Dec 15 2017
Entelo, the world’s leading AI-driven recruiting automation platform, today announced findings from the Entelo 2018 Recruiting Trends Report.
The company surveyed 1,143 talent acquisition professionals from around the world to identify the trends and innovations driving the recruiting industry forward. According to the research, while talent acquisition professionals are eager to try new AI-driven recruiting solutions, they also have room to improve their automation savvy.
“As recruiting automation solutions evolve from an early trend to a fundamental hiring discipline, forward-thinking companies are building talent teams armed with technology that makes them look more like marketing teams,” said Madeline Laurano, co-founder and chief research officer, Aptitude Research Partners. “Talent acquisition leaders who invest in analytics and AI will have more success scaling to meet their recruiting demands. Those that arm their teams with the intelligence and automation they need are the ones who will win the war for talent.”
Email Continues to Reign for Candidate Outreach
One of the survey’s more conclusive findings is the ongoing power of email in reaching potential candidates. More than half of respondents confirmed email is their preferred method of outreach and 51 percent find email the most effective channel. This finding contrasted with respondents’ views of LinkedIn InMail. While 30 percent of respondents report using InMail, only 15 percent find it an effective way to engage with candidates.
Despite the reliance on email, the survey found many recruiters to be fairly rudimentary in their use of email automation systems, particularly compared to their marketing colleagues. More than half of respondents don’t know or don’t track email open rates or click-through rates for the emails they send. Of those who do, more than 1 in 3 do so manually. By contrast, MarketingProfs reports that nearly 9 in 10 marketers regularly monitor email open and click-through rates.
Recruiters Are Ditching Traditional Media for New Recruiting Channels
Another finding reveals that budgets are increasingly shifting away from traditional recruiting channels, as 69 percent plan to spend less or none at all on traditional advertising like newspapers and print. In sharp contrast, recruiting automation investments are on the rise, with 62 percent of respondents planning to spend on AI-powered recruiting software. Of those, 86 percent plan to specifically invest in intelligent sourcing software next year.
Candidate Sourcing is Inefficient
Other findings point to holes in the sourcing process that are ready for innovation. When asked about important sources of hire, respondents rank employee referrals as most important, meanwhile sourcing functions like agencies, consulting firms, talent marketplaces, etc. were ranked least important. Further, talent acquisition professionals are spending nearly a third of the work week (about 13 hours) manually sourcing candidates, and 70 percent agree that automation of the sourcing processes would increase their productivity. Promisingly, solutions like Entelo Envoy can automate sourcing and help mitigate unconscious bias. While diversity and inclusion efforts are reportedly working, according to 89 percent of respondents who have them in place, 49 percent of that group agrees they could be doing more to ensure the hiring process is without bias.
“No company is immune to the challenges of hiring,” said Mike Trigg, chief marketing officer at Entelo and general manager of Entelo Envoy. “These findings demonstrate how hungry talent acquisition professionals are for technology solutions that will help them solve their hiring problems. The best recruiters recognize these investments give them a competitive edge, enabling them to hire the best candidates, faster, and at lower cost than antiquated recruiting processes of eras past.”
Survey Methodology:
Results are based on responses from 1,143 talent acquisition professionals based primarily in the U.S. Entelo conducted this survey online from November 8 - November 17, 2017 and this survey is not based on a probability sample, therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.