The Future of Recruitment Strategies: 5 Upcoming Trends

Aside from New Year’s resolutions and champagne toasts, we can expect to see a lot of exciting things happen in 2015. While we don’t yield the magical powers to predict the future, we’re pretty confident that the face of recruitment will change drastically in the upcoming year.

LinkedIn’s Global Recruiting Trends Report found that 63% of recruiters will have higher hiring volumes in 2015, and 46% will have an increased hiring budget. With more money and more demands, recruiters will turn to new strategies to attract the best talent.

Here are five trends in recruitment strategies for 2015: 

1. Leadership roles will be filled by millennials: There are currently more millennials than baby boomers in the workforce. Because many baby boomers are retiring at an increasing rate, the younger generation is being thrust into leadership positions much earlier than ever before. In the upcoming year, we expect to see recruiters target more and more millennials for high-level roles, as well as securing the younger generation’s high-potential employees to play a bigger part in succession planning.

2. More value placed on recruiting freelancers: 48% of CIOs are planning to add more contractors than full-time staff over the next 12-18 months. The rising costs of health care and the need to fill short-term roles quickly are motivating more employers to actively seek freelancers. We expect recruiters to place more value on these contractors and spend more time and money fostering a network of independent freelancers to be called on when employers need them.

3. Training and education will become a perk: In June of 2014, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said there were 4.7 million job openings, and more than half of employers said they couldn’t find qualified candidates. Experts say this issue will only progress until college curriculums align with the current job market. In 2015, we will see more recruiters and employers offering extra training and professional development to get candidates ready and interested in new roles. 

4. Recruiters will turn to mobile: 83% of job seekers currently use smartphones to search for job openings, yet only 20% of the Fortune 500 companies have mobile friendly career sites. Companies will begin placing more emphasis and resources on optimizing their websites for mobile and maybe even creating apps in order to appeal to the modern job seeker.

5. More time spent on social media to attract talent: We will start to see more social media updates and blog posts from companies in 2015 in order to build their brand and stand out as a great employer. 58% of people are more likely to want to work at a company if they are using social media. In the recruitment process, companies will start posting more about their culture and environment to leverage their offerings and attract top talent.

Now it’s your turn: join us in predicting the future and leave a comment with one new recruitment strategy you expect to see in 2015.

• All the Recruitment Strategies You Need to Win Top Talent
• Proven Recruitment Strategies to Land Rockstar Job Candidates