Recruitment has transformed in the last couple of years. Diverting slightly from traditional methods to embrace technology, recruiters have become more inclusive of modern techniques - think zoom interviews and online job boards. Current trends in recruitment are constantly changing and developing and there are many aspects of recruitment that didn’t exist or weren’t as prominent 5 or 10 years ago.

Personality Assessments and Soft Skills

Skills and personality assessments are becoming a lot more popular during the recruitment process. CVs inform recruiters of the experience and hard skills a candidate possesses but may not accurately portray their soft skills or who they are as a person. Obviously, interviews come in handy here however using skills and personality assessments allows recruiters to learn how a candidate may function in a working environment, what their learning style is and how they may fit in with the company. This all gives the recruiter a better opportunity to accurately assess their candidates and choose the best fit for them and many companies are now incorporating these types of assessments in their recruitment process.

Remote Working

During the COVID-19 pandemic remote working became the norm and many companies have become a lot more accommodating to personal needs and preferences since. More businesses are allowing people to work from home a certain percent of the time if not full time, becoming much more flexible to their employee’s needs and providing a better work environment. Recruiters need to be aware of the increased desire to work remotely and include telecommuting in their recruitment process. They may also include video interviews in their process, getting an opportunity to learn more about online communication tools. Being more open towards employees working remotely may also attract more candidates and the flexibility provided would potentially increase employee satisfaction.

Less Need for Traditional Qualifications

Degree qualifications are no longer a necessity for many companies, allowing a wider range of candidates to apply and reducing biases created by certain university names or degrees. These days degrees aren’t a necessity to start a career in many sectors, there are still some like law, medicine etc where a degree is necessary however apprenticeships and different pathways are becoming more popular and being accepted as not inferior to a university degree. This also increases the diversity of a workforce; formal qualifications are not obtainable by everyone and keeping an open mind when recruiting candidates gives people from different backgrounds the same opportunity and will make you appear as a more inclusive company.

Importance of Company Culture

Company culture is becoming a lot more important to candidates. It may be a generational thing, but a positive, healthy working environment is becoming a priority to many candidates who may turn down decent jobs if the company culture is not to their liking. When a business actively cares about their employees’ health, both physical and mental, and makes a conscious effort to look after their employees, they attract more candidates and leave a good impression on their current workforce. Companies benefit from looking after their employees by having increased loyalty and satisfaction as well as higher levels of productivity, a win-win for everyone! Recruiters will need to acknowledge the importance of company culture and find ways to appeal to their candidates.

Mobile Traffic & Social Media Applications

Many applicants are coming from social media and mobile traffic, companies have had to make their vacancies mobile friendly and use the right social media platforms to appeal to their audience. Interest in social recruiting is constantly growing and companies will benefit from making themselves more accessible on social media platforms. Research also shows that not all job searches made on social media platforms come from younger generations looking for entry level jobs, there is a wider variety of people who use social media to look for jobs so it would be well worth utilising available platforms.

Job Uncertainty

The recruitment industry has suffered more unpredictability and uncertainty due to the pandemic and Brexit. Increased job uncertainty has caused delays and surges in hiring throughout different sectors of work. There were changes in recruitment throughout the pandemic, many places hiring temporary positions to keep up with demand whilst others had to let people go and vice versa once restrictions were eased. Budgets for recruitment may be severely decreased or increased so companies will have to acclimate to their situations, perhaps having to find more effective ways of recruiting.

Recruitment has been such an important industry in the past couple of years, economic factors have always affected recruiting however the pandemic presented new challenges that have been adapted to. Innovative ideas and techniques are constantly surfacing and being adopted by recruiters, making the future of recruitment exciting.