HRM takes a peek at what different companies are predicting about recruitment trends in 2018.

Here is a scenario that many recruiters and HR professionals will face in the new year.

You arrive back in the office and the first thing on your “To Do” list is finding someone to replace that person who – either because of a new year’s resolution, or having had far too much time to reflect on their life over the holiday period – has decided to take a break and hand in their notice.

Good for them, perhaps, but a headache for you as they are a crucial member of the team.

How are you going to find a replacement for them – fast – and, more generally, how can you do recruitment better in 2018?

We’ve already talked about some interesting recruitment trends this year, including geo-fenced recruitment and robo-written resumes. But here are some trends that you need to bear in mind when hiring either for top talent or temporary workers.

In 2018 a new model of recruitment will emerge, one fuelled by technology, data science and artificial intelligence – this is according to Hays.

The conventional ‘advertise and apply’ model (where only active job seekers at any given point time apply to advertised vacancies) will be superseded by a ‘find and engage’ approach.

“The ‘find’ element of the equation involves using digital technology and data science analytics to reach deep into candidate pools and examine large amounts of data to prepare shortlists of the most suitable people (which span far wider than the community of active jobseekers), extrapolate meaningful patterns and gauge how open to new job opportunities a potential candidate is,” says the report from Hays.

The ‘engage’ element makes it far more important for the employer or external agencies to understand a candidate’s personal priorities and aspirations for a successful outcome.While technology will be important in identifying talent, valuing people based on their well-developed human capabilities moves to the top of the ‘Must Have’ list in recruitment.  

“Technology and automation are set to remove much of the administration burden, but what we really need to look at is talent, from the point of view of emotional intelligence, and the emotional competencies that we, as human being, bring to the workplace, impacting organisational performance,” says Marc Havercroft, COO of SAP, a business applications software company.

Now might be a good time to review how your diversity policies might not be attracting the best employees. Fairygodboss, a career community for women, is one of many organisations reporting that recruitment strategies must shift to address the needs of the candidates you want to attract. If you’re only advertising on social media sites, for example, you may be missing out on older, more experienced workers. If you are looking for someone who is a ‘cultural fit’ that could rule out a wide variety of candidates who think differently.

Doing the donkey work

In a trend that will alarm some recruitment agencies, we are likely to see the growth of more companies such as new kid on the block, Weploy. Weploy calls itself an ‘on-demand recruitment platform’ that allows businesses to hire quality pre-vetted temporary staff, catering to industries that span office support, events, promotions. They claim it takes an average time of 33 seconds or under to fill a job ad. The expensive rates charged by many recruitment agencies is something that will surely be under scrutiny in 2018.

Learn the fundamentals of the employment life cycle – from recruitment through to retirement, with AHRI’s short course ‘Recruitment and workplace relations’.