Bullhorn recently published their 2018 North American Staffing & Recruiting Trends Report, a survey of more than 1400 staffing professionals.
Compared to 2017, the majority of staffing professionals – 67% – are less confident about the future. This is likely due to the tension between the potential opportunities presented to staffing agencies vs. the challenges they face in 2018.
I’ve highlighted some important findings on recruiters’ priorities for 2018 from Bullhorn’s report below.
Increases in hiring and operating budgets
Whether internal or external, recruiters are experiencing the same challenges from the tighter labor market.
While 70% anticipate an increase in hiring needs, 64% of staffing pros say their top challenge is the talent shortage. Luckily, organizations are finally investing in their operating budgets to remain competitive with 52% anticipating an increase in their recruiting tech budget.
Investment in automation
With all the talk around AI and automation, it’s no surprise that 23% of the professionals surveyed rank automation as their top priority. In terms of which pain points recruiters are looking towards automation to solve, it’s an even split: 40% find automation’s greatest value is increased efficiencies whereas 40% think it’s increased engagement.
Automation is also being perceived as valuable for candidate sourcing: 18% of recruiting professionals believe the best candidate source is leveraging automation.
Another big area of tech investment is improving candidate rediscovery and nurturing with 18% stating the best candidate source are existing candidates from your ATS and CRM.
Ownership of candidate experience
Organizations are finally realizing the competitive advantage of a great candidate experience.
Candidate experience is definitely an area where organizations are investing in this year from automating their screening to reach out to candidates that much faster or introducing a chatbot to handle initial outreach and pre-qualification.
While the majority of recruiters – 53% – believe candidate experience is owned by individual recruiters, 41% believe candidate experience is a shared responsibility across the business. This latter attitude reflects the growing acknowledgement that today’s recruiting requires stronger alignment between sourcers, recruiters, and hiring managers to provide a more streamlined and personalized candidate experience.
Download the full report from Bullhorn to better understand the recruiting market trends and priorities for 2018.