The New Era of Talent Acquisition

Introduction The disruptive force of technology has transformed the way people look for jobs and how employers hire. As a result, this new era of talent acquisition requires a fresh outlook on how companies approach and invest in finding the right people. B2C technologies like social, mobile, and video have transformed the expectations and behaviors of job seekers as well as expanded the collection of tools that hiring companies now have to find, attract, and communicate with prospective hires. Finding the right talent continues to be one of the most urgent issues for companies. Harvard Business Review recently stated that CEOs rated talent as one of their top concerns, beginning with finding the right hires. Furthermore, 93% of CEOs find that they need to change their strategy for attracting and retaining talent, while 61% of those same executive leaders also admit they do not know where to begin, according to a recent PwC Survey. 02 Introduction 03 This is a New Era of Talent Acquisition 07 Recruiting is Like Marketing 11 Companies Need to Build a Pipeline of Talent for Future Hiring Needs As the economy continues to improve, businesses are beginning to experience more intense competition in the job market. Yet, when it comes to the mission critical work of talent acquisition, many companies fail to understand that they must focus their full attention to this urgent need. This means dedicating proper resources to it, creating tailored strategies and processes, and supporting their efforts with modern talent acquisition technology. This is the only way for organizations to maintain a competitive advantage in today s new era of talent acquisition. What are you doing to address today s recruiting needs? Read icims report on the revolution that we are seeing in recruiting to understand the industry s current state, where it s going, and how to stay ahead. 2017 icims Inc. All Rights Reserved. The New Era of Talent Acquisition 2

This is a New Era of Talent Acquisition This is a New Era of Talent Acquisition. Job seeking and recruiting have changed forever. Job searching behavior has shifted. Recruiter techniques have evolved. Concepts such as social recruiting, search engine optimization (SEO), video interviewing, and mobile optimization have become standard phrases in our industry s lexicon. Figure 1 79 % of job seekers are likely to use social media in their job searches. 1 Industry research shows a shift in job seeking behavior in recent years. 76% of recruiters surveyed said their recruiting techniques have evolved or changed over the last three years. Search Result s Search Result s Search Result s 89 % of job seekers report they re likely to use mobile devices during their job searches. 2 1. Glassdoor, 2013. 2. Glassdoor, 2014. 2017 icims Inc. All Rights Reserved. The New Era of Talent Acquisition 4

This is a New Era of Talent Acquisition Why have recruiting techniques changed? According to our survey, increased competition for talent has had the highest impact on recruiting techniques, followed by increased adoption of social media for recruiting, and more automated recruiting technology. Noteworthy changes in recruiting techniques over the last three years by company size include: Both ends of the hiring spectrum are experiencing the transformation: Very small companies and extremely large organizations are both reporting high-impact changes to their recruitment processes. Companies of all sizes are recognizing the benefits of using social media for recruitment. Mid-market companies are benefiting from increased automation in their recruitment processes. CHANGES IN RECRUITMENT TECHNIQUES ADOPTION OF SOCIAL MEDIA AUTOMATED RECRUITMENT TECHNOLOGY 80% or more respondents from companies with 1-99 employees and 15,000+ employees noted changes in recruiting techniques more than any other company size categories. Increased adoption of social media for recruiting scored the highest among companies with 15,000+ employees (28%); however, 26% of companies with 1-99 and 500-999 employees also ranked it as having the highest impact. Access to more automated recruiting technology ranked the highest among companies with 500-999 employees (32%). 2015 icims Inc. All Rights Reserved. The New Era of Talent Acquisition 5

This is a New Era of Talent Acquisition In addition to the shift in job seeker behavior, candidates across the nation plan to be very active in 2015. 42% of people surveyed in the U.S. said they are looking for a new job in 2015. Figure 2 PACIFIC WEST MOUNTAIN WEST NORTH CENTRAL MIDWEST EAST NORTH CENTRAL NORTHEAST NEW ENGLAND 44 % 42 % 44 % MIDDLE ATLANTIC 46 % 41 % 45 % 43 % 45 % SOUTH ATLANTIC WEST SOUTH CENTRAL EAST SOUTH CENTRAL SOUTH 36 % The percentage of people per U.S. region who said they are looking for a new job in 2015 2017 icims Inc. All Rights Reserved. The New Era of Talent Acquisition 6

Recruiting is Like Marketing Recruiting is Like Marketing. Finding top talent today is more difficult than ever and conditions call for companies to adopt marketing techniques and transform the way they attract talent. An employment brand is an organization s reputation as an employer. Having an understanding of how prospective applicants and candidates perceive an organization as an employer is the first step in developing and marketing an employment brand that will attract top talent. How an organization s general brand is viewed by the public greatly impacts its employment brand, but a brand s familiarity or likability are not the only factors in attracting top talent. Market the opportunity. Today, job seekers are researching companies before applying for an open position much like they would research a product before purchasing it. According to a recent survey by Talent Board, 56% of job seekers surveyed spend 1-4 hours researching the company and specific job opportunity prior to applying. Where are job seekers researching your company? The Talent Board asked job seekers to select up to 5 resources they found most valuable when researching their next career opportunity: JOBS Company culture, career growth opportunities, and perks and benefits can all be marketed to portray an employment brand as a great place to work. COMPANY CAREER SITE 65 % JOB NOTIFICATIONS OR AGENTS 34 % LINKEDIN CAREER PAGES 25 % A well-articulated and communicated employment brand helps job seekers understand whether they would be a good fit for the company. When this is combined with a compelling value proposition, an organization can position itself as a sought-after employer of choice. ONLINE GROUPS (LINKEDIN, YAHOO, GOOGLE+, OTHER) 24 % EMPLOYER REVIEWS (GLASSDOOR, VAULT, GREAT RATED!) 20 % 2017 icims Inc. All Rights Reserved. The New Era of Talent Acquisition 8

Recruiting is Like Marketing This is great news for recruiters and HR departments, since it means that they can control most of the content candidates turn to. These results emphasize the importance of building a great company career site that is mobile-optimized and provides candidate-focused content. What are job seekers looking for when researching your company? Company culture is becoming a major differentiator from the perspective of job seekers. A strong recruitment marketing effort establishes and promotes a company s culture, enticing active and passive candidates to connect, engage, and apply for open positions. In addition to obvious job basics like salary, location, benefits, and job responsibility, company culture ranked high in importance when considering a position. When asked to rank the most important things they consider in a job, respondents said company culture outranked: location, company size, job title, and training & development as the most important aspect. 76 % Approximately 76% of respondents thought culture was important in their job search. By incorporating techniques recommended by marketers to bolster your recruitment efforts through employment branding and nurture marketing, employers of all sizes can set their employment brand apart and drive recruitment results. Social and mobile recruiting have gone from nice-to-have to need-to-have. Most organizations have adopted Name social media and developed Email social recruiting strategies to Phone Company attract and recruit top talent. APPLY Often overlooked, however, is Resume the fact that most social media consumption is done on a mobile device. Adding a social and mobile component to your recruiting strategy gives current employees a way to share job openings with their friends and lets candidates view and apply to jobs on their mobile devices. Job seeking behavior has shifted dramatically in recent years. According to our recent study, nearly 60% of job seekers have searched for jobs using a mobile device, but only 14% have used a mobile device to apply. As shown in Figure 1, Glassdoor found this number to be even higher in their survey, stating that 89% of job seekers report they re likely to use a mobile device during their job search but just 44% are likely to apply to jobs via a mobile device. 2017 icims Inc. All Rights Reserved. The New Era of Talent Acquisition 9

Recruiting is Like Marketing 50% of job seekers find it difficult to apply via mobile device 25% of job seekers are deterred from applying if a company s career site is not mobile-optimized Employers are missing opportunities to connect with top talent. But employers have no idea they are missing out on that many applicants. The Glassdoor study also reported that 1 in 2 job seekers believe it is difficult to apply to jobs from a mobile device, and 1 in 4 are deterred from applying to a job if the company s career site or job listings are not mobile-optimized. When asked if they knew approximately how many of their candidate applications are submitted from a mobile device 90% said no. With candidates increasingly searching for jobs from their mobile phone or tablet, businesses need to implement mobile-optimized career portals with streamlined candidate intake options if they want to maximize candidate volume and minimize drop-off. This likely accounts for the discrepancy between the high percentages of people searching for jobs on mobile devices and the low percentages of people actually applying to positions. Many online career sites are not yet mobile-optimized. Applicants are increasingly accessing the internet via their phones and tablets, but the lack of user-friendliness and the outright inability to apply for a job opening via mobile device creates an extra step in the application process. If a company s career site isn t mobile-optimized, it reduces the company s appeal, impedes the effectiveness of recruitment marketing investments, and disrupts the candidate experience. 2017 icims Inc. All Rights Reserved. The New Era of Talent Acquisition 10

Companies Need to Build a Pipeline of Talent for Future Hiring Needs. Companies Need to Build a Pipeline of Talent for Future Hiring Needs. Companies have identified that their current processes will not be enough to carry them through the 21st century. We live in a fast-paced global economy where technological innovation has made nearly constant change inevitable. Over the next two years, 85% of survey respondents expect their company s hiring to stay the same or increase. The status-quo is unsustainable if companies are to meet their hiring objectives. How do companies plan to address the need for increased hiring? Companies need to capitalize on their employees networks to attract talent. The findings of our research indicate that there is a huge opportunity to use employees networks as a talent source. For example, 34% of job seekers said they found their best or favorite job through an employee referral or by word of mouth. However, while 43% of companies said their best candidates come from employee referrals, only 14% said they currently leverage employee referral technology. The U.S. Department of Labor recently announced that the number of people who quit jobs rose 3% to 2.8 million between December 2014 and January 2015 the most in more than six years. Additionally, the number of employees quitting their jobs has jumped 17% over the past 12 months. According to icims research, 41% of people surveyed have changed employers within the past three years and 43% said that they are looking for a job in 2015. If workers are staying in positions for shorter periods of time, employers will need to be prepared to fill open positions more often. Furthermore, an increase in people who quit their jobs could be a sign that employers will have to try harder to fill their open jobs. With this in mind, employers should be prepared for a highly competitive job market. BEST/FAVORITE JOB 34 % BEST CANDIDATES 43 % CURRENTLY LEVERAGING 14 % By leveraging employees social networks using technology tools that automate the posting of available positions within those environments, companies can amplify their open jobs to target top talent and encourage engagement. These social capabilities can also help supercharge companies' employee referral programs by allowing employees to share jobs proactively when browsing the career sites, or even create automated alerts to major sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. 2017 icims Inc. All Rights Reserved. The New Era of Talent Acquisition 12

Companies Need to Build a Pipeline of Talent for Future Hiring Needs. Candidates across the nation are open to passive career searches. 78% of people surveyed said they would be open to pursuing a new opportunity if a recruiter reached out regarding a role that suited them even if they were not actively looking for a new position. If a recruiter contacted you about a role that suited you, would you be open to pursuing a new opportunity? Figure 3 PACIFIC WEST MOUNTAIN WEST NORTH CENTRAL MIDWEST EAST NORTH CENTRAL NORTHEAST NEW ENGLAND 80 % 80 % 79 % MIDDLE ATLANTIC 73 % 81 % 73 % 78 % 78 % SOUTH ATLANTIC WEST SOUTH CENTRAL EAST SOUTH CENTRAL SOUTH 73 % The percentage of people per U.S. region who said they would be open to a new opportunity. 2017 icims Inc. All Rights Reserved. The New Era of Talent Acquisition 13

Companies Need to Build a Pipeline of Talent for Future Hiring Needs. The talent is out there and ready and willing to be found: companies need to ensure they stay top of mind. Once you have people interested in your employment brand, companies need to nurture their interest with marketing tactics. For years, sales and marketing professionals have used customer relationship management (CRM) software to build and nurture relationships with sales prospects. Now, recruiters need to leverage similar, though specialized, automated recruitment marketing campaign tools designed specifically to build pipelines of viable candidates that can be advanced through multiple stages and communication touch points in order to nurture passive interest into active interest. Today, with a low adoption of CRM and recruitment marketing automation tools, recruiters are missing out on an opportunity to connect with all the candidates who visit their site and are interested in working for the company. Recruitment marketing automation technology allows organizations to collect the contact information of folks who don t see a current opening for a job they qualify for on the career site, but are open to joining talent communities. By staying connected with these people, organizations are more likely to convert them to active candidates or new hires when the time is right. 64% of job seekers surveyed were not aware that some companies have talent pools or talent communities where you can receive company updates, job alerts, and other announcements even if there are no job openings. 64% of job seekers surveyed said they would consider joining a talent pool/community to receive updates from an organization they d like to work for. However, only 11% of recruiters said they currently use recruitment marketing automation tools to create and schedule email campaigns that allow recruiters to automatically engage talent pools on a recurring basis. 64% said they would consider joining a talent pool/community to receive updates 1 Only 11% of recruiters said they currently use recruitment marketing automation tools 2017 icims Inc. All Rights Reserved. The New Era of Talent Acquisition 14

Conclusion The findings of our research indicate job searching and recruiting have changed forever. Yesterday s talent acquisition processes and technology will not work in today s new era of recruiting and job searching. Attracting top talent today is more difficult and competitive than ever and demands that companies transform the way they attract talent by adopting marketing techniques. By incorporating techniques to bolster your recruitment efforts through employment branding and other marketing approaches, employers can set their employment brand apart and drive recruitment. Embracing social and mobile recruiting has also become essential to success in talent acquisition. Companies have identified that their current processes will not be enough to carry them through the 21st century. The status quo is unsustainable in order for companies to meet their hiring objectives. To address the need to increase hiring, companies need to capitalize on employee referrals and build a pipeline of talent for future hiring needs. With this in mind, employers should be prepared for an increasingly competitive job market over the next five years, and arm their organizations with a dedicated suite of social, mobile, and video-enabled talent acquisition technologies now to preserve their edge in the war for best-fit hires. About the Survey This study was conducted in March 2015, and surveyed 2,092 job seekers and 364 recruiting professionals across the United States. All respondents were adults aged 18+. Specifically, job seekers were either currently employed (1,862) or unemployed but in the job market (230). Recruiting professionals were either a corporate HR personnel (343) or a recruiter for a third-party staffing firm (21). Both types of respondents answered questions regarding their behavior and attitude toward the hiring process, different technologies each group interacts with in the context of recruiting and/or applying for a job, and what they predict for the future of the industry. 2017 icims Inc. All Rights Reserved. The New Era of Talent Acquisition 15

About icims icims is the leading provider of talent acquisition solutions that help businesses win the war for top talent. icims empowers companies to manage their entire hiring process within the industry s most robust Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). Built on the foundation of a best-to-market talent acquisition software suite, icims PaaS framework, UNIFi, allows employers to expand the capabilities of their core talent acquisition technology by integrating with the largest partner ecosystem in talent acquisition to help them attract, find, screen, and manage candidates. Offering scalable, easy-to-use solutions that are backed by award-winning customer service, icims supports more than 3,500 contracted customers and is one of the largest and fastest-growing talent acquisition solution providers. About icims Hiring Insights icims Hiring Insights is an online resource for labor market insights and hiring trends. Our team of researchers and writers uses icims exclusive data, as well as proprietary and secondary research, to create reports and articles that cover the most recent developments in the workforce. Featuring icims Chief Economist, Josh Wright, icims Hiring Insights helps its readers stay wellinformed about the latest in recruiting, technology, and the labor market. To learn more visit www.icims.com/hiring-insights. Learn more at icims.com 2017 icims Inc. All Rights Reserved. The New Era of Talent Acquisition 16