Recruitment 2025, Step 3: Re-Org the Toolbox

Three’s Company

Before diving into the final step of recruitment 2025, I would encourage you to check the first, exploring what recruiting insiders, influencers, practitioners and even the tech vendors think hiring needs will look like in five years.  The of course, the second, explaining what it’s going to take to get HR and recruiting teams to that place. 

If you don’t have the time or patience, consider the following: recruitment 2025 will focus on hiring for softer skills, and employers need to shift towards that mindset now. That’s the short version of the discussions we had at HRTech with Talemetry.

Upwards on Onward

You might think that telling an entire industry that they need to rethink their job seems a bit dramatic. It’s not. Yes, we need to throw out the old mentality (something we should have done ages ago). But no, you don’t need to develop a whole new set of tools to do so.

If you’re currently using a CRM, great, you’ll still use one – just a bit differently. The same goes for the ATS, chatbots, pre-hire assessments and so on. Here’s why: as the skills in question evolve and change, recruitment 2025 follows largely the same protocol. But to get these jobs filled, organizations will need to adjust their mindset and reorganize their toolbox. 

That said, getting from top to bottom asks us to envision the workforce of 2025 and what they expect from the talent acquisition process. Thankfully, candidates have been pretty forthcoming about this historically, and that gives recruiters a concrete starting place. 

More Communication 

Look, we have ample data supporting this ask.  Still, the needle never seems to move. A recent Glassdoor survey that found 58 percent of candidates want a company to communicate with them clearly and regularly. They want to know what the application entails, how long it takes to hear back, how many interviews are involved, what it takes to get hired, why the sky is blue, and any other information you’re willing to share.  At a minimum, they want to understand where they stand and when they can expect to hear back on the next steps.

There is absolutely no reason not to prioritize communication, particularly in the search for soft skills, which all but demands strong interpersonal abilities. Fortunately, there are a plethora of new communication tools available to recruiters today – from phone to email to text to AI driven bots.  So now it’s a matter of how to embrace those new tools to improve the candidate experience.

Personalized Experiences 

With communication comes the notion of the overarching experience and moving from the traditional one-to-many approach to one-to-one. Go ahead and blame Millennials or Gen Z for demanding that potential employers treat them like human beings instead of nameless, faceless prospects. And yet, the Talemetry 2020 Vision Survey showed that only 13.8 percent of respondents planned to work on personalizing content and micro-targeting, versus 38.8 percent focused on filling jobs.

I’m going to let you in on a little recruitment 2025 secret: take the time to plan custom content and personalized experiences up front. It’ll help you achieve the desired long-term results. That’s how personalization works, and lucky for you, the technology you need already exists. 

Better Feedback

Feedback tends to attract controversy. Some recruiters advise against it, putting a blanket moratorium on offering candidates even a shred of input. Those in favor cite the overwhelming longing of candidates desperate to know why the didn’t get selected for the job after seven rounds of interviewing.

I’m firmly in this second camp for a few reasons. But mostly because we’re talking about real people with real emotions investing in your organization with potentially no payoff. Oh, and there’s data from the Candidate Experience Awards that reinforces the benefits of immediate feedback, especially in keeping candidates interested and engaged after they interview. You don’t have to give a full-on critique, just an actionable tip or two. 

Straightforward Processes 

As you re-organize your toolbox to put more emphasis on communication, personalization and feedback, you have the opportunity to accomplish something else: simplification. Says the Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends report, only six percent of companies believe they have best-in-class recruiting processes and technology. Eighty-one percent see theirs as standard or below standard, so we know there’s room to improve.

Taking the adage “work smarter, not harder” to heart, I challenge you to go way back. Get primitive. How many steps are in your process? Where do candidates check-in? Where do they check out? Peel back the layers and reconfigure to allow time for trial and error.    

The Resolution

No doubt, there are skeptics out there, those who are wondering if five years in the future requires blowing everything up and beginning again. To them, I say, what’s your recollection of 2015? What about 2010? Recruiting is arguably in a different place today, even if the tools and strategies aren’t quite there yet. Here’s your big chance.

The countdown starts now. 

Authors

William Tincup

William is the President & Editor-at-Large of RecruitingDaily. At the intersection of HR and technology, he’s a writer, speaker, advisor, consultant, investor, storyteller & teacher. He's been writing about HR and Recruiting related issues for longer than he cares to disclose. William serves on the Board of Advisors / Board of Directors for 20+ HR technology startups. William is a graduate of the University of Alabama at Birmingham with a BA in Art History. He also earned an MA in American Indian Studies from the University of Arizona and an MBA from Case Western Reserve University.