component to employers’ hiring success.

One particular AI-centric recruitment tool Jobvite customers leverage is Bryq.

The talent intelligence platform helps TA teams with both our solutions to blend their hiring analytics and use those merged insights to reduce bias in their recruitment process, determine prospects’ company culture fit, and — ultimately — make data-backed hiring decisions (both in terms of external, new-new talent and in-house candidates to consider for internal mobility options).

4) Criteria

Another popular data-driven recruitment tool many TA teams with Jobvite utilize in their day-to-day is Criteria, an assessment platform that empowers hiring stakeholders to make evidence-based, bias-free decisions across their entire recruitment strategy (i.e., in each hiring funnel stage).

Jobvite users can deliver Criteria assessments to candidates of interest right from our recruitment software, than have results from those tests sent to candidates’ dedicated Jobvite profiles so recruiters and hiring managers so they can review answers and provide any feedback.

5) Verified First

Background screening is obviously an essential component of any enterprise hiring process today. That’s why so many Jobvite users take advantage of our Verified First connection.

The renowned pre-employment screening provider helps HR pros easily conduct background checks on job applicants and sourced candidates who make it to the final recruiting stages.

This one-click integration helps our joint customers request checks and review findings without ever having to leave Jobvite. Once completed, all results data is passed over to Jobvite, and updated profile data from our ATS is is sent to Verified First — a seamless process that automates a once-arduous task for HR and TA teams and a reduces the potential for compliance errors.

6) Paychex

Payroll management may not be top of mind for your talent team. That said, you can set your HR department up for success with getting new employees set up with direct deposits.

The Jobvite-Paychex Flex integration ensures employers can drive efficiency by transferring all new-hire details directly into the latter platform. The primary pro of this connection? Human resources can simplify and streamline one of their most laborious administrative payroll setup tasks and ensure they have clean, de-duped profiles for all new employees added to their Paychex account.

7) JobTarget

Large-scale orgs with a national or international presence need to be able to publish job postings on boards and career communities where they know they’ll attract the right kind of candidates (i.e., those who live near one of their office locations and have role-specific skills and experience).

The JobTarget integration with Jobvite enables talent specialists to implement programmatic advertising campaigns that help get their open roles on the most appropriate job sites, based on pre-defined hiring criteria tied to geography, industry, and types of positions that are open.

JobTarget’s automation capabilities ensure job ads are promoted only in digital locales that match our customers’ search-related preferences. Applicants generated via these listings then sync into Jobvite automatically, and recruiters can see which specific sourcing channels performed best.

8) Largely

Employee testimonials are quite a powerful recruitment tool, of sorts, in modern talent acquisition.

Getting existing members of your workforce to share what it’s like to work for your company, their individual and team successes, and how they’ve advanced their careers can prove to be a compelling piece of recruitment marketing collateral that helps TA convert top talent more effectively.

Using the Largely integration with Jobvite, our customers can share the most pertinent and persuasive messaging with prospects that compels them to learn more about open roles.

Largely allows recruiters to crowdsource multimedia-centric testimonials from current staff members. These internal endorsements of the business can then be sent to Jobvite, where TA specialists can incorporate them in targeted nurtures to candidates and even published to the career site.

Speak with our team to learn more about our ATS and the dozens of premier recruitment tools you can connect to our award-winning hiring software. Schedule a demo today.

The post Must-Have Recruitment Tools for Your TA Tech Stack first appeared on Jobvite.

With all the headwinds recruiting teams have seen in recent years, how do they perceive the coming year and what investments will they make going into 2024? The good news is that HR decision makers and recruiters are both realistic and optimistic for the future of recruiting.

Recruiting outlook

Based on data from the 2023 Employ Recruiter Nation Report, more than half of talent professionals (57%) believe within the next 12 months, hiring new employees will be at least somewhat challenging, mostly because there are not enough quality candidates (58%), because of competition from other employers (46%), fewer recruiters or recruiting resources (43%), and more employees leaving the organization (41%).

The challenge of not enough quality candidates is anticipated more within SMBs (63%) than at large enterprises (48%); however, more than 4 in 10 recruiters from enterprise companies believe they will have more open roles to fill (42%) versus 23% at SMBs.

Recruiting volatility

When it comes to fluctuations in the coming year, recruiters have mixed opinions. While one in three recruiters do not believe the next 12 months will be volatile in recruiting, half of all talent acquisition professionals do think hiring will be turbulent into 2024.

The future of recruiting

At the same time, HR decision makers are extremely optimistic about the future of recruiting. An incredible 86% of talent practitioners shared that they are positive about what the future of talent acquisition holds, while only 8% are not. So, while volatility is expected, optimism remains.

Where talent teams plan to invest in 2024

Investment outlook

One important consideration for talent acquisition teams is the ongoing investment made to their function. The good news: investment in recruiting will likely increase or remain stable in the coming year.

Over the next 6 to 12 months, an overwhelming majority of talent acquisition professionals expect to either increase (61%) or keep their recruiting spend the same (29%). Spending increases are more likely expected in medium-sized companies (70%) versus 58% at enterprises and 47% in small businesses.

Talent teams that plan to increase their recruiting spend will most often do so by increasing their budgets for new recruitment technology purchases (50%), expanding existing recruitment technology stack (47%), new recruiting team role hires (47%) and job advertising (47%), investing in additional team training (46%) and investing in recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) (43%).

Technology investments

From a technology perspective, more than half (59%) of the budget increase will come from AI-powered recruiting tools, followed by diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives (50%), candidate relationship management (CRM) (48%), applicant tracking systems (ATS) (47%), career site (39%), sourcing technologies (36%), job boards (34%), and offers and onboarding (30%).

No matter where each organization falls, continued investment should be a priority to help recruiters feel more supported in their roles. Business and talent acquisition leaders must support recruiters in reducing manual tasks through recruiting AI and automation technology, so recruiters can do what they do best — focus on the human aspects of recruiting.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives

Candidates today are emboldened more than ever to seek out roles and companies that match their own values. They want a supportive and inclusive workplace culture that affords equal opportunities to each team member and makes people feel included in the success of the business. In a competitive hiring environment, companies must clearly communicate their commitment to DEI and demonstrate program effectiveness to attract top talent.

And when it comes to investment for 2024 hiring initiatives, three quarters (75%) of HR decision makers reported that their organization will place more emphasis on diversity hiring.

Recruiters who have been successful in attracting talent indicate they focus on the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts of their organization. This enables recruiters to connect with candidates who recognize the value of these initiatives in the workplace.

Specific areas for improving diversity hiring

Looking to 2024, talent teams report that the top three areas their company has specific goals to improve in diversity recruiting are race/ethnicity (47%), gender (44%), age (36%), and LGBTQ+ (26%). But there still is a long way to go. With nearly one-third of talent teams indicating they have no specific goals, it will take continued focus and consistent efforts to improve DEI for the long-term.

Businesses that have a wide diversity of representation in employee ability, gender identity, ethnicity, neurodiversity, familial status, and personal beliefs are more likely to succeed in their industries compared to others that don’t.

It’s become a key metric for success that it’s now an evaluation category for the Fortune 500 list, reminding companies just how important it is  to consistently improve their organizational  DEI — and proving that the best lead by example.

Recruitment process outsourcing

Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) provides a different approach to recruiting. RPO is when an organization outsources or transfers some or all of its recruitment process to an external partner.

An RPO provider acts as an extension of an organization’s talent acquisition team and offers scalable resources to fill open roles quickly and efficiently. The RPO team works directly with the internal HR team, hiring managers, and the business to define recruitment success and executes against agreed upon objectives to achieve successful outcomes, including time to fill and quality of hire.

According to Employ data, 55% of HR decision makers are considering outsourcing recruitment in 2024. And while RPO is not for everyone, a growing number of companies are looking to RPO to ensure they stay competitive in an unsteady job market.

One of the main benefits of working with an RPO provider is that it frees up internal resources so that the business can focus on other strategic talent acquisition priorities. RPO teams also ensure internal talent teams have real-time information and data on requisition health, and other key performance metrics, including time to hire, quality of hire, recruiting efficiency, source yield, and daily activity to keep the business in the know and able to report on recruiting effectiveness.

Move forward with confidence

Talent teams have tackled unimaginable challenges caused by global events, labor market changes, and economic conditions. Looking forward, the opportunity for talent acquisition is limitless. And it’s why talent acquisition professionals remain optimistic for the future.

As your team forges ahead, leverage the latest in industry research and insights to do so with confidence. Download the 2023 Employ Recruiter Nation Report: Moving Forward in Uncertainty.

The post The Future of Recruiting: Priorities and Investments for 2024 first appeared on Jobvite.

It’s obviously no secret the tight labor market continues to impact organizations in the United States and internationally. The Great Resignation is in the rearview mirror. However, the job market in North America and many other places worldwide hasn’t yet returned to pre-pandemic conditions.

Sure, there are far more employed workers than unemployed workers in several job sectors today — meaning the labor force participation rate remains fairly stout. (Particularly in the U.S.)

However, the Federal Reserve’s raising of interest rates has led many organizations — from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies — to hold off on filling job openings (and even pull them from their career sites and job boards) until lingering economic uncertainty clears up.

As Red Branch Media Founder and CEO Maren Hogan and Employ SVP People & Talent Corey Berkey shared on our recent webinar, C-suites and TA/HR leaders should simply continue to keep a close eye on industry trends — specifically, data that reveals how other employers are navigating this period of disruption so they can get ideas and inspiration for their own recruiting and hiring efforts.

Recruiters “feeling the pinch” — and burning out — in the ongoing tight labor market

As we enter 2024, labor demand is high (and growing), while labor supply varies from one industry to the next. Early retirements continue to hit executive teams at large-scale businesses. And the unemployment rate in the U.S. remains near lows seen prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In short, there are a lot of mixed signals in the continually tight labor market and economy.

“There’s now this added stress of not only ‘I’ve got a lot of reqs, my skills are in demand, and my business needs me to be able to perform,’ but also that performance pressure gets accelerated in the world we’re living in today because … there’s less people to manage those reqs,” said Corey.

Layer on top of that what recruiting professionals are seeing in the tight labor market today (high employee turnover rates, worker displacement due to ever-changing business dynamics and needs), and there’s clearly a palpable volatility inside the recruiting space, Corey added.

“All that really compounds that stress [for talent acquisition teams],” according to Corey.

Increasing salary bands one way employers better compete for talent in tight labor market

On top of dealing with mounting pressure, Corey relayed how recruiters also have to deal with budgetary constraints decided on by their leadership as it relates to both their talent team budget (i.e., getting the tech tools and recruitment marketing dollars they need to succeed) and the salary levels they’re able to offer candidates of interest toward the end of each hiring cycle.

“[Budget cuts] play out across the entire business,” said Corey. “But, TA feels that burden, because they’re trying to negotiate to these accepted offers. They’re trying to drive the business forward. But, they’re trying to do with less and less resources and less salary dollars.”

Despite getting seemingly not-as-competitive salary bands for many open roles, some recruiters are working more closely with their C-suites to secure more money to offer top candidates.

“Candidates are kind of used to getting what they want,” said Maren. “They got a good, solid 18 months there [of having a candidate-centric market]. And now, they’re kind of not backing down from some of those needs, desires, and demands.” This, in turn, makes it much harder for recruiting orgs to fill vacant roles with high-quality candidates at all, let alone in a timely and efficient manner.

To prevent their recruiters from having to be the “intermediaries” regarding salary discussions with prospective hires, Maren said it’s vital for C-suites to ask themselves how they can “strike a balance between sort of rigid corporate budgets and the salary expectations of candidates.”

“Strategic leaning” toward RPOs growing rapidly, as employers combat labor market tightness

Aside from discussing the emotional impact the tight labor market has had on recruiters personally and professionally, Corey and Maren touched on what employers at large are doing to compete for talent and ensure they keep their talent pools filled with many relevant, qualified candidates.

One way a number of companies are doing this? Turning to recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) service providers that can tackle numerous talent acquisition tasks and address niche hiring needs businesses’ in-house recruiting orgs simply don’t have the time or expertise to tackle.

Investment in RPOs is “a recognition that TA has matured into a distinct specialty, and orgs are harvesting specialized fields from external providers” to fill key roles, said Maren.

There are certainly other ways in which employers are coping with the tight labor market and ensuring they can realize their desired level of headcount growth, our research found. For instance:

• 42% of businesses are optimizing their recruiting processes to accelerate hiring
• 34% are using AI tools to augment their day-to-day talent acquisition tasks
• 30% are onboarding more advanced and scalable TA tech — like ATS software

The combination of these hiring strategy adjustments and factoring in the distinct needs of their own businesses is what will set talent teams up for success in 2024 and beyond, per Corey.

“Leaders across the globe are going to get handed a req list on January 1 and say, ‘Hey, the budgets approved — go get ’em,” said Corey. “And we’ve got to make sure that we’re able to be scalable with hiring and leverage all these [recruiting] modes as we navigate the labor market.”

Discover how our enterprise applicant tracking system can help you execute and optimize your talent acquisition strategy and enhance your hiring efforts amid tight market conditions.

The post Evolving Your Hiring Approach in a Tight Labor Market first appeared on Jobvite.

There are two sides of the onboarding coin, so to speak:

• There are the new hires who need to spend the first few weeks on the job getting caught up to speed on the business at large via an employee handbook and hands-on training and learn more about their role and who they’ll need to work with on and outside their team.
• And then there are the human resources and other hiring team members charged with taking the reins from talent acquisition to carry out the training and orientation periods for new staff members through a formal onboarding experience that helps them acclimate.

On the HR side of said coin, human resources specialists must abide by onboarding best practices to ensure newly hired employees have everything they need to succeed from day one and feel empowered to thrive in their new positions and the work environment at large.

At the same time, HR teams — particularly those at enterprises — must also execute a highly efficient and effective onboarding process that ensures they’re alerted the moment job offers have been accepted by candidates and, in turn, enables them to start planning their onboarding ASAP.

That’s where an applicant tracking system with bulk onboarding capabilities can help.

What the optimal onboarding experience entails for today’s HR pros and hiring managers

Before diving into the benefits of leveraging human resources technology with bulk onboarding functionality built in, it’s worth reviewing the modern onboarding “checklist,” of sorts, that leading HR teams at large-scale companies use to provide stellar employee experiences for new hires today.

Creating an onboarding kit that covers the role, team, and culture

New hires are, more often than not, rightfully stressed about their first day and weeks on the job.

That makes it worthwhile to alleviate that anxiety by giving them an onboarding kit that features a comprehensive breakdown of what the entire process will entail and pertinent info about their position, their team/colleagues, the company culture, and other business-related details of interest.

Ideally, these kits are 90% the same, but with that remaining 10% including details related to their specific role and department added in to give them a lay of the land regarding who they’ll work with, what tasks they’ll take on, and ongoing team initiatives they will get briefed on post-onboarding.

Breaking down business objectives and providing a roadmap

Employees feel much more at ease when they know exactly what onboarding entails and get insights that can help them flourish once this orientation period ends (e.g., short- and long-term goals specific to their work and department, metrics monitored for each business unit and the org at large).

Once these objectives are laid out, that’s where hiring managers can enter the onboarding process. Notably, team leads can connect their new reports with others across the org who can

Harvard Business Review contributor and business consultant Gleb Tsipursky recommends people managers who will oversee a new employee implement a training program that “progressively helps [their] new hire understand their responsibilities and achieve their goals.”

Per Gleb, this can be through “a mix of on-the-job training, workshops, and mentorship programs.”

Connecting your TA and HR tech to enable seamless data sharing

The above facets of the onboarding experience obviously apply to new hires. As it pertains to your HR team’s experience during this process, though, it’s certainly critical to have a leading HCM solution where you can store employee data and info and add notes to their profiles as needed.

But, it’s equally important to ensure your talent acquisition tech syncs directly with your HR systems of record to facilitate a seamless initiation of the onboarding process.

Specifically, you need an ATS, like Jobvite, that helps recruiters pass the baton, so to speak, to human resources professionals such as yourself so they can kickstart their new hire orientation — specifically, that for multiple employees joining their orgs at the same time — with ease.

How bulk onboarding workflows help hiring teams streamline new employee orientation and training

Given your enterprise, like countless others, hires several employees each month, it only makes sense to have HR software that enables your team to create streamlined workflows that start in your ATS and transition to your human capital management software as onboarding begins in earnest.

That’s why Jobvite developed our new Bulk Onboard functionality. Here’s how it works.

• Once candidates who officially accept a job offer are labeled as new hires in our applicant tracking system, those individuals can be automatically grouped together and assigned to the same workflow in Bulk Onboard simply by checking their profile box.
• After a group of new hires has been assigned to the appropriate workflow (i.e., one tied to a given role, team, and/or location), a chain of activities for specific onboarding stakeholders is initiated. Each of these individuals is then notified of their upcoming task(s).
• Given your enterprise likely employs new team members for several teams each month, different “pathways” can be created for different business units. This ensures their onboarding experience is highly relevant to the roles they take on and departments they join.

All in all, Bulk Onboard simplifies the end-to-end new hire training and orientation process.

Specifically, the features ensures onboarding administrators and orchestrators (a.k.a., the people ops personnel who set up all the workflows in Jobvite and trainings for new employees) can complete onboarding quickly and efficiently — while providing a stellar experience for new staff members.

“If you can use automation to take care of much of the administrative work [tied to onboarding], it frees you to focus on creating people connections and relationships that strengthen the bonds for new hires and improves retention,” employee experience expert Jen Stroud shared with SHRM.

There are certainly of tools that offer such onboarding automation that are available to HR teams.

“Large-scale employers with high-volume hiring strategies need their onboarding efforts to be as precise and systematic as possible,” said Employ Product Marketing Manager Ieshia Hill.

“With Bulk Onboard, human resources hiring teams can make sure newly signed employees can be added to onboarding workflows en masse, as needed, and — in turn — save substantial amounts of time with what is historically a heavily time-intensive task.”

Learn how Jobvite’s Bulk Onboard can help your team execute more effective employee onboarding programs. Schedule a demo of our best-in-class enterprise ATS software today.

The post Enhancing the Onboarding Experience with the Right Tech first appeared on Jobvite.

Your talent acquisition team, like many others at enterprises worldwide, undoubtedly tracks an array of critical recruitment metrics that provide insight into each stage of the recruitment funnel.

But, if your TA leader doesn’t assign specific key performance indicators (KPIs) tied to each metric — both at the individual recruiter level and for the overall recruiting org — it becomes quite difficult to attribute successes and identify areas for improvement with your hiring efforts.

Some large-scale employers use various analytics tools to track their pipeline performance.

Leading enterprises, however, rely on advanced ATS software with native talent analytics to keep tabs on data points tied to their recruitment speed, efficiency, and quality — and enable talent leaders to designate distinct KPIs that can help them track progress over time.

Enterprise recruiting KPIs you can assign and track with a leading applicant tracking system

Your recruitment team is not solely responsible for the success of your hiring process.

Other decision-makers across your org certainly impact your company’s ability to onboard top talent and keep your business moving in the right direction headcount- and growth-wise.

That makes it paramount to report on every aspect of your day-to-day recruitment process and long-term recruitment strategy so you can see if your talent specialists are making headway from one week, month, and quarter to the next with assigned requisitions.

So, if you need advice on what KPIs are worth setting for your recruiters — tied to every stage of your funnel: from the application process, to the candidate experience provided — you’ve come to the right place. Here are 20 specific, quantifiable goals you can set.

Top-of-funnel recruiting KPIs

1) Career site/job board engagement

Well-branded and search-optimized career sites and job postings are your TA team’s path to attracting more active job seekers, getting them to learn more about your business via other “About Us” pages, and converting many of them into new applicants you can engage for open roles.

2) Application completion rate

This obviously goes hand-in-hand with the above recruitment KPI. Another way you can get more prospects who land on one of your listings to click “Submit” is to make their application experience a quick and seamless one. (Hint: Don’t require them to log in just to apply for a position.)

3) Sourcing channel quality

Based on their recruiting experiences, your talent specialists (at least your veteran ones) certainly know which sourcing avenues lead to a high quantity and quality of candidates. Doubling down on proven channels and eliminating use of poor-performing ones is the key to achieving this KPI.

4) Nurture engagement rate

Whether you rely on email, SMS, or both candidate communication approaches, you can only bolster your engagement with prospects by routinely reviewing data tied to your outreach efforts — something an advanced ATS with built-in, easy-to-parse talent analytics can help you with.

5) Passive candidate quantity

Just as you want to ensure your sourcing efforts help augment your talent pool with the target number of applicants, you also need to focus on the quality of those passive prospects.

This can best be accomplished through lookbacks at past hiring cycles to see where top candidates (i.e., those who advance far into the recruiting process and are hired) come from source-wise.

6) Diversity sourcing and engagement

Building a diverse workforce is (rightfully) an ongoing endeavor for today’s enterprises.

Monitor your recruiters’ sourcing efforts to make sure they add members from historically underrepresented groups. That means turning to channels that generate applicants and passive prospects of different genders, gender identities, races, ages, and backgrounds.

Middle-of-funnel recruiting KPIs

7) Screen-to-interview ratio

There’s no “right” percentage of shortlisted candidates your recruiters should present to hiring managers after phone or Zoom screens. However, speaking with each hiring manager to understand the average number of leads they prefer to evaluate post-screening process needs to be taken into consideration by your sourcers to ensure hiring managers have several strong options to assess.

8) Interview speed/efficiency

Speed remains the name of the game in TA today. Continually driving down the amount of time your team takes to finish interviewing processes with top talent of interest is essential to closing requisitions in a timely manner — and boosting hiring manager satisfaction.

9) Time to provide feedback

Your talent team can only somewhat control “time to feedback.” That’s because some interviewers take their time to scrutinize candidate profiles, resumes, and related interview notes.

But, your recruiters can (and should) nudge them immediately after each interview to note they need HMs’ comments and scorecards ASAP to keep the candidates in question interested — and advance agreed-upon prospects of interest quickly into the offer extension phase.

10) Candidate selection speed

Speaking of candidate selection, it essentially comes down to your hiring managers who own specific reqs as to which individuals they think merit offers. As with feedback, ensure your TA team reminds HMs you need their choices (first, second, and third) so they can plan offer letters accordingly.

11) Hiring manager satisfaction

As mentioned, making each hiring manager happy with your team’s recruitment efforts is something that can go a long way in showing you’re putting in full effort to fill their job openings in a speedy and efficient manner. One of the best ways to satisfy HMs’ hiring needs? Have your recruiters speak with them at length about specific skills, experience levels, and other traits they prefer in new hires.

Bottom-of-funnel recruiting KPIs

12) Time to hire

This one’s a fairly obvious recruitment KPI your team should focus on improving. Regardless, you need to use your talent acquisition tech of choice to track the typical number of days it takes from the moment your team is assigned a new req to when they get a signed offer letter.

13) Cost per hire

Your executive team is always bottom-line focused. That means their attention is constantly centered on both profitability and revenue as well as business expenditures — including what your team spends to attract active and passive job seekers.

Keep a close eye on your TA budget, and ensure each recruiter (or your recruitment marketing manager, if you have one who owns all paid postings) knows what they have available to them each month and quarter — and not to go a dollar over.

14) Offer acceptance rate

You can’t force a candidate to agree to join your company. But, your talent team can liaise with hiring managers to collectively make compelling pitches to final-stage prospects. Only through this coordination — and regular iteration and optimization of their offer process — can recruiters and hiring managers continually get more high-quality candidates to sign on the (digital) dotted line.

15) Candidate Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Post-recruiting-cycle surveys sent to each candidate allows them to answer a handful of questions about their experience with your hiring team and rate your recruiting process at large. It’s simple: The higher the score, the better. You can start with modest targets (e.g., a quarterly improvement of 2-3 points). If the cNPS remains static or falls further, you can increase that goal as needed.

Discover how today’s top talent acquisition teams use the native analytics in our ATS to achieve their recruitment KPIs — and how your TA org can do the same. Get a demo today.

The post 15 Recruiting KPIs to Assign to Your Talent Acquisition Team first appeared on Jobvite.

Your enterprise’s overarching business strategy has a lot of moving parts that require close coordination among executives and departmental leaders to plan, execute, and optimize.

The same should go for your organization’s talent strategy:

Of course, it’s never as simple as “We need X role filled by Y date — now, go source some candidates.” The top talent strategies are far more nuanced and sophisticated then that — and will certainly need to be for employers of all kinds to succeed in 2024 and beyond.

The future of talent acquisition — specifically, how companies can develop strategic plans to engage and retain high-performing team members who contribute to critical business goals and growth — was the topic of a recent webinar Employ conducted with HR.com featuring a trio of TA experts.

The talent strategy blueprint for the years ahead: What your execs and talent leaders should know

Planning your talent management strategy for 2024 (and perhaps even the years and ahead)?

Here’s what advice NXTTHing RPO Founder Terry Terhark, Employ Chief Customer Officer Chris Stewart, and Port Authority of New York & New Jersey (PANYNJ) Program Director, Talent Management & Development Christopher Wolff, SHRM-SCP had to offer C-suites in our webinar.

Using labor market data as a reference point for workforce planning

“Having spent close to 30 years in recruiting, I can say this is the most awkward labor market that I’ve ever seen, historically,” said Terry. “Interest rates have continued to go up in 2023, but job postings have stayed relatively high.”

The effect of these conditions? A marked rise in hiring for front-line workers, but uneven employment figures for most other industries, per Terry.

While many employers turn to BLS data and related analyst reports to glean insights into the state of the jobs market and economy at large, only leading employers use this info to inform their own internal workforce planning efforts and talent strategies.

“If there are lots of recruiter openings, that means that we have a very vibrant and robust environment,” said Terry. “And, to the extent those openings come down, that indicates more pressure on the labor markets” and, in turn, a down hiring period for many companies.

All in all, Terry explained the candidate market that’s persisted since the middle of the global pandemic remains in place today and likely will in 2024 and possibly beyond.

With that in mind, it’s vital for employers to remember they’re competing with many other employers in and outside their industry — and should ensure their talent strategy reflects that (e.g., strong employer branding and candidate sourcing and engagement processes) to win and retain talent.

Using leading tech for hiring, onboarding, and developing employees

“By and large, most enterprise and medium-sized companies currently use an ATS,” said Chris.

And with nearly two-thirds of HR decision-makers planning to spend more on TA tech in the years ahead, per Employ research, those without applicant tracking systems are likely to rectify that.

Considering these facets of TA when researching and demoing prospective recruiting tech solutions is “really important to attracting and facilitating that engagement with a candidate and making sure they have the most positive experience possible,” Chris added.

Ultimately, with the right tech — that is, a centralized, intuitive, and advanced ATS deliberately developed for enterprises that integrates with other recruitment tools — large-scale companies can implement more sustainable and scalable recruiting programs.

It’s not just recruiters who benefit from an ATS, Chris noted. For instance, HR can use it to kick off onboarding in a seamless fashion (i.e., by connecting the ATS with their HRIS/HCM software).

Moreover, they can liaise with people managers and use “blended” TA-HR data from the two sets of systems to build learning and development programs that provide existing employees with new skills set and develop and retain them. (Something recruiters undoubtedly want to see, given the considerably effort they put in with hiring managers in their evaluation and selection processes.)

Empowering your hiring team with a leading ATS and RPO services

A highly specific example of an enterprise with a variety of unique hiring needs was provided by Christopher, who noted how PANYNJ needs to hire for many roles year-round.

“Recruitment is really interesting here because we hire all sorts of job functions,” said Christopher. “Everything from skilled trades and customer service, to emergency response and engineers, to architects, project managers, finance professionals, marketing, IT, [and] police officers.”

All while keeping candidate experience and hiring speed, efficiency, and quality top of mind.

“Moving to a best-in-class applicant tracking system, Jobvite, [enabled us] to be able to more seamlessly move our candidates through the process,” said Christopher. This smoother recruitment process ensured job seekers “have a modern and intuitive experience with us,” he added.

“As we matured and evolved our talent acquisition function, we not only leverage [Jobvite], but also [hiring] services … in partnership with NXTThing RPO really served as an extension of our in-house recruiting resources,” per Christopher.

Refining your TA tech stack and talent management processes

As Chris noted, investing in a leading applicant tracking system like Jobvite is an important first step to establishing a highly effective talent strategy that helps both HR and TA perform at a high level.

But, not utilizing your ATS to its full potential and integrating other important tools and systems to the ATS will only lead to lingering inefficiencies for talent teams — and their companies potentially losing out on top talent, due to poor application (no pun intended) of the recruiting platform.

“I frequently talk to customers about finding a solution that really fits 80% of their needs and figuring out what are those two or three [parts of their recruiting and hiring] that require a point solution or add-ons,” said Chris. “Even in today’s general TA tech stack and ecosystem, you talk about openness, integrations, all of those things. There’s still a lot of complexity to that.”

That’s why recruiters, operations personnel, and hiring managers need to regularly relay their tech needs: to ensure they have the requisite tools to further augment their respective roles in their org’s recruiting process and continue to transform their distinct talent strategy for the better.

Learn how Jobvite helps enterprise employers elevate their talent strategy effectiveness and scale their hiring efforts. Take the tour of our applicant tracking system today.

The post Reimagining Your Talent Strategy in 2024 and Beyond first appeared on Jobvite.

There are certainly many “evergreen” HR trends (an oxymoron, but bear with us) your human resources team and C-suite are already well aware of and have taken action on. These likely include:

• Implementing a more human-centric approach to building a strong company culture
• Prioritizing employees’ mental health and their work-life balance in a disruptive period
• Boosting employee retention by training and promoting top performers company-wide
• Offering flexible working hours, particularly for those working remotely/in hybrid roles
• Ensuring the employee experience is a positive one by improving the work environment

And these 2023 HR trends will certainly remain a top focal point for HR leaders in 2024.

That said, there are certainly a growing number of other, more recent (and urgent) workforce-related events, patterns, and shifts that will impact your human resources function’s efforts to empower your workforce to thrive in the workplace (virtual and/or in-person) in the year ahead.

7 HR trends to know about in 2024

Here are some of the top HR trends today — more specifically, ones from the latest edition of Employ’s Recruiter Nation Report, which features in-depth recruiting and hiring data as well as expert “people” insights for CHROs and their teams — you should know heading into 2024.

1) Talent acquisition will continue to adapt to ongoing uncertainty

What better way to kick off our HR trends list than to share one from a fellow Employster?

Employ SVP People & Talent Corey Berkey detailed how all companies — from SMBs to enterprises — will continue to evolve their talent acquisition processes and priorities in 2024.

That’s mainly due to lingering concerns about a recession and further tightening budgets.

Two specific ways in which Corey envision’s TA teams altering their approaches in the year ahead?

“As businesses have adjusted hiring plans in reaction to economic conditions, talent acquisition teams have felt the impact,” said Corey. “Navigating a full requisition load with less tools or … resources forces teams to change their approach.” (Translation: Find ways to work smarter.)

Corey added how employers of all sizes and across industries are now “seeking ways to flex their recruiting practices and zero-in on high quality candidates, working to drive higher initial candidate quality.” These are efforts that “will shape talent acquisition … into 2024.”

2) The “do-more-with-less” hiring approach will (mostly) stick

No business division — whether it’s human resources, marketing, sales, or support — wants to have to do their jobs with limited budget and resources. And yet, in today’s business climate, that’s what ongoing economic uncertainty requires most (if not all) teams to do.

“Whether companies are growing or slowing, talent acquisition teams are being asked to do more with less based on the current economic uncertainty” WorkTech Founder and Principal Analyst George LaRocque shared for our 2023 Employ Recruiter Nation Report.

“Yet, while the economy may have been cooling … the available talent and required skills remain more complicated to find than ever,” George added. “Today’s recruiting challenges are the same as those previously associated with competition during times of strong economic growth.”

3) Orgs of all sizes will renew their focus on diversity recruiting

H3 HR Advisors Cofounder Steve Boese and CEO and Principal Analyst Trish Steed insisted employers will spend their time, resources, and energy on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in 2024 and the years ahead. Specifically, with a concerted focus on diversity hiring.

“Making increased commitments to diversity hiring is an important first step,” the duo noted.

Updating impact descriptions and career sites with messaging that relays your efforts around DEI certainly go a long way in proving your dedicated to making progress, Steve and Trish added.

However, proactive efforts to make ongoing strides with DEI — including with diversity hiring (e.g., implementing a skills-based TA approach to hire a broader array of underrepresented talent) is what will show your company truly cares about creating a more diverse, fair, and welcoming workplace.

4) Differentiation from other employers becomes a focal point

The Great Resignation led to a scarcity of talent actively looking for new work during the global pandemic. But, the market has since shifted. (And drastically, to say the least.)

Now, there’s a surplus of professionals aiming to join new companies. And yet, many job seekers remain selective regarding which employers they consider speaking with and joining.

Guidewire Software VP and Global Head of Talent Attraction Ian Creamer noted how, despite a sizable number of active candidates exploring new career opportunities, HR/TA teams must still ensure their open roles (and employer brand at large) stand out from other orgs looking to hire.

“The expectation of hiring managers and leaders is that the tide of layoffs should equal much easier access to talent, and that’s not always the case,” Ian added. “We hire in the technology space, and truly top talent remains as hard to hire as ever.”

Ian added that “candidates are still showing up with multiple offers already in hand,” making it difficult to convince top-tier talent his company engages for open roles to accept their offers.

5) The use of artificial intelligence in TA continues to grow

Notice that the “AI-is-a-trend-crowd” has grown increasingly silent since early 2023? That’s because artificial intelligence is, in fact, here to stay. And it’s an “HR trend” all talent teams should investigate further, as there are undoubtedly several AI use cases for leveraging the advanced tech.

Restaurant Clicks CEO Brian Nagele remarked how arguably the top initial use case for TA teams is to leverage AI’s bias-reduction capabilities. (Ideally, by onboarding a leading recruitment platform that already has AI recruiting functionality baked in to help make bias-free hiring decisions.)

“Many human resource departments are becoming aware of the (sometimes) unintentional biases which occur during the hiring process,” said Brian.

Brian added how leading AI tech used by HR professionals today “focuses on recognizing candidate qualifications to filter through top talent.” This, in turn, can help reduce potential hiring biases and ensure HR functions solely consider talent based on their skills, expertise, and other qualifications.

6) Companies will prioritize candidate experience improvements

Despite not having as many recruiting resources as they’d like for 2024, NXTThing RPO Founder Terry Terhark said CHROs will ensure their teams will stay focused on the work at hand.

But, that doesn’t solely mean refining and streamlining TA processes. It also entails making sure each job seeker their recruiters engage for openings have a strong candidate experience.

“Companies still need to pay attention to the candidate experience, their employment brand, and the speed of their recruitment process” to outcompete other orgs for top talent, per Terry.

Of all the latest HR trends featured here, improving the CX is really a perpetual task for TA teams. However, as Terry can attest, job seekers are becoming increasingly “picky” with employers.

Provide a consistently enjoyable hiring experience, and you’ll “win” more top talent.

7) Analytics will continue to play a pivotal role for hiring teams

Given data is now an indispensable asset for all HR/TA teams, HRU Technical Resources Talent Acquisition & HR Analyst Tim Sackett said it shouldn’t be a shock that using analytics to drive recruiting and hiring decision-making will remain a strategic imperative for employers.

“Organizations with world-class recruiting functions are measuring the funnel,” per Tim.

Lighthouse Research & Advisory Chief Research Officer Ben Eubanks also believes actionable talent analytics is something employers of all types and across sectors must utilize daily.

“Recruiting has seen some massive swings in recent years,” Ben declared.

“The one thing that we consistently see … is that employers prefer hiring practices that deliver predictability. Anything we can do to streamline talent acquisition activities, take a more proactive approach, and make data-informed decisions is going to deliver a higher degree of predictability.”

Download the new Employ Recruiter Nation Report today to discover more data and insights that can help you plan, execute, and optimize your talent acquisition strategy in 2024.

The post 2024 HR Trends: Expert Insights for All Employers first appeared on Jobvite.

Despite the turbulence, recruiting professionals should be encouraged by recent trends. Employ data shows that applications per job are up over the last year across companies of all sizes, and more than half of all recruiters expect their teams to grow in the next year, with nearly two-thirds expecting their recruiting budgets to increase.

A Look at the Current Recruiting Landscape

Navigating recruiting challenges in the current hiring landscape takes grit, resolve, and determination. While more than half (53%) of talent acquisition professionals feel their job is more stressful today than a year ago, this number has actually dropped by more than 10 percentage points from just last year.

Those talent practitioners who indicate a high level of stress today say it’s due to not enough qualified candidates (45%), competition from other employers (35%), more open roles to fill (34%), fewer resources to support hiring (33%), a lack of AI-powered recruiting technologies (30%), and more employees leaving the organization (30%).

For those talent professionals who do not feel their recruiting job is more stressful than it was a year ago (44%), over one-third say it’s because of a stable number of open roles to fill (38%), the ability to meet candidate expectations (37%), the same number or fewer employees are leaving the organization (36%), plenty of qualified candidates (36%), and more recruiters or additional recruiting resources (36%).

Recruiting Challenges

When it comes to the most significant challenges talent teams face today, there is a fairly even split among three primary areas:

• Not enough people to fill open positions (31% in 2023 versus 56% in 2022)
• Competition from other employers (30% in 2023 versus 54% in 2022)
• Not able to compete with salary requirements (25% in 2023 versus 33% in 2022)

However, there are positive trends in this data. The significant drop of more than 20 points in the first two areas means that employers are finding more talented candidates overall and that they are competing more effectively with other employers.

Ian Creamer

Vice President and Global Head of Talent Attraction, Guidewire Software

“There is so much uncertainty in the market. The expectation of hiring managers and leaders is that the tide of layoffs should equal much easier access to talent and that’s not always the case. We hire in the technology space and truly top talent remains as hard to hire as ever. Candidates are still showing up with multiple offers already in hand.”

Opportunities and Shifting Strategies

To deal with the challenges of the current job market, many businesses have shifted their recruiting strategies to impact their hiring process. Nearly 60% of talent acquisition professionals also indicate that because of the tight labor market, they are taking chances on different ways to accelerate time to hire and reach candidates.

This includes making sure the hiring process is faster (42%), increasing salaries for new open jobs (40%), providing remote work and hybrid options (38%), and incorporating AI-powered technologies (34%).

Compared to last year, organizations are now able to be flexible in some areas of recruiting, including taking more time looking for candidates (43%), incorporating AI-powered technologies (43%), focusing on internal mobility (39%), using personal networks (35%), opening new requisitions (32%), posting to paid job boards (30%), and expectations for the number of candidates applying to roles (28%).

Improving the quality of candidates remains essential in the current labor market for recruiters and talent acquisition teams, with almost half indicating it is their top priority (49%). However, compared to last year, this number decreased by 12 points.

For 4 in 10 recruiters, getting more candidates for each open role is a priority, followed by improving the speed of the hiring process (33%), and improving the onboarding process (31%). The current state of talent acquisition can be characterized as highly dynamic and competitive. Talent scarcity and demand continues to favor a candidate’s market, and organizations are working diligently to create employer value propositions that successfully capture application volume.

Leveraging AI-Powered Recruiting Tools

While recruiting automation has empowered companies of all sizes for more than two decades to streamline hiring tasks, increase recruiter productivity, speed time to hire, and reduce cost per hire, AI is newer to talent acquisition. And it has the attention of talent teams. Nearly 1 in 3 (30%) of recruiting professionals cite a lack of AI-powered recruiting technologies as a major stress in their job.

With AI now one of the fastest-growing areas to enhance recruitment technology, talent acquisition professionals have already started adopting its capabilities for more intelligent hiring. In fact, more than 58% of recruiters and HR decision makers already use AI to augment their current recruitment technology tech stack, with 82% percent reporting using AI-powered tools frequently or very frequently.

When it comes to use cases in talent acquisition, teams are leveraging AI for multiple uses across the recruiting lifecycle. Chatbots and intelligent candidate messaging (45%), job recommendations on career sites (41%), email and recruitment marketing content (39%), and screening candidates via automated messages (39%) are the top AI approaches currently leveraged in the hiring process. This is followed by intelligent sourcing (38%), candidate matching (36%), diversity, equity, and inclusion network balancing (37%), and job description recommendations (36%).

Organizations must invest in the right set of AI tools that fit their hiring needs, culture, and values. They must also strike a balance between AI’s ability to streamline recruitment processes and the need for human intervention at crucial stages of the recruitment process. Of the HR decision makers who currently use AI to augment recruiting technology, nearly half (47%) leverage AI-powered recruiting tools with AI functionality built in.

By allowing AI to automate processes and reduce repetitive tasks, recruiters can focus on the activities where they derive the most satisfaction and provide the most value, such as selling the role, negotiations, community building, and personalization. Not only does this improve the recruiter experience, but the candidate experience as well.

Moving Forward with Confidence

While recruiting challenges are apparent, so too is the optimism of the industry. Discover why an overwhelming 86% of HR decision makers are optimistic for the future.

Download the 2023 Employ Recruiter Nation Report: Moving Forward in Uncertainty.

The post Recruiting Challenges and Opportunities in Today’s Labor Market first appeared on Jobvite.

For recruiting professionals and HR decision makers, getting a handle on key metrics and understanding where any bottlenecks may exist is essential for improving hiring performance.

Based on data from the 2023 Employ Recruiter Nation Report, below are a few notable benchmark metrics across the recruiting funnel that companies can use to compare to their own talent acquisition efforts, and improve recruiting funnel health, efficiency, and performance.

Applications Per Job

Nearly 7 in 10 talent acquisition professionals report that their current volume of hiring is greater compared to last year. This is supported by Employ’s proprietary database of more than 21,000 customers. During the last 12 months, the average number of applicants has climbed across all company sizes, including enterprise, and small-and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

With higher numbers of applications, the percentage change of applications submitted over the last 12 months is also up, indicating a positive trend for employers.

Time to Fill

Time to fill represents how long it takes a company to fill a job opening, from the date a job requisition is posted until a candidate accepts an offer. Simply, it’s the time it takes to find and hire a new employee.

The average time to fill for companies of all sizes is 47.5 days. While time to hire for most organizations has historically hovered around 40 days, during the last 12 months, this number has been higher. 

Because hiring is a game of speed, it is critical to determine areas where you can reduce time to hire overall, including shortening feedback loops internally and moving candidates quickly through each step of the hiring process.

Breaking it down by company size over the last 12 months, time to fill for SMBs typically is a few days longer than at enterprise companies, at 49 and 46 days, respectively. This makes sense, given that it can be more challenging for growing companies to attract qualified candidates if they have a lesser-known employer brand or lack the right mix of tools to streamline their hiring process. 

Benchmarking time to hire based on industry is also critical for talent teams because it tells them how quickly companies in their own sector are hiring.  Media, manufacturing, and education have experienced the highest times for filling open roles, while healthcare, retail, and professional services, have the lowest time to hire during the latest 12-month period.

Applicant to Interview Ratio

The conversion rate from applicants to scheduled interview is what is known as applicant to interview ratio. Based on Employ data, enterprise companies have a higher number of total applications received compared to SMBs for each interview offered. This is consistent over the last 12 months. 

When looking at the conversion rate from applicants to scheduled interview, enterprise companies have a much lower applicant to interview ratio than SMBs. With considerable competition for open jobs in certain industries, and large numbers of applicants, especially in the technology sector, it can be challenging for recruiters to manage the high volume of applications. In the case of SMB companies, they could be receiving more qualified applicants or fewer applications overall for open roles.

Interview to Offer Ratio

Interview to offer ratio is the number of candidates on average a hiring manager must interview to make an offer. Typically, a strong interview to offer ratio is around 33%.

However, looking at the interview to offer ratio for enterprise versus small-and medium-sized businesses, it is clear that during the last 12 months, Employ customers within the enterprise segment have seen historic highs in this conversion metric, ranging between 70% – 80%. SMBs, however, have seen a much lower interview to offer ratio , which could mean a higher number of quality candidates are given opportunities for interviews or employers want to widen the field when it comes to candidates reaching the interview stage.

Most Valuable Metrics to Track

So, what are the most important or most valuable metrics to track? Almost one-third (31%) of recruiters rank quality of hire as the most valuable metric they use to track recruiting success. This is followed by time to fill (14%) and cost per hire (12%). Diversity of talent pipeline is ranked as the least valuable metric to track recruiting success by one-fourth (25%) of HR decision makers. 

Most Valuable Sources of Hire

One quarter of HR decision makers ranked job boards as their most valuable sourcing channel, followed by internal hires (16%), social media (14%), employee referrals (13%) and their career website (9%).  This gives employers insight into the types of channels and sources that other companies are looking to when it comes to filling open roles in their companies.

When it comes to social channels used for sourcing, 41% of recruiters and talent acquisition professionals report that their company currently uses or plans to use LinkedIn as their primary social channel to find candidates, followed by Facebook (20%), and Twitter/X (10%).

LinkedIn outperforms other social media channels in terms of candidate quality, with more than half (52%) of HR decision makers ranking LinkedIn with the highest quality.

Start Measuring What Matters Most to Your Business

Bringing data together all in one place to see up-to-date recruiting funnel metrics, including sourcing effectiveness, application conversion rates, applicant flow, time to fill, and other key hiring metrics, enables talent acquisition professionals to help their business understand how to improve and drive efficiencies across the recruiting function.

Remember, recruiting is about speed, and knowing how to make faster, smarter decisions is how to stay competitive in an unsteady hiring environment.

Go deeper on recruiting metrics and the latest insights. Download the 2023 Employ Recruiter Nation Report: Moving Forward in Uncertainty.

The post Recruiting Funnel Metrics: Get a Handle in an Unsteady Market first appeared on Jobvite.