Staying on top of current hiring trends is one of the best ways to craft a successful hiring strategy. This is particularly relevant at the moment, as the US and global economies are trending towards an uncertain future.

The hiring landscape is constantly changing. At the same time, a range of external factors are impacting the U.S. economy and businesses’ ability to recruit. As a result, there’s more pressure on employers and staffing agencies to be on top of their game when it comes to sourcing top talent.  

A huge part of this is understanding the key trends that are shaping the market; and adapting your hiring practices accordingly. In this article, we’ll take you through what some of these trends look like, offering clear insight on how to maximize them to achieve the best results. 

1. Change in Working Patterns 

Gone are the days of the traditional 9-5; especially right now when more people are working from home than ever before due to social distancing measures. At the same time, according to the American Staffing Association, 16 million temporary and contract employees are hired throughout the course of the year; so clearly, temporary workers make up a big part of the U.S. workforce. 

There are a number of reasons why temporary staffing is getting more popular. For the most part, people want more flexibility and working part-time or on a contractual basis gives them the freedom to balance their personal and professional lives effectively. 

Alongside this, according to a study from TrueBlue and Emsi, the main reason why people take on gig work is to earn extra income; followed by a desire to get their foot in the door with a company. 

Additionally, findings from Staffing Industry Analysts show that an estimated 53 million people took on gig work in the U.S. in 2018, with 34% of all U.S. workers performing gig/contingent work last year. 

Clearly, the gig economy represents a shift in employment around the world. Professionals are opting to work on a contractual basis out of necessity and choice. Particularly as there’s little job security in the current economy. 

But what does it mean for your hiring efforts? Well, if you’re finding it difficult to hire full-time employees, it may be worth looking for gig workers instead. It all depends on what your company’s needs are. 

2. Data-Driven Recruitment 

Another trend that hiring professionals need to keep on top of is data-driven recruitment. With more pressure to hire the right people, both cost and time-effectively, many organizations have turned to data to help them make smarter hiring decisions; and avoid unconscious bias. 

It’s particularly useful if you’re working towards key metrics. For example, you may want to measure your hiring velocity to see how efficient your hiring process is; alternatively, you might look at your hiring budget to ensure that you’re not overspending on your hiring campaigns. 

Whichever metric you track, you’ll need to start gathering and analyzing data in order to do it effectively. Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) make this easy to do, but there are other tools you can use such as Google Analytics. 

The type of data you might capture includes: how long it takes for people to complete your application forms, how many clicks on your job adverts convert to applications, how long it takes for your offers to be expected, how much ROI you’re getting on your recruitment tools and so on. 

Once you’ve gathered this data, you can then use it to make informed decisions. For example, if it’s taking too long for people to complete applications (or they’re abandoning them altogether), perhaps you need to cut the form down or re-consider the questions you’re asking. 

Ultimately, you’ll want to use data to make informed decisions, save time and money, and of course, to make sure you’re making quality hires. 

3. Candidate Experience 

Candidates have held the power in the U.S. job market for some time now, and considering the most recent economic data on the labor market, the candidate experience remains more important than ever.  

After all, people are more likely to accept your offers if they have a positive route to hire; and reputation matters in the current market. For that reason, this is a key hiring trend you need to be on top of. 

This is especially true as there are more avenues for candidates to air their views online than ever before. Whether it’s social media, or employee review sites; people aren’t afraid to share any negative experiences with other prospective candidates, potentially putting them off applying to your jobs, attending interviews, or accepting your job offers. 

So, what makes a positive candidate experience? Well, it all starts with your job advert. You need to write this with the candidate in mind; what do they want to know? What would make them want to apply? Use engaging language and break the copy up with bullet points so it’s easy to read. If your advert is poorly-written or doesn’t make sense, you’ll fall at the first hurdle. 

You then need to think about the application process and next steps. If they have to jump through a number of hoops just to show their interest in the role, they’ll probably abandon it altogether. Similarly, if there’s far too many rounds of interviews, they may lose interest and go with another employer who’s willing to offer them the job quicker. 

Ultimately, communication is key. See it as a relationship-building exercise. In order to get candidates interested in the role and brand, you need to put the work in. Acknowledge applications, keep them up to date throughout the hiring process and don’t wait too long to offer the job. This will speed up your hiring process and improve their experience; it’s a win-win. 

4. Machine Learning & Automation 

We couldn’t talk about hiring trends without mentioning machine learning and automaton. Both have picked up across many industries in recent years, helping to take over some of the more menial tasks and improving the overall user experience. 

In the staffing industry, machine learning may not be something you implement yourself. Indeed, it’s something that industry suppliers are investing in to improve results for users. At Resume-Library, we’ve used machine learning to improve the relevancy of job matches for candidates, ultimately driving more applications to our clients’ vacancies. 

To do this, we manually rated the relevancy of hundreds of thousands of job postings against specific search terms, before feeding this information into a “machine.” The machine is then able to apply this logic to all jobs on our site, ensuring candidates are presented with the most relevant results. 

Another popular way that companies use machine learning and automation in their hiring practices is through resume screening. There are lots of areas of the hiring process that take up time and effort; with screening being one of them. ATS’s like SmartRecruiters are great for this and can help you to make effective, data-driven hiring decisions. 

There are plenty of other areas that can be automated or that can benefit from machine learning. For example, assessment tools can help you understand how well someone will fit in your company and team, and whether they have the ability to do the job. 

Alongside this, there are tools that can help with candidate engagement efforts. Chatbots, for example, are useful for answering any questions applicants might have and/or keeping them up to date on the progress of their application. Interview scheduling tools can help too and save a lot of back and forth between employers and candidates. 

It’s worth considering what areas of your process need streamlining and how you can do this; it might require you to invest in some new technologies. 

Stay on Top of These Trends 

Unfortunately, there are a range of external factors impacting companies’ ability to hire right now. But that’s why it’s more important than ever to stay on top of the latest trends and ensure your hiring process is fit for purpose. 

Take this time to look at its efficiency; are there areas that are slowing it down? Are you spending too much, or too little money? What do candidate say about your brand online and how can you improve this? These are all questions you should be asking yourself. 

Alongside this, it’s worth speaking to your suppliers to see whether they’re staying on top of these trends and how they can help you meet your goals. At Resume-Library, we work in partnership with SmartRecruiters to enable its users to post jobs onto our site directly from their platform; and we’re launching a Resume Search integration very soon.  

Both help to streamline the process and make it a lot smoother for candidates and hiring professionals. 

By now, we’ve all started to adapt to the “new normal” of remote work. As designers, some of these habits have come easier than others but we’ve found that introducing constraints and utilizing design tools have helped tremendously —go figure.

Today we’ll share some strategies that have worked for the design team at SmartRecruiters to ensure we continue moving fast without sacrificing collaboration time. 

How We as Designers Can Set Ourselves up for the New Normal

When you think about working from the comfort of your own home it may seem like a blessing, there is no commute gobbling up your time, and the additional flexibility might afford you the opportunity to run errands, workout, or pick up kids from their various activities.

However, this freedom also comes with responsibility. You need to make sure that you treat your remote work as real work and get as much out of your time as you would in the office. For many, remote work is a new reality and it may take a while to get used to. 

Sarah, our Product Designer out of Berlin shared a few strategies that have worked for her:

1.Separate Work From Life

When your workplace is also your home, it can be much more difficult to set boundaries. It’s easy to get distracted by housework during your working hours and then get caught working on the computer into the night—all of a sudden you feel like you haven’t worked a full day, but haven’t had any time to relax either.

The key here is: when you work, stay focused and make it count. And when it’s time to stop, shut down your laptop and don’t touch it again! Some ways I’ve created these boundaries are:

• Create a workspace that’s only for work.
• Define a work ritual that separates “life mode” from “work mode.” Some rituals that have worked for designers at SmartRecruiters are:
  • Getting dressed like you’re leaving the house.
  • Taking a walk to get some fresh air before starting the day.
  • Making a cup of tea and writing tasks in your notebook.
  • Checking newsletters—but be sure to set a timer!
  • Reading one article in your field.
  • Spending 15 minutes on any creative activity of your choice (music, drawing, writing, etc.) to get your creative juices flowing. 

2. Maintain Calendars and Ensure Transparency

It’s difficult to know the availability of colleagues from a distance. That’s why it’s important to set clear times for design work and schedule time for lunch or breaks. Of course, an attainable to-do list always helps as well.

3. Engage With Your Team

We often think that creativity can only be born if you are with your team in a well-lit  room with a whiteboard and sticky notes. It is true that the energy and the reactivity of the exchanges favor creativity, especially in brainstorming sessions, but it is still possible to practice it from a distance with organization and the right systems. 

So don’t be discouraged by not being in the office to plan workshops or brainstorming sessions. It is very important for designers to work together and exchange thoughts and ideas, and with the collaboration tools out there like Miro, Mural and others, you can explore and test remote ideations or design sprints.

This will not only help push your project forward but will also help strengthen your team. We touch on some of the strategies that have worked for us later in this article. 

4. Integrate Exercises and Breaks

When you are away from an office, it can be tempting to take extreme measures to ensure that you are always available to your colleagues and customers. But even while working remotely, you need a break as much as if you were working in the office.

Take the time to recharge your batteries by taking a short walk, exercising or meditating.  These breaks don’t need to be long. Try scheduling a 15-minute yoga session on your balcony or backyard after your morning meeting, or put a meditation session on your calendar during the mid-afternoon break and feel the benefits of taking advantage of your break time.

5. Exercise Your Creativity

Take advantage of your freedom to find innovative solutions to your problems or test other methods of doing your work. You might be surprised with the outcome!

Avoiding distractions is one of the biggest challenges of working at a distance. Finding a schedule and a workspace helps, but it may take a little more effort. So working on your self-motivation, discipline, organization and the ability to collaborate without meeting in person is crucial for a great remote work experience

How to Structure a Remote Design Sprint

By now, we all recognize the value of the design sprint as a great way to diverge, converge and align the team around an initial solution. When we went 100% remote in response to Covid-19, I was preparing to kick off designs for a new communication feature.

I knew a sprint was the right tool to deploy, but needed to figure out how to make it effective with varying time zones and competing stakeholder priorities.

I started organizing the agenda by work that could be done offline and activities we all needed to be present for. By including “homework,” (I know that term feels ironic right now), we were able to be more flexible with time zones and more efficient with our collaboration time without losing engagement from the team. 

I started by preparing a sprint brief with my colleague Anthony, the Product Manager for the feature. We included discovery pre-reading from research we had conducted prior to the sprint, as well as the agenda and some pre-work, primarily consisting of lightning round preparation. 

In our brief, we included the project goal, user need statements synthesized from our user interviews and quantitative data compiled from survey results. This provided context and gave the team a thorough understanding of the problem to be solved. 

Since we only had two short days, I decided the first day would be about ideation and divergent thinking with the goal of starting to converge by the end of the day. 

Day two would be all about converging and refining through our solution sketches and storyboard. You can see the agenda we put together below:

Day 1: Map & Sketch

• 10-10:10: Review the Brief
• 10:10-10:40: How Might We Statements – Generate, Vote, Review
• 11:00-11:10: Sprint Questions, Agree on Map/Flow, Agree on Target
• 11:10-11:20: Break
• 11:20-11:50: Lightning Demos
• 11:50-1:00: Sketching

Day 2: Decide

• 9-10: Solution Sketch
• 10-10:30: Dot voting
• 10:30-10:40: Break
• 10:40-11: Speed Critique
• 11-11:10: Voting
• 11:10-11:30: User Test Flow
• 11:30-11:40: Break
• 11:40-2:00 Storyboarding

These are the tools we used:

• Google docs – Lightning round assets, brief, depository
• Mural – the sprint room
• Pen/paper
• Figma
• Zoom

Now, let’s take a look at the nuts and bolts of the actual process.

First Things First: Start With the “why?”

We started by reviewing the brief to frame the problem and long term goal, as well as how the sprint would work (we had a couple first-timers ).  

Tips for Preparing the “Room”

• I always like to keep the long term goal and sprint questions at the top of our board to help us make decisions throughout the sprint, so we replicated this practice on our Mural board. 

• I decided beforehand that we would have a board for all assets and a separate board for sketches. I prepared these templates beforehand so everybody knew where to find resources as the sprint progressed.  

• Lastly, we saved considerable time by predefining the flow ahead of time and validating through a short discussion with the team. 

Learnings From Facilitating the Sprint

• Use Round Robin for sharing during discussions to ensure every team member has an opportunity to provide input. 
• Be diligent about taking notes on the board.
• Mandatory video
  • Although nobody likes to enforce rules, this one is important. It encourages engagement and accountability and to some extent, it allows the facilitator to read the room. 
• Manage expectations—as mentioned, we had some first-timers in this sprint, it’s important to make the outcome clear and provide rationale for booking the better part of two days on an already busy calendar. Some points to hit:
  • Explain the business case.
  • Give some context as to why the process works so well. 
  • Empower participants by reiterating why their unique perspective makes this the dream team. 
• Stick to the schedule
  • Use Mural’s timer – I used this in conjunction with my phone timer as mural’s doesn’t have a chime. 
  • I like to give the 5 minute warning to allow team members to wrap up their primary points.
  • Provide time for breaks. This is critical to maintaining engagement. I chose to schedule the sprint over two 4 hour blocks. I might try a morning and afternoon session in the future to allow team members to catch up on slack and email replies between sessions. 
• Stay organized
  • Without a whiteboard it’s even more critical that assets are well organized and the team knows where to find these resources for reference. It’s on the facilitator to ensure these processes are well defined ahead of time and updated as new artifacts become available. 

Although it may feel impossible to forge the same type of collaboration and engagement as we have in-person, it’s possible to create results comparable to in-person sessions through careful planning and utilization of tools. Shefali, our Design Manager at SmartRecruiters shares some additional strategies below:

1. Keeping Meetings Collaborative

Similar to the design sprint, we lean into online whiteboard tools so that meeting participants are together in this virtual space. While there are topics when screen sharing and a slide deck are the appropriate format, we’ve found that the collaborative nature of online whiteboard tools has been much more effective for most design meetings.

The design team uses whiteboards for brainstorming ideas, conducting retrospectives, analyzing information architecture, synthesizing research, and much more. Let’s get into a few suggestions on how to best facilitate these sessions.

The meeting facilitator should prepare the canvas space prior to the meeting so that everyone can jump into the activity right away. As with all meetings, the goal and agenda for the session should be clear and can even be posted within the board for extra visibility.

All attendees should have access to the link and be able to edit in the space provided. The facilitator should structure the session so that each participant is free to interact with the space and actively encourage them to step in, this will avoid a situation where only one person is doing most of the work.

Tip: Make sure to rotate the facilitator role so that all designers get to practice this part of our toolkit and responsibility gets distributed.

One big challenge of an online whiteboard is sketching. There are a few folks who have mastered mouse drawing, but for many it is both more difficult and slower than using a physical board.

The best solution we have found is to keep sketching on pen and paper, then simply upload the image to a shared space for review. This also brings a nice organic element into the space versus purely relying on technology. Be sure to include the reminder that sketching is supposed to be rough and messy, for any non-designer participants that may be hesitant to draw.

Tip: If you use Mural, the circle post-its work as great dot voting stickers for any images uploaded to the canvas.

Encourage roundtable discussions where a question or topic is posed and each meeting participant responds. It is easy for subtle gestures that people make when they’re about to speak to go unnoticed in remote meetings, even if cameras are on. This ensures that everyone has an opportunity to contribute to the conversation, stay more fully  engaged, and avoid speaking over one another. 

Tip: Keep a few playlists ready for any heads down time and start up some music so that there isn’t an uncomfortable silence. Here’s one from the design sprint folks. It’s also a fun design team activity to create a collaborative playlist that everyone can contribute to and grow over time.

2. Running Effective Design Critiques Remotely

Design critiques are an integral part of design collaboration. Our Product Design team at SmartRecruiters is split between San Francisco and Berlin, so we have a lot of practice running these sessions remotely.

We’ll primarily focus on synchronous feedback as this is our typical format for design critique, but will also offer some advice on asynchronous options in case your team can benefit from this as well.

Our design critiques are weekly and 45 minutes long, during which one designer presents their work. This works well for us with a smaller team. Your team should go with what works best for your process and feel free to experiment until you find a comfortable approach.

We also manage all feedback on a Slack channel specifically dedicated to design critiques (separate from our regular team chat). 

Synchronous Design Critique

Before the critique time, the presenter and facilitator should be assigned. We recommend setting a cadence for both determining these roles and for the critique time itself.

The presenter is expected to share both the context and a link to their relevant work prior to the session. The facilitator’s role is to keep time and take notes for the presenter. The rest of the group will give active feedback during the session.

The presenter should cover the following points when providing context for the team:

• Design goals: What problem are you trying to solve? Who is the user you are serving? How are you solving the problem in this design? What stage of the design process are you in?
• Challenges: What are any constraints that the team should be aware of? Are there any pending decisions?
• Feedback: What would you like feedback on? What would you not like feedback on?

The presenter starts off the session by walking through the work context in more depth and clarifies any questions from the group before diving in. Once this introduction is complete, the presenter then starts a walkthrough of their work. If your team works in Figma, it is great to open up the same file and “follow” the presenter for this.

The participants should take active notes during this walkthrough, but wait until the presenter has completed their sharing process before vocally delivering the feedback.

We use the sticky notes plug-in to leave notes on the associated screens rather than comments so they stay visible. There’s something satisfying about seeing the virtual post-its, such as this one from Figma, add up throughout the session!

Tip: Make sure each designer claims a unique sticky note color, this makes it easier to locate and associate feedback!

Once the walkthrough is complete, we open up the floor for a discussion of the design and refer back through the notes left throughout the file. The facilitator steps up for this period to ensure the conversation stays on track, time is managed well, and the presenters’ thoughts are captured. All designers are expected to be respectful, constructive, and supportive with their feedback.

Asynchronous Design Critique

Sometimes we don’t have the luxury of meeting together as a group for feedback, for this we lean on the asynchronous design critique process. The designer shares a link to their work on our design critique channel where peers can check-in and provide feedback on their own time. It closely parallels the usual format, but with some key changes.

• Share more details: The presenter should add in some extra context details that they would otherwise share verbally at the start of a critique. This could be a few extra lines or maybe even a voice note!
• Clarify your workflow: The presenter needs to make sure the workflow is clear for designers to click through the prototype or they should provide an additional flowchart to make this crystal clear.
• Set a deadline: The presenter should clearly specify a date for feedback to be received by. This will clearly set expectations from your peers and ensure that you can incorporate their feedback into your next iteration.

Final Thoughts

By adhering to the above mentioned best practices, our team has been able to stay productive—even while working remotely and in separate time zones—while maintaining close and supportive professional relationships with each other. Though it’s not without its difficulties, working remotely can be very effective—when the process is well designed, that is.

There are many methods and approaches companies can take when screening new hires. Major consultancy firms like Deloitte refine the process through psychometric testing, which provides valuable insight into a candidate’s personality.

A company is only as strong as the team that drives it forward. One underperforming member can negatively affect even the most efficient of departments; causing disruptions in communication, group harmony, workflow, and more.

An underperformer may not necessarily be an unmotivated employee, rather, it can be someone who simply does not fit with the company culture, or who doesn’t have the skills or aptitudes necessary for their position. Shrewd hiring, then, is a fundamental part of corporate growth.

Organizations of all sizes, from startups to Fortune 500 companies, have adopted psychometric testing as part of the rigorous assessment process needed to build strong teams of employees with all the right traits and skills.

What Is Psychometric Testing?

Psychometric testing measures capabilities and personality traits that determine candidate-fit for any given position. The tests are developed according to a scientific method, and are designed to be objective and unbiased.

Oftentimes, they’re conducted once recruiters or HR have decided that a candidate has fulfilled all the initial requirements for a position after screening, interviewing, and background checks. The psychometric evaluations provide HR with detailed insights about a candidate’s personality, aptitudes, and skills – critical information to make the final hiring decision.

What Traits and Skills are Measured by Psychometric Tests?

Psychometric tests are often selected with custom-selected questions according to the position that needs to be filled. Not all candidates are tested for the same traits, however tests often include personality questionnaires, situational judgement, critical thinking, numerical reasoning, a variety of abilities, verbal reasoning, and more. They can usually shed light on a candidate’s level of extraversion, social skills, and logical reasoning.

Some of the most commonly conducted tests include:

• Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator
• Work Personality Index
• Strong Inventory Interest Assessment
• Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument Assessment

These assessments (and others) help a company get a better understanding of a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses.

What Kinds of Companies Use Psychometric Testing?

Companies that take hiring seriously often use psychometrics as one part of their highly involved selection process. For example, Deloitte conducts an initial screening, interviews, psychometric testing, and a final interview (among other HR best practices).

No matter the industry, psychometric evaluations benefit nearly everyone – companies that care about selecting and retaining top talent can use it as part of their recruitment process for better results.

How Is Testing Conducted?

Psychometric tests are usually multiple choice format. Often, they’re administered either online, or taken in person in an office setting. Some of the questions involve written scenarios, and evaluate how a candidate would respond in various work situations.

The assessments don’t require any preparation on the part of the testee, however the individual should still be briefed about the process and be given an explanation about why they’re being tested.

Can Anyone Conduct a Psychometric Test?

The short answer is no. A certified psychometric practitioner has undergone considerable training and certification to be able to select the tests that are appropriate for the role, and how results should be assessed.

Some hiring professionals try to find free aptitude tests online, however these are not designed with the same proven method as an official psychometric evaluation, and the quality of the results and analysis will not likely be reliable. A company can benefit by seeking a certified psychometrician or a recruitment firm that offers this service if they want science-backed data.

What Happens After the Test?

Once results have been assessed, it’s recommended that all testees receive some feedback. The tests can reveal strengths and weaknesses that candidates might not have previously been aware of. Even if a candidate is hired based on optimal test results and interviews, tactfully pointing out areas where they can improve can be valuable to them in the long run. 

Psychometric testing is not only beneficial for the hiring process, but for building stronger teams, solving conflicts, and retaining employees. Many organizations continually use testing to evaluate their current employees for executive positions or other advancement opportunities.

How Do Psychometric Tests Add Value to Companies?

Successful companies of all kinds have something in common: they place emphasis on hiring employees with the right aptitudes and personality for the role, and work hard to retain them in the long run. They know that it is extremely costly to replace a good employee, and that high turnover is something to be avoided.

When done correctly, psychometric testing can significantly raise the probability of choosing the right candidate for a job, and retaining them. While these assessments come with a cost, it is less than the cost of having to constantly re-hire employees.

Companies rely on their employees and the expertise they bring to the team, as well as their ability to work well with others. Employees who struggle often do so because they were selected solely based on the quality of their resumé and a face-to-face interview.

While interviews, background checks, and CVs are critical parts of assessing candidates, soft skills and personality aren’t so easily discerned. Psychometric assessment tools are able to give the hiring manager clear and objective information; enabling them to make decisions with more confidence. 

A final takeaway: don’t leave hiring employees to intuition and basic interviews alone! For hiring and retaining top talent, involve an expert who can conduct the right psychometric tests for your needs.

Retaining highly skilled tech workers is a huge challenge for recruiters in this tech-driven ultra-competitive era of recruiting. In order to do so, there are a few key insights recruiters should be aware of.

Attracting and hiring STEM workers is anything but easy in today’s recruiting climate. And with employers constantly battling each other for the best and brightest—sourcing is only a part of the equation. An equally formidable challenge is talent retention.

Currently, there’s an acute shortage of skilled developers actively looking for work. Organizations spend thousands of dollars in recruiting talent, with the HR efforts that goes into sourcing and hiring tech talent and the cost associated with onboarding and training, the costs associated with a hire gone bad are really high. 

The demand for tech talent is at an all-time high. According to the Harris Allied 2014 Tech Hiring and Retention Survey finding and hiring top tech talent is the biggest concern for hiring managers—closely followed by retaining talent. Therefore, retention should be high on the list of priorities for recruiters and talent acquisition (TA) teams. Accordingly, relevant measures should be put into place early in the tenure of new employees.

Wondering what it takes to prevent prized team members from jumping ship as soon as a better opportunity comes knocking at their door? Here are a few actionable tips to help hiring teams stay ahead of the curve and retain the talent they work so hard to attract and hire. 

1) Become Fluent in Tech Terminology

As a recruiter or hiring manager, there’s a good chance you won’t be familiar with the granular details and responsibilities of many of the positions for which you’re hiring. If you want to build a long-term relationship with tech workers, the ability to “speak their language” will pay off in spades.

Fluency in technical terminology does not entail that you need to learn programming languages yourself. You just need to cover the basics and acquire a cursory knowledge of the positions you’re looking to fill. Let’s say you’ve been tasked with finding a Java software engineer for your company. It’s highly unlikely that you’ll need to engage candidates for that position in lengthy discourse about databases such as PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and Oracle.

However, if you enter the interview with some basic understanding of those platforms and why they matter for the role, you’ll have a better idea of how to guide the conversation, learn about the candidate’s strengths and interests, and potentially their pain points or weaknesses. All of this will be useful information to include when reporting back to the hiring team.

2) Emphasize Benefits Over Compensation 

The pool of tech talent is largely comprised of millennials who, with their positive, can-do attitude, take a free-wheeling approach towards career direction and employment in general. Hiring and retaining the generation of millennial workers who have proved themselves as workplace innovators and adept at learning new technologies on the go can be a real challenge for recruiters. 

Gone are the days when stability, job security and high salaries ranked top in the list of job seekers’ desired benefits. Skilled tech workers today can already command high salaries and associated perks. To many candidates, flexible working arrangements, student loan repayment assistance, and professional/career development are factors of equal or great importance when contemplating career decisions.

In this regard, it’s absolutely necessary to be forward-thinking. Many top-tier companies already have unique, attractive benefits packages in place. Doing so is a competitive advantage. Failing to do so could be irreparably damaging to your recruiting and retention efforts.

3) Retire the College Degrees in Favor of Experience

Rejecting candidates that don’t tick the boxes of formal education is one of the easiest ways an organization can miss the boat on talent. Technical expertise is hard to find and if recruiters insist on playing by the book, it is likely that candidates who are potentially a good fit for the organization may get missed out on. 

These days a number of developers are self-taught. With options like Coursera and Udemy, candidates can easily access university-level courses and training without matriculating at an institution. According to Stack Overflow’s 2018 Global Developer Hiring Landscape report, almost 90 percent of developers said that they have learned a new language outside of their formal education. 

Furthermore, high profile companies like Google, IBM, and Apple no longer require applicants to hold a four-year degree. In fact, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook recently said that about half of Apple’s US employment last year was made up of people who didn’t have four-year degrees. Additionally, he asserted that many colleges do not teach the skills that are most needed in today’s workforce, like coding.

To that end, it’s important that recruiters begin reigning in any bias they might have against autodidacts and applicants without degrees from accredited universities.

4) Convey the Strength of Your Company Culture

Candidates are more likely to remain with a company and be engaged if their personal values match those of their employers. Therefore, it’s important to clearly communicate those values early in the recruiting process to avoid misunderstanding, disengagement, and employer dissatisfaction—all of which contribute to poor retention. 

In the US, the average employee tenure is right around four years. That’s not long. As a result, it’s now more important than ever for employers to strategically think about how they can hold onto their workforce. Few measures are as effective as a solid company culture, which is a truly binding force.

Want more insight on technical recruiting? We recommend reading the following post: 5 Technical Recruiting Insights from Over 100K Coding Tests.

Recruiting operations are mission-critical to enterprises searching for top talent, yet the majority of hiring teams continue working with legacy systems that fail to deliver ROI. 

Modern businesses are under continuous pressure to remain competitive in today’s economy, with an increasing focus on adopting technologies that enable agility and strategic thinking. In fact, digital transformation is a top priority for C-level executives, with 74% of enterprises already employing, or currently implementing, a digital transformation strategy. As businesses prepare to tackle future disruptions, such change is inevitable. Change, however, is scary.

As a result, many organizations stick with the status quo, betting on traditional processes and legacy systems to deliver successful future outcomes. Meanwhile, technology is evolving at an exponential rate, and organizations that embrace digital transformation know full well the role of technology in keeping businesses organized, productive, and communicative. 

SmartRecruiters recently surveyed Talent Acquisition (TA) professionals about their existing recruiting technologies, and found that the vast majority (89%) fail to see value in their legacy systems, particularly among enterprise companies. What’s more, when asked the likelihood of recommending their current ATS to a friend or colleague, survey respondents gave a -67 NPS score. 

Check out the complete survey results in the infographic below:

While some shy away from challenging the status quo, it’s clear that most enterprise companies are open to the possibility of change. Of course, with myriad options to choose from, how can one decide? Choosing a new ATS solution may appear challenging, but companies that switch to a modern, intuitive, and enterprise-ready ATS are seeing measurable ROI on hiring, particularly around budget optimization and candidate quality.

While technology adoption is only one element of implementing a digital transformation strategy, it is a crucial piece that cannot be overlooked. Contact SmartRecruiters today to find out why over 750 enterprise customers have already embraced our modern recruiting platform, and are experiencing immediate improvements to their talent acquisition processes.

Recruiting is constantly evolving and companies need to reevaluate the value they put on talent and technology.

Founded in 1946 in Troy, Michigan, Kelly Services pioneered the concept of ‘temp workers’ when they began connecting growing companies with readily available office employees in the post-war economic boom. Today, as one of the largest staffing firms in the world, the company provides a veritable bouquet of services in specialty areas from education to engineering.

One of the reasons Kelly Services has continued to lead the market is the organization’s commitment to agility, as well as its ability to leverage technology to consistently deliver amazing results in an ever-changing labor market. 

Part of the Kelly Services team driving this future-facing strategy is Tim Pröhm, VP of Digital Product Development. It’s Tim’s responsibility to discover and understand the up and coming digital trends in the world of Talent Acquisition (TA). And, after over two decades of experience in the trenches of  TA and recruitment process outsourcing (RPO), he’s up to the task!

We caught up with Tim at  Hiring Success 19 – San Francisco, where this leader shared with us what he’s seeing in TA now, and his recommendations for the future of recruiting.

If you want to learn more about the next Hiring Success EU – Amsterdam, September 10-11, 2019, check out our agenda here!

In your experience, what do organizations need in order to succeed in the current landscape of TA?

Nowadays, every organization understands talent scarcity and they know they need to compete for talent. I think the ‘how‘ of it is three-pronged: creating an employer brand that speaks to their target audience, optimizing processes through the intelligent use of technology, and leveraging pinpoint solutions to find that person that will contribute the most to their organization.

What are some of the challenges that are ‘top of mind’ for TA today?

The biggest question I’m seeing is, ‘How can I attract passive candidates?’ In the past, you could simply post a job ad and people would actively apply. Now, that talent is scarce, people simply don’t apply, so you need to go in front of talent, you need to make sure you advertise your brand and really transfer a compelling value proposition.

This is something where traditional TA organizations say they struggle because they don’t do that from an outsourcing and RPO perspective. The best organizations have shifted their focus to attracting and approaching candidates as one of their main functions and that is something that will continue to be important.

Is TA finally in the boardroom?

The saying, ‘TA needs a place at the table’ has been tossed around for a long time. Companies realize access to talent is critical and if they don’t have the right talent in their organizations, they are going to struggle to achieve their business objectives.

On the other end, I think that TA is becoming more complex than ever before, especially with Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS).  There is talk of some companies not wanting to hire permanent employees, and are instead looking to the gig economy and the ‘human cloud‘ for solutions.

There are a lot of changes happening in the marketplace in the ways people want to work, how you get in contact with people, and how you can attract them to your organization. So, from an HR/TA perspective, you really need to make sure that you have a good strategy in place and can make strategic recommendations to the board, and the CEO of the organization. Talent was once commodity, but that’s not the case anymore.

What has been your experience with the trends in HR technology and where do you see them going?

Fifteen years ago,  it was much more about process optimization, now it’s about technological optimization. Today, when you go to conferences, the question is ‘how can I find that new niche technology that helps me to get a competitive advantage when fighting for talent for my brand?’

A few years back, the biggest innovation was the ATS. Now, there is talk about chatbots, artificial intelligence, and how TA can utilize blockchain… All this didn’t really exist three years ago. Everything is digital now and I think the speed of change from a technology perspective will increase even more.

If you had one piece of advice to give TA leaders, what would it be?

I’d say get your processes in order so you can automate. I think automation is one of the biggest things for the future. Talent no longer waits, so if you have a two week or more decision process, people are going to go somewhere else. I think based on that, a lot of TA functions don’t really have a straight process flow in place today, and they don’t think about making them automatic. That’s a mistake…

See more from leaders like Tim in the next part of the blog series – 10 Things I learned at Hiring Success – where we find out what it is like on the front lines of the war on talent with Matthieu Rivière of Devoteam.

Detailed reporting is being phased out by dashboards, bringing new focus on key recruiting metrics and how to leverage them in the C-suite.

Modern organizations realize that data should lie at the heart of an organization’s decision making. As such, today’s talent acquisition leaders are expected to measure their hiring teams’ recruiting performance, compare against benchmarks, and make quantitative improvements. This means CHROs not only need strategies and tools for capturing and analyzing data, but they also need to understand what recruiting metrics and key performance indicators actually mean.

Building benchmarks can be a daunting task without prior experience working with data sets. The data doctors at Namely are experts at building benchmarks that generate useful, company-specific insights into company talent health. Find out the details of how they build benchmarking packages that give TA the ammunition they need in the boardroom.

Traditionally, human resource (HR) and talent acquisition (TA) leaders relied on admin-generated reporting for insights into metrics like time to hire, time to fill, and cost per hire. According to a recent webinar presented by The Association of Talent Acquisition Professionals (ATAP), practitioners are now moving away from text-heavy reporting in favor of visual KPI dashboards, with a renewed focus on summarizing important data and effectively communicating it to the right people so they can make better decisions. ATAP polled webinar attendees and discovered that 50 percent of TA practitioners already have a dedicated dashboard at their organization. For organizations that currently do not have a dashboard, 38 percent are actively planning and/or building one.

When using KPI dashboards, ATAP argues that TA leaders should shift their attention towards metrics that truly matter to their businesses. For most organizations, important metrics to consider fit within the framework of cost (Hiring Budget), speed (Hiring Velocity) and quality (Net Hiring Score)—what we at SmartRecruiters call Hiring Success.

Identifying these metrics is an important first step, but how can TA leaders create Hiring Success at their organizations? ATAP stresses the importance of reinforcing cultural practices surrounding data interpretation and integrity to maximize the impact of KPI dashboards. In turn, these efforts will strengthen TA’s presence in C-suite conversations and critical business decisions.

Data Interpretation

Traditional reporting offers a high degree of detail but also requires substantial analysis for interpretation. As a result, even though everyone may have access to the same report, their understanding of the data can differ greatly. Providing context to help stakeholders understand the data is necessary, and KPI dashboards offer a more digestible summary of important metrics in a way that our brains can easily understand (50 percent of the human brain is devoted directly or indirectly to vision).

More important than the numbers, however, is education and communication. Every TA team needs to establish benchmark performance metrics and educate stakeholders on normal variations in the data. TA leaders are responsible for helping recruiters and HRBP understand the dashboard mechanics, how it works and why it matters in order to foster a data-driven culture at work. Put another way: TA leaders should focus on behavioral training rather than the dashboard itself.

Data Integrity

“If it’s not in the ATS, it didn’t happen,” says webinar host Kristy Nittskoff, Founder of Talent-Savvy, a recruitment strategy optimization consultancy. Implementing a single system of record is useless if employees work outside of it. Encouraging employees to log all hiring actions in the ATS in order to track and measure accurate data is critical. Moreover, KPI dashboards use data from the ATS to build out metrics, and incomplete data can skew the results, leading to inaccurate interpretations, poor business decisions— or, worse, violate compliance laws, which currently cost US companies an average of $222 million annually.

Recruiters, admins, and other ATS users are ultimately responsible for logging complete and correct information, thus mitigating problems associated with dirty data. How important is clean data? According to one study, a strong organization that uses clean data can generate up to 70 percent more revenue than its average counterparts. Otherwise, it’s garbage in and garbage out.

Impact of Data

The primary purpose of collecting data is to inform business decisions. More high-quality data translates into insights around whether or not a current talent acquisition strategy is working. TA leaders can then iterate, update, or revise processes according to what the data suggests.

SmartRecruiters sent customers a recruiting ROI survey last year and gained key insights into critical metrics surrounding candidate experience, hiring manager engagement, recruiter productivity, budget, hiring velocity, and quality of hire. These metrics demonstrate the measurable impact TA has on an organization and reiterate the importance of data as a powerful negotiation tool.

Given the right leverage, data can support requests for more resources or headcount for talent acquisition. Alternatively, data can protect TA teams, pinpointing problems with the hiring process that exist outside of TA’s control. For example, if data shows hiring managers are unresponsive, thus hurting the organization’s hiring velocity, it’s likely not TA’s fault.

Data Culture is Key

LinkedIn’s Global Recruiting Trends 2018 found that 50 percent of hiring professionals rank big data as a major part of their strategy, but TA leaders have long struggled with finding simple and effective methods of communicating performance metrics to executive leadership. Recruiting KPI dashboards signal a change in how TA can prioritize the data that truly matters to their organization, and how to present the information to important stakeholders in an impactful way. These tools, combined with a strong data culture in the workplace, best prepare TA leaders to enter the C-suite with data-driven confidence.

In the fight against unconscious bias, Sweden experiments with AI – but will robotic interviewers really catch on?

Meet your interviewer, Tengai: she’s friendly, observant, and did we mention she’s a robot?

Tengai’s 16-inch glowing face sits on a table at eye level with the candidate. She smiles and blinks forming empathetic facial expressions as she asks “have you ever been interviewed by a robot?”

For most people today, the answer would be ‘no’, but that might not be the case in five years. For that, we have to thank Furhat Robotics, creators of Tengai. The AI and social robotics company that has spent the past four years building a human-esque computer interface that can replicate our speech and subtle facial expressions. The idea being, a human-like robot is much less scary than machine-like one.

A few companies, like the Swedish recruitment firm TNG currently trialing Tengai, are experimenting with the use of robots in their early interviews, and many more companies already use some form of AI in their selection process.

Many people have reservations about using AI to make hiring judgments. ‘How much should we trust these droids?’ they wonder. Indeed, the question has its merits.

Proponents of the technology point out humans aren’t great judges of character or ability because we are all affected by unconscious bias, which impedes our ability to assess fairly. And what’s more, this bias is hard to shake – numerous studies have shown that trainings which aim to minimize unconscious bias’ influence in the workplace has little to no effect on future behavior.  

On the other side, decriers of recruiting’s new reliance on AI-driven judgments point out that the underlying algorithms of these technologies can also be biased and given the homogeny of the tech and data-science field, we must be careful.

Let’s dive in…

Understanding Unconscious Bias

To grasp the argument for using robots in interviews, it’s first important to understand what unconscious bias is and how it occurs. As it has become a workplace buzzword, there’s often confusion around the actual defintion.  

Dolly Chugh is an award-winning psychologist and Professor at New York University. She specializes in the psychology of human bias. Speaking on the 10% Happier podcast, she offered a very helpful example which frames unconscious bias in a way that’s easy to understand:

“When I say ‘Twinkle, twinkle’ your mind probably automatically jumps to ‘…little star’. Somehow, ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star’ became an association in your mind. And there are many other associations we’ve all internalized.

We may associate certain groups of people with certain attributes. But we probably don’t remember when that became part of how we think. This is because it’s all part of the flow of our unconscious mind. The unconscious mind represents the vast majority of our brain’s work. Unconscious mental processing is absolutely essential for us to function as human beings, but sometimes it can lead us away from being the person we’d like to be in certain situations.”  

Reining in biases, as a recruiter, can be tough. First impressions and gut feelings count for so much during interviews. But left unchecked, unconscious bias can result in unfair judgments, overlooked talent, and ultimately, discrimination.

Enter The Robots

Robots designed specifically for recruitment purposes are generally much better than humans at making unbiased decisions about a candidate. This has already proven to be true through a recruitment experiment conducted in Sweden.

Since late 2018, Swedish recruitment agency TNG have been using an AI-driven robot head called Tengai to conduct first stage interviews in place of human recruiters. The results have shown an encouraging example of AI eliminating discrimination rather than amplifying it.

New Technology, Same Process

Tengai was built by Furhat Robotics. At first glance, it’s appearance is a bit disconcerting. It’s a disembodied robotic head with a friendly-looking human face. It’s placed on a table where it sits about eye level to the candidate. All this to ensure the interview proceeds in a way which most closely candidates are accustomed.

Unlike a typical interview, Tengai doesn’t engage in small talk. This ensures all recorded responses are work-related. Each candidate is asked the same questions, in the same order, with the same tone of voice. Tengai standardizes the process to a degree that even the most methodical human recruiters can’t match.

Crucially, Tengai knows absolutely nothing about a candidate’s race, religion, gender, appearance, or other visual/auditory factors that commonly give rise to unconscious bias. Once the interview is complete, human recruiters then receive a transcript of the answers. It’s then up to them to decide whether or not to move that person forward.

By replacing human recruiters with Tengai, TNG and Furhat feel they are creating a fairer hiring process that still retains a ‘human’ touch. But it’s important to keep in mind that robot interviewers bring their own set of limitations and challenges.

Hiring Involves More than Interviews

Research shows unconscious bias often influences whether or not someone advances to the interview stage. Tengai and other robotic interviewers offer zero benefits when it comes to creating fairer resume selection processes. So, unless such robots are accompanied by other bias-tackling measures throughout all other stages of the hiring process, they are an incomplete solution to the problem.

Key Information may Go Unrecorded

Robots like Tengai create an extremely rigid interview process. And while standardization offers some benefits, it isn’t perfect. It prevents the natural ebb and flow of a typical human conversation. For example, a candidate may mention something in passing that grabs an interviewer’s attention. If they feel the information is highly relevant to the role, they can ask the candidate to elaborate or clarify. This helps prevent great candidates slipping through the net due to unintended omissions in their answers.

Candidate Experience And Employer Brand

Even when the rationale for using robots is clearly presented, some candidates are not going to like being interviewed by a robot. It’s easy to see how the process may be perceived as cold and clinical by some candidates. As a result, this may cause significant damage to the employer brand. Others will welcome the change, but introducing robot interviewers will undoubtedly polarise candidate opinion. So it’s important to weigh up the risk/benefit ratio, which will vary widely from business to business.

Not All Technology Is Similar

When selecting any new technology for a hiring process it’s important to consider what it actually does. Some robots are made to standardize the initial interview process to root out bias, while other tools use algorithms to evaluate the candidate’s facial expressions or speech. With the latter example, especially, organizations need to rigorously question the way the AI is making judgments and track if those judgments are leading to a homogeneous talent pool.

As offices prepare to welcome the first generation of true ‘digital natives’ there are more currents below the surface shaping the future of HR.

With unemployment at a 49 year low in the US, salary budgets are projected to increase by an average of 3.2 percent, up from 3.1 percent last year. Employers are feeling the growing labor shortage, which saw 6.9 million unfilled jobs last year, a number that is predicted to grow in 2019, with the most affected industries being education/health services and professional/business services.

All this as the first majority Gen Z university class dons their caps and gowns this Spring, and prepares to enter the workforce. According to recent LinkedIn research, the fastest growing fields of entry for these grads are web designer (for women) and Software tester (for men). However, it isn’t just fresh face employees making their mark on the workforce, some 10 thousand baby boomers turn 65 every day, and as a result, half of the 11.4 million jobs projected to be created over the next seven years will be filled by people over the age of 55.  

As the face of the labor market changes, so does the infrastructure that supports it. In the last five years, HR technology has seen a proliferation of startups, big consolidations, and a race for innovation. At the same time, new legislation, like the General Data Protection Regulations in Europe, brings data security to the forefront; and workers movements like #metoo, educator strikes, and Uber protests raise questions about what the future of work should look like.

In the midst of all this recruiters and HR are working harder than ever. A recent Monster survey found 62 percent of recruiters say their jobs are more difficult than the previous year, and 67 percent say the difficulty exceeds that of five years ago. So, let’s break down these changes step by step to understand the trends taking root in the latter half of 2019.

1. The Beginning of Gen Z Takeover

Every employer has now taken into the fold, the once enigmatic, millennial cohort. In fact, the generation born between 1981 and 1996, is the biggest portion of the labor force today. Yet, time marches on, and employers must now welcome a new crop to the workforce… with their own special quirks.

Gen Z, the first generation of true ‘digital natives’ (those born between 1997 and 2016) are expected to represent at least 40 percent of all consumers by the year 2020, potentially influencing $166 – $333 billion of annual family spending.

Some of the defining characteristics of Gen Z include: entrepreneurial, less money-driven, and honesty seeking. Read the full list here!

2. Remote Work Is the New Norm

More and more employees are enjoying remote work with increased productivity. As a matter of fact, an almost two year Stanford study revealed a remarkable boost in productivity among telecommuters in a test group that is equivalent to full day work.

The report found that remote employees tend to put in a full day of work and even more since they don’t have to struggle with a daily commute only to leave earlier for personal errands or be late for work.

Furthermore, employee attrition was reduced by about half, saving the test group around $1,900 per employee in yearly retention costs. Not only that, but operating costs were also reduced by at least $1,400 per worker since they were not using company facilities like water and power and taking up office space.

3. Digital and Consumer-Grade HR

Employees, as well as employers, will continue to demand user-friendly workplace tech. This will push HR solutions to be fully cloud-based, mobile-enabled, open to APIs and meticulously designed with the end user in mind. Furthermore, HR tech and data will be accessed and shared with the ability to integrate across various platforms while connecting internal business silos.

Now there are technologies for every step of the employee lifecycle from candidate relationship management, to onboarding, to time/attendance tracking keeping HR and Talent Acquisition engaged with their workers from start to finish.

Says Bob Melk, Chief Commercial Officer, Monster: “For recruiting to be effective in 2018 and beyond, it must go beyond traditional methods. [There’s a] need for an integrated recruitment strategy spanning the entire candidate lifecycle. A multi-solution approach – combining marketing, digital, and analytics – is critical in moving recruitment stress to recruitment success.”

4. Employers Get Competitive About Benefits

This competitive hiring landscape can be particularly challenging for startups and small business without the name recognition of larger companies.

These fledgling businesses will need to get creative with the benefits they offer, such as lifestyle spending accounts, flexible work arrangements, student loan support, and health/wellness programs. Elastic and Salesforce not only offer generous vacation packages, they also pay their employees to volunteer for the causes they are passionate about. Netflix, on the other hand, extends paid parental leave to salaried employees so parents of any gender can take a year off with full pay following the birth or adoption of a child.

5. Delivering Against Diversity And Inclusion Initiatives Continues

With the unemployment rate expected to continue its decline, employers need to expand the talent pool. That means building pipelines for underrepresented and untraditional candidates.

Daniel Zhao, a senior data scientist at Glassdoor, notes changes in the tech sector saying to CBS News “We’ve heard a lot of anecdotal evidence that employers are starting to reduce qualifications or look for nontraditional workers. They might reduce qualifications from a master’s to a bachelor’s degree, or they might start an apprenticeship.”

As we move into 2020 there will be more changes to come! Let us know what you think is on the horizon @smartrecruiters #HiringSuccess.

New research says the skills gap is the product of low unemployment, but this new report may be missing the point.

Earlier this year a report from American Economic Association spurred articles by the Washington Post and Vox triumphantly proclaiming the ‘skills gap’ to be solved – since it never existed at all.

The response to these articles on Twitter was mixed, with one economisttweeting, “Every time you hear someone say ‘I can’t find the workers I need,’ add the phrase ‘at the wage I want to pay.’” At the same time,  many recruiters simply retweeted the stories for conversational fodder without committing to an affirmative or negative stance.

Economic analysis and predictions are esoteric practices, and the public doesn’t seem too surprised when pundits get it wrong, so the news of a labor crisis — given credence by the Obama administration and the US Chamber of Commerce — being totally discredited disappeared by the next day’s news cycle.

We couldn’t let it go. We reached out to SmartRecruiters followers in a casual Twitter poll, and 60 percent of respondents named ‘skills shortage’ as their top sourcing challenge. Granted, our sample size was certainly not large enough to make a claim, either way, but it did make us take a closer look at the American Economics Association study, and — as you may have guessed — there’s more to the skills gap than ‘true or false’.

It seems that when the US Chamber of Commerce and then-President Obama talk about the ‘skills gap’, they’re referring to the digital transformation making many laborers obsolete, but when American Economics Association talks about the ‘skills gap’, they’re talking about the degree and skill inflation within job ads.

The thesis of the research from Alicia Sasser Modestino, Daniel Shoag, and Joshua Ballance argues that when unemployment rises, employers can be choosier and require more skills from candidates. Thus the skills gap is a self-perpetuated, non-emergency resulting, in large part, from the financial crises of 2008.

Indeed, the analysis of over 36 million job ads from 2007 to 2012 does show a significant uptick in skill requirements. For example, jobs that previously required a high school education minimum began asking for candidates with four-year degrees. Employers acknowledged this phenomenon as a conscious decision in the report, saying, “the recession is a wonderful opportunity to acquire top talent.”

The question still remains, does this report show the skills gap is a lie? If we look at it from a digital transformation perspective, then no. This digital transformation skills gap, cited by the White House and the US Chamber of Commerce, is about a shortage of IT skills, a shortage which is still very real.

According to a 2018 Statista report, the largest deficits in tech are in Big Data/ Analytics, Technical Architecture, and Security/Resilience. And, it’s not just tech companies that need IT workers, as IT skills are necessary for any business to compete in today’s economy. Even the mom and pop store on the corner needs to consider web presence and data security.

So, if neither is wrong what does this report really tell us about today’s talent economy. We turned to Sarah Wilson, head of people at SmartRecruiters, for some practitioner insight into the conundrum.

Is there actually a skills gap?

It is accurate to say when the unemployment rate is higher and the candidate pool is more plentiful, companies become more choosy and require more experience and education. However, when people refer to a skills gap, they usually are talking about technical skills.

The skills gap in the tech space is ongoing, especially with emerging technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence. In many areas, technology is advancing faster than the workforce.

I think as more and more new tech emerges, companies (especially large ones) will need to figure out how to upskill their existing workforce because allowing them to become obsolete isn’t a sustainable business model. I see a trend of accountability on the part of the business to provide opportunities for development.

Do recruiters have an exaggerated view of the skills gap?

The tools that we as recruiters traditionally used to engage talent aren’t delivering like they used to. Now that almost every company has a LinkedIn recruiter license, any quality candidate is inundated with in-mails and emails about new job opportunities.

Just as employers take advantage of high unemployment, candidates can be choosier when unemployment is low. Recruiters need to be creative with how they find and connect with talent pools that might even involve sharpening up their tech skills.