4 Ways to Shake Up Recruiting in 2014

128015771The future of the staffing industry is looking bright. According to a report by Staffing Industry Analysts, staffing is expected to grow by at least six percent in 2014. Hiring in general is also expected to trend upwards, with 55 percent of all recruiters and HR pros expecting to look for new talent in the first half of 2014.

All this hiring is great for your bottom line, but not particularly good for easily finding the best people. With so many other staffing professionals, recruiters, and hiring managers after the same talent, it’s going to be a dog-eat-recruiter world in 2014.

The only way to ensure you deliver the best candidates to your clients is to start thinking outside the box in the new year. You need to shake up the status quo if you want to impress your clients with the best candidates. With more hiring demand, your company will need to find high volume solutions in order to move quickly and secure talent. Here are four ways your company can shake up your recruiting strategies in 2014 and get ahead of the competition:

A more social resume. Before you start courting the best talent, think about whether your application process is putting up roadblocks that keep good people from even entering your talent pool. Too many application processes are long, tiring and unwieldy. Allowing candidates to apply using their social media profiles is a great way to cut the fat from the traditional application.

Integrating with social media sites helps great passive candidates apply for positions with half the fuss. Considering 77 percent of currently employed workers are actively looking or open to new opportunities, taking steps to ease the application process will mean increased interest from busy passive talent.

PREMIUM CONTENT: December 2013 Preliminary U.S. Forecast Comments

Remote workers provide specialized skills. With hiring more competitive than ever in certain fields, the ability to open up the talent pool to far-flung candidates will allow your clients to find the people they need. For instance, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates by 2016 hiring for technical positions will at least double hiring for all other fields.

And there’s more bad news for those looking for graduates in the science, technology, engineering and math fields. In 2014, there is expected to be a shortage of STEM graduates, meaning staffing companies will be fighting like cats and dogs over the few candidates available.

By opening up the field to remote workers, you expand the candidate pool considerably outside of your well-mined backyard. This can allow you to provide top talent to forward-thinking clients who realize telecommuting and remote workers are the wave of the future.

Video interviewing. Since hiring demands are only set to increase, staffing companies will need solutions for the high volume of candidates they need to evaluate. One way to deal with this increased demand for quality candidates is to shake up the traditional hiring process. For instance, the phone interview is traditionally the middle man in the hiring process. Why not cut out this middle man and get right to the candidates your client needs?

Instead of a phone screen, one-way video interviews allow you to evaluate candidates on a more personal basis and still save time. Candidates answer your written questions on video, and if they’re not a fit for the position you can move on without spending a half hour or more on the phone. This allows you to focus in on the candidates who can really make a difference for your clients, and skip the applicants all wrong for the job. It’s probably no wonder six out of 10 employers are already using video interviewing in their hiring process.

Big data recruiting. Big data is slowly sneaking into more aspects of our daily lives, and soon it’ll be utilized by smart staffing companies to deliver the best candidates. Like the Oscar-nominated Brad Pitt film Moneyball, big data recruiting will help staffing companies zero in on MVP talent. Sometimes these candidates won’t be the big bats you’re expecting, but they’ll be able to deliver the goods your clients need.

Big data can help you stop swimming in a crowded and limited talent pool and help you identify outside-the-box candidates. Thanks to big data recruiting, you’ll be able to sort through a high volume of candidates quickly and isolate the most highly skilled candidates.

The best ways to get ahead of the competition and impress your clients in 2014 will be to shake up your existing recruitment methods. It’s time to say goodbye to the status quo and hello to happy clients in the new year.

How will you shake up recruiting in 2014? Share in the comments!

MORE: The truth about mobile job seekers

Josh Tolan

Josh Tolan
Josh Tolan is the CEO of Spark Hire, a video interviewing platform. Learn more about using video interviews for staffing and connect with Spark Hire on Facebook and Twitter.

Josh Tolan

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4 Responses to “4 Ways to Shake Up Recruiting in 2014”

  1. […] 4 Ways to shake up recruiting in 2014 […]

  2. […] 4 Ways to shake up recruiting in 2014 […]

  3. […] MORE: How to shake up recruiting in 2014 […]

  4. […] The future of the staffing industry looks bright, with staffing expected to grow by at least six percent in 2014 and 55 percent of all recruiters and HR pros expected to look for new talent in the first half of 2014. This hiring is great for the bottom line but makes finding the best people more difficult. Josh Tolan, CEO of Spark Hire, discusses ways to think outside the box to deliver the best candidates in a new post in the Staffing Stream. To read the post click here. […]

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