LinkedIn recently released a report on the US staffing trends of the last four years, which has pin-pointed three key trends to incorporate into your business strategy for 2015. The report was based on LinkedIn’s fourth annual survey, which covered 11 countries, 1,994 staffing leaders and 300 million members; drawing conclusions about the recruitment industry in the US.
This slideshow by LinkedIn gives an insight into what 2015 has in store for recruitment in the US and the three trends that they recommend firms build into their 2015 strategy are investing in and managing branding, utilising social professional networks & job boards for ROI, and better candidate & job matching. Here are some tips on how your firm can take these on board.
Branding:
Business branding can be paramount in building a reputable name for a company and is definitely something worth investing money and time in. Social media can be incredibly beneficial for building a positive reputation for the company and a brand’s online presence can help to in recruiting the top talent and increasing business.
LinkedIn’s survey found that the number one use of their network is for viewing members profiles and 76% of job applicants reportedly viewed an employee’s LinkedIn profile 6 months before applying for a job at that company. This demonstrates the importance of branding on social media, not only for the company itself, but also by their employees and it is therefore crucial that employee profiles are kept up to date and professional, exhibiting the business in the best possible light.
The impact that branding can have on placements and prospects has also been recognised, as it was revealed that 75% of B2B purchases are influenced by social media and 57% of buying decisions are made before a sales rep is involved. When asked about the branding within their organisation, 68% of staffing leaders said that their brand has a significant impact on their ability to grow business, however only 58% have a branding strategy and a small 33% measure the health of their brand in a quantifiable way.
Online professional networks and word of mouth from friends and family have been identified as the top channels for promoting firm brands; whereas the effectiveness of the firm’s website and traditional job boards have dropped.
Some steps that you can take to measure your firm’s brand in 2015 are, to communicate your expertise in what you do; use cost-effective social media tools, such as the free version of LinkedIn; specify your branding budget and measure your brand in terms of clients, placements and company followers.
Make use of social professional networks and job boards for ROI:
It has been found that social professional networks and job boards provide the best quality and quantity of placements, ahead of internet resume databases and internal databases and it is important to use different sources of ROI, in order to target both passive and active candidates. The growth of social networks such as LinkedIn has resulted in an increasing talent pool and therefore a higher number of potential candidates, making them an essential tool for recruitment.
Performance can be measured in terms of client satisfaction and placement quality, however the most valuable performance metric is the number of placements. Hindrances to the recruitment can also be monitored, with the top obstacles being availability of top talent, the offer made by the client and competition.
Some steps that you can take in order to make the most of ROI sources are, to equip yourself with data about your target market and talent supply and demand, using LinkedIn’s free Talent Pool Reports; use different search tactics for passive and active candidates; generate tailored messages to candidate based on what you think might motivate them to move jobs; and define what what ROI means for your firm and measure it.
Optimise your candidate and job matching:
Improving the ability to match suitable candidates with jobs was the top identified staffing trend for 2015 in the world and this can be achieved using the LinkedIn Matching Engine. It has also been found that 50% of job views on LinkedIn come as a result of recommendations from other members, meaning that both passive and active candidates can be reached.
Some things that you can incorporate into your 2015 strategy to improve your candidate and job matching are to boost your job views with the use of industry keywords and by making use of the correct channels to promote jobs, and to understand the importance of illustrating the whole opportunity, rather than just the job in hand, including aspects such as the culture, team and company.
