Unemployment is low. The economy is strong. And it’s harder than ever to attract high-quality job candidates, according to Monster’s 2018 State of Recruiting survey.

Sixty-two percent of recruiters say their job is more difficult today than it was a year ago, continuing an ongoing trend – as two-thirds (67 percent) say their job is more difficult than it was five years ago. Additionally, 59 percent of respondents say it is more difficult to get quality candidates than it was a year ago and 62 percent say it’s more difficult than it was five years ago. These were among the insights gleaned from the recent online survey** of more than 400 recruiters conducted by Monster, a leading solution for connecting people and jobs.

With the economy growing rapidly—and the number of job openings at the highest in 17 years—many recruiters (59 percent) say there is a shortage in the skilled labor they require. They also report competition from other recruiters (52 percent) as a pain point.

In light of these challenges, most (83 percent) are now taking a multi-solution approach to attract higher-quality candidates –top tactics include direct outreach to candidates (89 percent), traditional job ads (88 percent), posts on company/career websites (84 percent) and social media advertising (83 percent). However, despite these efforts, recruiters are still getting fewer quality candidates than they’d like. They’re only passing 44 percent on to hiring managers while wishing they were passing along at least 54 percent.

“Today’s strong economy is increasing the overall demand for talent, so recruiters are under tremendous pressure,” said Bob Melk, Chief Commercial Officer, Monster. “That underscores the need for an integrated recruitment strategy spanning the entire candidate lifecycle—from employment branding that introduces candidates to the cultural differences that demonstrate how your company is a great place to work, to social recruiting that targets passive candidates and engagement tools that let you connect via text messaging and chat. We work with our customers to determine which products will solve the problems that keep them up at night.”

Monster believes that an integrated approach to recruitment that employs the right technology solutions for the right problems, while constantly optimizing for cost and productivity, can yield high quality candidates – and more of them.

Here are a few ideas to help recruiters make better hires:

• Bring marketing to the core of recruitment. Sixty-seven percent of recruiters said they felt that they needed to understand marketing to be successful—yet only 36 percent of recruiters surveyed were employing employer branding strategies. The savviest talent acquisition leaders have established an employer value proposition, are sharing that competitive advantage in a consistent way across channels and touchpoints, including job ads, career sites, and candidate emails, and are differentiating their messages based on what is most important to the candidates (whether that’s unique perks, benefits, or company mission, among others). You may need a partner to help you ensure that your message is coming through across channels.
• Create balance between digital and humanity. Sixty-four percent of recruiters told us they felt they needed to be digital experts to succeed today. And while 70 percent of recruiters say their organization is keeping up digitally, 64 percent believe they don’t have the right digital tools to make the job easier. Another 51 percent say that technology makes it harder to connect with humans. The problem may be owed to tech overload and disconnected systems. Rather than buying tech for tech’s sake, start with the problem, and apply the right technology against the right challenge. Look at the candidate profile you need and match it to solutions that can specifically reach that audience. This can help ensure that you’re not spending more time managing systems than you are building relationships. You may need a digital partner to help you figure out where you have tech overlaps and where you have gaps.
• Optimize your processes with data and analytics. Recruiters told us that they’re anxious about using their time efficiently (50 percent), and 67 percent feel that they need to be analytics experts. With KPIs that include reduction of time to fill and sourcing costs, the pressure is on. But there’s got to be something you can use to help speed the hiring cycle and land better quality talent: data. There’s an opportunity to use historical data wisely—for example, identifying the requisition patterns that lead to applicant hires—and an external vendor can help you understand your next steps.

“For recruiting to be effective in 2018 and beyond, it must transform to go beyond traditional methods. A multi-solution approach – combining marketing, digital and analytics – is critical in moving talent acquisition from recruitment stress to recruitment success,” added Melk.

Contact RecTech Media to learn how they can boost your recruitment marketing in 2019.