The relationship between candidates and recruiters can be crucial to a company’s hiring strategy. But a new study from ADP confirms a growing narrative.
“There’s a pretty broad gap in terms of what job seekers look for and what recruiters actually deliver,” says Terry Terhark, President of talent acquisition solutions at ADP. ”As the unemployment rate ekes down it’s putting more pressure on the recruiting process.”
The biggest issue facing hiring managers and their ilk may be the mobile disconnect. According to the study, nearly half of recruiters feel that existing methods for tracking job applicants are successful, but just 16% of job seekers agree.
“Every adult lives and breathes by their mobile device,” says Terhark, “but one of the things the study showed is that the recruiting process has not evolved as quickly to be mobile enabled.”
He says that by lagging in mobile strategies, recruiters aren’t just losing millennial applicants, they’re losing strong candidates for the kinds of technical jobs employers frequently complain are difficult to fill.
“As you start to get into more blue collar roles, if you think about that population, they are more likely to have a mobile device than they are a laptop. That’s how they transact their business.”
The disparity is particularly troubling as matching the right candidate with the appropriate job becomes increasingly difficult. Sixty percent of job seekers reported a sense of frustration over the dearth of quality positions available, while 52% of recruiters maintained irritation with the lack of quality applicants.
Terhark says in the hunt to fill roles across the board, recruiters are “starting to see a level of difficulty previously associated with skilled labor creep into other areas.”
ADP’s strongest recommendations for hiring managers is one that’s been gaining volume: Develop a ready pipeline of talent and deemphasize the idividual recruiting process.
“It really is a continuous commitment to building pipelines,” says Terhark, citing the recent decision by online retailer Zappos to stop posting job openings, preferring instead to develop talent communities from which the company can draw. “Those companies that start to build pipelines rather than just look for people when they have a job etc. they do better.”
The report also indicated that the mentality with which a company approaches hiring–how it presents itself and its staff, how the hiring timeline is facilitated, etc.–may have a measurable effect as well, with candidates reporting a more positive outlook on an available position “if one company seems more decisive and organized than its competitors.”
Terhark says that the growing number of jobs being turned down indicates a potential shift in balance of power where hiring is concerned.
“It’s quickly moving to be a candidate’s market. The disconnect is most companies feel as though it’s an employer’s market.”
This article was written by Kathryn Dill from Forbes and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. SmartRecruiters is the hiring success platform to find and hire great people.
