Staffing Trends You Need to Stay on Top of This Year

ThinkstockPhotos-475229137To succeed in any industry, you need to first understand where the industry is going. This is especially important for professionals within the staffing industry, where competition for top talent and happy clients abounds.

Fortunately, 2016 is looking bright for staffing professionals, with a projected five percent growth — reaching an all-time high of $121 billion — according to a recent forecast by Staffing Industry Analysts.

The staffing industry is continuously growing, making the need for a competitive edge larger than ever. To set yourself apart from the competition for top talent this year, you need to anticipate and adopt the latest industry trends.

Here are three up-and-coming staffing trends you need to stay on top of, as we head deeper into 2016:

1. Going from headhunter to strategic partner. Building meaningful relationships continues to be a dominating trend within the staffing industry. And it’s no wonder why, considering relationships between candidates, vendors, and clients are at the core of everything staffing professionals do. But there’s a greater need to turn those relationships into strategic partnerships — especially when it comes to clients.

In fact, LinkedIn’s 2016 Global Staffing Trends report found that nearly half (46 percent) of the 1,659 staffing and recruitment firm decision makers plan to make strategic partnerships with clients a top priority in 2016, compared to only 40 percent last year.

While staffing firms still — and should — value number of placements, what matters most to clients is the quality of those placements. To become a truly strategic partner to your clients, start by adopting that same mentality — quality over quantity.

The key to doing that is to use data strategically. However, only 43 percent of staffing firms use data to measure recruiting effectiveness, according to the LinkedIn report. Start by measuring and tracking where your candidates are coming from, as well as the quality of those candidates. Knowing which sources are the most fruitful and producing the best quality hires can help you better focus your recruiting efforts.

2. Attracting the ever-elusive passive candidate. Unless you’ve been living (and working) under a rock, you are all too familiar with the passive candidate, or the candidate who isn’t actively searching for a new job, but is ready and willing should the right job opportunity come their way.

Recruiting passive talent remains a hot staffing trend with 22 percent of staffing and recruitment firm decision makers surveyed in the LinkedIn report naming it a top priority this year. The reason being that passive candidates are typically quality hires — not to mention, experienced.

The good news? A whopping 73 percent of recently polled professionals in LinkedIn’s 2015 Talent Trends report are interested in hearing from staffing firms. The key here is to give passive talent a reason to listen by working with clients (you’re a strategic partner, after all) to showcase what makes their company a great place to work.

3. Building stronger talent communities. Last, but certainly not least, this year’s focus will also be on building a strong pipeline or community of talent. In fact, a 2015 CareerBuilder survey revealed that the majority (42 percent) of organizations plan to focus on building a talent pipeline that “re-recruits” talent.

Maybe your first-choice candidate isn’t ready to move across the country at this time. Or maybe that rockstar employee you found isn’t looking to leave their current position just yet. But they may know someone who is. Nurturing a talent pipeline ensures that you always have a valuable pool of talent to pull from when a new job order comes in.

For this reason, make sure that you keep talented professionals in your back pocket and that you stay on their minds. Connect on social professional networks, send them an invite to a professional networking event — whatever you do, just be sure they remember you.

What do you think? Where do you see these trends going? Share your predictions in the comments below!

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

Share This Post

Tweet

Recent Articles

Powered by staffingindustry.com ·