After a dynamic hiring environment in 2021, recruiters have taken what they’ve learned and refocused their strategies for 2022 to attract qualified candidates.
To stay competitive in the coming months, hiring teams looking to fill open positions should stay updated on the latest hiring trends, including shifting candidate priorities, recruitment outsourcing opportunities, and automated recruitment tools.
Will the Great Resignation Continue Long Into 2022?
The Great Resignation trend is likely to endure in the coming months, as candidates keep looking for new career opportunities, especially if their current role doesn’t offer the right perks or pay.
Read More: The Great Resignation: Navigating the Competitive Hiring Landscape
In November 2021, a record 4.5 million workers left their jobs, and businesses had 10.6 million job openings.1 Unlike previous months, the employment trend isn’t expected to be as large of a problem in 2022, partially because companies have responded to worker requests for better pay and benefits.2
Top Job-Seeker Priorities for 2022
The 2021 Recruiter Nation report found that 73% of surveyed recruiters noted an increase among candidates and current employees negotiating higher salaries, up more than 20% since 2020.3 The top three job perks outside of salaries attracting new candidates were:
- Medical/dental coverage (51% of surveyed workers)
- 401(k) (49%)
- Work from home/flexible work hours (44%)
To help mitigate turnover and attract more talent, companies should also offer talent:
- Higher compensation
- Better work/life balance
- More career advancement opportunities
Shifting Recruiting Trends and Challenges for 2022
In general, recruiters are short-staffed but need to hire more candidates than before to fill open positions. Agility during this time is essential for promoting effective recruitment, according to the 2021 Recruiter Nation survey of 800 U.S.-based recruiting professionals.4
2022 Recruitment Team Focuses
Surveyed recruiters say their team’s priorities for 2022 include:
- Improving quality-of-hire (48%)
- Improving time-to-hire (28%)
- Increasing retention rate (26%)
- Growing talent pipeline (25%)
- Updating recruiting technology (21%)
- Improving diversity (18%)
Read More: Strategies to Promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Workplace and Hiring
Other top challenges recruiters face in 2022 include:
- Lack of skilled/qualified candidates
- Competition from other employers
- Requirements for candidates to work onsite or in an office again
Read more: The New Challenges HR Teams Face in 2022 eBook
Outsourcing Recruiting Functions
In 2021, staffing agencies received more job applications than in-house recruiters, partially due to barriers of entry for job-seekers.5 To help mitigate recruitment roadblocks, 64% of recruiters are increasing recruiting budgets, with particular emphasis on external recruiting agencies to address their lack of staff and internal hiring programs. Experienced staffing agencies can leverage their wide pools of skilled talent to provide companies with job applicants they otherwise wouldn’t reach on their own.
Automated Recruitment Tools
Hiring teams are increasingly using automation and artificial intelligence to find talent, screen, and chat with job-seekers more than in previous years, partially due to the shift to remote recruiting and work. Recruiters looking to increase hiring competitiveness can use new recruitment technologies to reach more candidates and quickly move them along the funnel.
51% of surveyed recruiters use chatbots to handle processes including interview scheduling, automated screening, employee referrals, candidate sourcing, and text-based recruiting.6 These tools help qualify and identify top candidates before needing to loop in a human recruiter, saving them time and speeding up the process.
Another priority for many recruiters is to automate their candidate email nurturing since the manual process is time-consuming and inefficient for moving candidates along.7 Automated nurturing helps reduce hiring time, allows for personalized messaging, keeps brand message consistent, and provides data hiring teams can use to optimize their next email outreach.
If your company is struggling to fill open positions, reduce employee turnover, or would like assistance offloading recruitment tasks, Sparks Group can help. Reach out to our team of staffing experts and we can discuss your hiring needs and provide the assistance your company needs.
Sources:
- https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm
- https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/14/the-great-resignation-expert-shares-the-biggest-work-trends-of-2022.html
- https://www.jobvite.com/lp/2021-recruiter-nation-report/
- https://www.jobvite.com/resource_type/recruiter-nation-survey/
- https://www.jobvite.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Jobvite-RecruiterNation-Report-WEB-2.pdf
- https://www.jobvite.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Jobvite-RecruiterNation-Report-WEB-2.pdf
- https://www.lever.co/blog/talent-acquisition-trends-to-know/
