Over the past several years, when many organizations downsized their workforce, internal recruiting teams shrunk or disappeared altogether, leaving companies in the dark about trends in recruitment. With limited knowledge of the landscape, searching for the talent needed to grow again can be especially challenging. Is everything digital today? Is traditional classified advertising anachronistic? Like riding a bicycle, recruiting capability can be recalled with a quick study of how job candidates connect with potential employers.

How Hard Can It Be to Find Talent?
According to 2014 survey of CEOs by PwC, business leaders continue to cite talent shortages as a critical challenge and a barrier to growth. In the 2014 Spherion Emerging Workforce Study, “finding qualified/skilled workers” was listed as the top HR challenge, with 65% of companies saying they are more worried about the talent shortage today than they were one year ago.

Current employees are worried as well, with many convinced that their employers need to improve their efforts to recruit top talent. Our study found that nearly half of workers (43%) have limited faith in their employer’s ability to recruit the best talent available to join the company. The Spherion Study identifies a number of trends and best practices to help drive better recruitment, including the growing role of social media.

What Works and What Doesn’t Depends on Whom You’re Recruiting
A third of workers used digital tools to land their last job, while many people still turn to traditional methods, such as referrals, or, to a lesser extent, classified ads. What is most apparent is that not all workers find jobs the same way, requiring employers to move away from a one-size-fits-all approach to recruiting.

When you need to lure a diverse array of talent to the organization, it is important to understand all the possible routes that job candidates use today and adjust your methods to fit the candidates you seek. A company’s aptitude at understanding different worker groups will determine how well it can source and attract from those segments. Despite this growing realization, less than half (45%) of companies utilize tailored recruitment strategies based on different age groups or professions.

Different Professions Have Different Preferences
Innovative companies have accepted that greater specialization is required today to adequately source and recruit talent. Among the many ways to tailor the sourcing of talent, doing so by profession may be one of the most effective. For example:

• Accounting professionals are most likely to use professional associations/networking.
• Customer service workers rely more on classified ads.
• Administrative/clerical job seekers rely on both company websites and classified ads.
• Manufacturing workers are more likely to utilize a staffing agency.
• IT workers, not surprisingly, gravitate to online sources.

How Age Impacts Recruitment
Beyond referrals as the fastest route to a new position, there are differences among generations:

• Gen Y workers are more likely to turn to online venues.
• Gen X workers use a staffing agency more than any other age group.
• Baby Boomers are the least likely to market themselves online.
• Traditionalists are very likely to have started their own business as a way to stay employed!

The Role of Social Media in Recruiting
We know job candidates make significant use of social media in researching potential employers, but how do employers view social networking? Most believe social media outlets greatly influence a candidates’ view of their organization. With almost two-thirds viewing “social” recruiting as the most effective way to recruit candidates, only 25% actually use social media as their primary recruitment method to find potential candidates. Social networking efforts are without question an integral part of recruitment in today’s marketplace, and while it should be a bigger egg in the recruiting basket, it shouldn’t be the only egg.

Tailor Recruitment Efforts to Find the Talent You Need
Securing qualified talent remains a significant challenge. Although all companies have greatly increased their overall utilization of social/digital media outlets, there is still value in more traditional methods. Finding the right combination requires some fine-tuning of the mix, because just as the workforce is diversified in terms of profession, age and outlook, recruiting requires a diversified approach to ensure you appeal to the right job candidates. 

Local Spherion owner Michael Chalmers and his team have been serving the recruiting and staffing needs of Macon metropolitan area employers for more than 10 years. Founded in 1946, Spherion is a $2 billion national workforce leader with a distinct local focus. To learn more about how Spherion can help you, contact 478-956-1700 or visit them online at www.spherion.com.