Let’s face it – we live in an ever-changing world, where one of the biggest challenges is keeping up with the latest trend.

For an update on talent acquisition trends, PeopleScout hosted Madeline Laurano, talent analyst and founder of Aptitude Research, at our North American Talent Summit. Laurano spoke on the top trends she is seeing through her qualitative and quantitative research, and provided clarity on the crowded market.

Laurano shared that the current state of talent acquisition has fundamentally shifted due to the record increase in job openings and decrease in the available talent pool. This contributes to the rise of competition for talent across industries and the tremendous pressure organizations face to find the right talent.

Laurano presented a few key solutions to aid in managing this overarching challenge, including strengthening employer branding, simplifying your talent strategy with technology, improving candidate communication, using data to drive decisions and exploring total workforce solutions.

In this article, we’ll walk through Laurano’s report on the current state of talent acquisition, and dive into how a focus on employer branding can help you stay on top of the trends in talent acquisition.

Current State & Challenges

Laurano’s research shows a fundamental shift in talent acquisition over the past few years, which she attributes to changing market conditions. The numbers prove it – there’s a high demand for skills and a low supply of candidates, which increases both competition for talent and the cost of a quality hire.

High Demand for Skills

Nearly half of U.S. employers attribute unfilled job openings to a lack of qualified candidates. Additionally, 75% of human resource professionals who have recruiting difficulty say there is a shortage of skills in candidates for job openings. However, 74% of organizations are investing just $500 per employee on training and development between upskilling and reskilling.

The skills gap is widening particularly for IT, healthcare, manufacturing and really any industry that has specialized or technical roles. Based on her research, Laurano recommends that organizations invest in technology and digital roles to foster ideas and monitor industry trends. More than 5 million jobs in information technology are expected to be added globally by 2027.

Low Supply of Candidates

“Statistics show employers are having a difficult time filling job openings and are competing across industries for talent, which is a major challenge in the industry and one we haven’t seen before,” Laurano said.

A 2017 PWC survey of CEOs found that 77% said the greatest threat to organizations was the availability of talent. The unemployment rate is at a record-low 3.7% in the U.S., with 106 months of continuous job growth – the longest stretch in the nation’s history. Canada ended the first half of the year with an unemployment rate of 5.5%, and many leading European and Asia Pacific economies posted strong job gains and continued low unemployment.

Quality of Hires

Laurano’s 2019 Quality of Hire Trends Report states that only 26% of organizations in her study have a formal methodology for defining quality of hire; one in three of those organizations said that they’re interested in tracking quality of hire, but they don’t know how to start. Therefore, there’s a lot of opportunity to improve how we calculate quality of hire.

Ultimately, organizations have to rethink their strategies and technology to attract the right candidates for them. So, how do organizations stay on top of these trends? Laurano says strengthening employer branding is one important way.

Strengthening Employer Branding

As a reminder, your employer brand is the perception and lived experiences of what it’s like to work for your organization. It also incorporates your employee value proposition (EVP), which captures the essence of your uniqueness as an employer and the give and get between you and your employees.

In her presentation, Laurano discussed the importance of strengthening employer branding as one way to stand out in the crowded market. As research shows, many organizations are investing plenty of resources into employer branding, but there is still room for improvement. As Laurano’s research shows, 62% of organizations invest in employer branding, however:

• One out of four organizations is unsure about its employer branding.
• 50% of organizations are unhappy with their employer branding tools.
• 37% of talent acquisition and recruitment specialists consider their knowledge of their employer brand as “weak” or “getting by” – despite it being identified as an area of critical importance.

Industry research agrees with Laurano, as one study shows that companies with stronger employer brands see a 43% decrease on average in the cost per candidate they hire, compared to their competitors. Additionally, when organizations specifically in the U.S. live up to their marketed EVP, new employees arrive with a higher level of commitment at 38%, compared to organizations that do not live up to their marketed EVP, which is at just 9%.

Digital Transformation

As Laurano noted, the digital space is a major aspect to consider in talent acquisition and employer branding. Whether it’s introducing digital or data specialist roles, the skills associated with those jobs assist organizations in recognizing their weaker areas and providing innovative ideas to capture their intended audiences. Laurano recommends incorporating the digital role heavily in your talent solution and to improve messaging.  “Go where your candidates are,” she says. And, for the most part, that is the digital space. Research confirms this concept:

• In a U.S. survey, recruiters said the top investments for growing an employer brand were: social media (47%), company career website (21%), and marketing and advertising (12%).
• Social media is used by 59% of candidates to research organizations in which they’re interested.

Reactive vs. Proactive Recruiting Strategy

In Laurano’s presentation, she emphasized the value of organizations nurturing talent before they apply, or a proactive versus reactive approach:

Reactive

“If we were to take the reactive recruiting approach and turn it into a funnel, it might look something like the diagram above. Sourcers fill up the talent pipeline while recruiters manage the selection process on behalf of the organization. However, there is no one working on behalf of the candidate and no real engagement process at the top of the funnel. As a result, the recruiter spends more time on screening résumés, phone screens, etc.”

Proactive

“If we flip the time allocation where recruiters spend less time on screening and focus on ensuring they have targeted, qualified candidates to begin with, the results would differ. There would be a higher rate of effectiveness by investing in relationship-building with targeted pools of talent, as opposed to a reactive, start-stop recruiting approach.”

Additional research only reinforces the proactive method, as 67% of employed American adults agree that the application, interview or offer process would make or break their decision on whether to take a job.

Global Aspect

Employer branding is difficult for global organizations, as it’s not always about the organization, but also the specific location, as well, which can get complicated. The core of your employer brand should start with a universal truth, but effective employers will also create messaging that speaks directly to different audiences and geographies. Laurano suggests a need for transparency for global organizations, as well as local flexibility and solutions to strengthen your employer branding.

What’s Next for Your Talent Solution?

Keeping up with the latest trends can be challenging to say the least, especially in the talent industry. Laurano’s research into the fundamental shift in talent acquisition provided some key insights and solutions that are beneficial when combating such rapid changes.

About the Expert

Madeline Laurano’s primary focus during the last 12+ years has been on the talent management market, specializing in talent acquisition. Her insights are based on her work as an analyst and advisor in the human capital space and her latest research with HR and talent acquisition practitioners. Laurano’s work helps companies both validate and reevaluate their strategies and understand the role technology can play in driving business outcomes. Before Aptitude Research, Laurano held research roles at Aberdeen, Bersin by Deloitte, ERE Media and Brandon Hall Group. She is co-author of “Best Practices in Leading a Global Workforce,” and has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Yahoo News, and The Financial Times. She is a frequent presenter at industry conferences, including the HR Technology Conference and Exposition, SHRM, IHRIM, HCI’s Strategic Talent Acquisition conference, GDS International’s HCM Summit, and HRO Today. Visit her website at https://www.aptituderesearch.com.

With the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to look at the past twenty years and see the inflection points where companies and industries either embraced or avoided disruptive technology. When Kodak struggled to adapt to the digital world, the company eventually declared bankruptcy. Blockbuster passed on the chance to purchase Netflix, and now, the video rental chain has just one store left open. Taxis fell to Uber and Lyft. There are countless examples in the graveyard of defunct or irrelevant companies and industries.

It is more difficult to spot that inflection point in the moment. For human resources, that moment is now. With an influx of new technologies entering the market, the role of HR is about to transform, and if it cannot adapt, it is bound to be left behind. Currently, many HR professionals are pulled away from more strategic work for simple repetitive tasks – which are prime targets for automation. Emerging tools can also provide HR with new insights – about things like which candidates are more likely to stay with the company and whether a role is better filled by a contingent or permanent worker in the current economy. These insights will provide HR with the opportunity to play a more significant role in decisions that impact the future of the business.

In this article, we walk through five ways new and emerging talent technology will make HR more strategic and why leaders should embrace change.

1. Automation Will Save Time

Everest Group predicts emerging technology has the potential to automate half of all talent acquisition activities. According to the report, “processes that are highly transactional and repetitive in nature have a higher potential for automation.” This includes tasks like resume screening, interview scheduling and sourcing candidates. However, other tasks, like communicating with top candidates and hiring managers, will continue to require a human touch.

Robotic process automation is already taking over some of the communication with candidates through recruitment marketing campaigns, interview scheduling tools and chatbots. RPA technology can ask prescreening questions or answer FAQs about positions and a company’s hiring process through a chatbot, send automated emails to engage candidates through a candidate relationship management tool and find an empty spot on a recruiter
or hiring manager’s calendar to help a candidate schedule a phone or in-person interview through an automated scheduling tool.

These tools mean that the way recruiters and talent acquisition professionals spend most of their days will transform drastically. Rather than spending time sifting through resumes, scheduling interviews and responding to emails, recruiters will be able to focus on the best candidates, develop creative solutions for hard-to-solve problems and build better candidate engagement strategies. This will reduce recruiter burn out, leaving them fresher and more engaged in important tasks.

Automation also improves the candidate experience. Rather than waiting for a response from a recruiter with an inbox full of emails, candidates can have a simple question answered instantly by a chatbot. Candidates won’t have to play phone tag or do the awkward dance of comparing schedules over email because they can easily schedule interviews on their own. This means, regardless of whether or not the candidate ultimately ends up in the role, they will be left with a more positive image of the organization. However, HR leaders need to take care to select the correct tools. If they don’t work as intended or don’t integrate well with other systems in place, recruiters may not be able to use them effectively and candidates could be left with a negative impression.

2. Data Analytics Will Provide New Insights to Inform Decision-Making

Big data is everywhere, and when applied to HR, it can allow leaders to make better, more informed decisions on both the micro and macro levels. Data analytics tools have the power to provide insights and predictions about individual candidate behaviors, the best tactics to use to fill a role and even long-term predictions about local job markets.

Predictive analytics is a type of data analytics that uses data to find patterns and then uses those models to attempt to predict the future. Predictive analytics can’t tell you what will happen, but it shows what is likely to happen based on past trends. Tools that incorporate predictive analytics can tell recruiters how likely a candidate is to leave their current job or stay in a position at your organization, for example.

These tools can also identify new channels to find strong candidates by identifying common themes in previous successful hires. For example, a predictive analytics tool could tell a recruiter that the best candidates tend to come from a few specific educational backgrounds. That way, a recruiter can focus on recruiting efforts to identify the best candidates with those qualities.

Predictive analytics can also help with more strategic business decisions. Workforce planning tools focus on the future by assessing current hiring needs and modeling how those needs will evolve. This data-focused approach can help organizations match talent forecasts with analysis of the talent pool to create a realistic view of the labor market. On a micro level, analyzing market data can help predict whether a role is better filled by a permanent or contingent worker in a specific location.

Workforce planning tools can also identify potential problems before they arise. For example, hiring patterns in a market could signal an impending shortage of talent six months into the future, allowing organizations to prepare and stay ahead of the competition. If an organization is looking to expand, predictive analytics can identify areas with the best candidates to fill the needed roles. This empowers HR to have a larger role in shaping the direction of the company. Because of this, it’s key that the right tools to collect historical and current data are in place. If the predictions are inaccurate or the data is not used properly, it could have the opposite effect.

3. AI Tools Will Develop More Effective Candidate Profiles, Job Descriptions and Recruitment Marketing

Another way technology can impact HR is through the use of AI tools that make recruiters more effective in interacting with candidates. This process starts during candidate generation, where AI tools can help you craft job titles and descriptions and continues as recruiters communicate with candidates throughout the hiring process.

AI tools can help recruiters put together stronger candidate personas, by using data to show what factors predict success and where recruiters can find the best candidates, as we discussed earlier. Then, certain technology tools can help recruiters optimize job titles and craft job descriptions that will show up in search results and appeal to the greatest number of candidates.

AI can also help identify exclusionary language that could discourage a certain gender or minority group from applying to a position. This is particularly important because unconscious bias can allow gendered words to creep into our vocabulary without us realizing it. According to Harvard Business School, words like “ninja” discourage women from applying, while words like “supportive” and “collaborative” can discourage men. By using technology to avoid this, recruiters can build better and more diverse candidate pipelines.

As recruiters communicate with candidates, other tools can make the process more personal. Career sites can track what types of jobs candidates view, apply to or start, but never finish. Tracking this data allows recruitment marketing tools to recommend jobs that appeal to the candidate and match their skills and expertise, or to prompt a candidate to complete their application. Once a candidate provides their information, recruiters can use recruitment marketing tools to build personalized marketing streams that will appeal to candidates and encourage them to apply.

These tools help recruiters identify and market to stronger candidates more efficiently, which not only frees up time but also helps build a better workforce, improving business outcomes for the organizations. Here, AI algorithms need to be carefully monitored. Because AI is constantly evolving, errors in an AI platform’s logic can quickly grow, making problems hard to trace. This is especially true if errors are made at the beginning of the process causing the common problem of garbage in, garbage out.

4. AI Sourcing and Improved Assessments Will Identify Candidates with the Right Cultural Fit

Talent technology will also help recruiters identify passive candidates with the skills of the future and the ability to learn and grow with an organization. Passive sourcing tools use artificial intelligence to identify the best candidates for a role – regardless of whether or not those people are actively looking for jobs. The tools can search social media, job boards and more, finding candidates who match target personas. Passive sourcing provides recruiters with a list of strong candidates without the time required to conduct manual searches.

New types of assessments will also help recruiters identify the best candidates. Video interviewing tools can provide additional information about candidates from their facial expressions and tone of voice. This can provide insights into a candidate’s personality, which will help recruiters make better choices about which candidates are the best cultural fit with an organization.  

Additionally, new assessments can evaluate the passion, purpose and mindset of candidates. This means recruiters can learn about a candidate’s enthusiasm, enjoyment and commitment to mastering the requirements of a role, their alignment with and willingness to contribute to the vision and values of an organization and whether they have a growth mindset, which is the belief that one’s talents can be developed through education and effort. With this information, recruiters can identify candidates who will align with the goals and culture of an organization, increasing the likelihood that the candidate will stay long-term. By identifying candidates with a growth mindset, recruiters can select candidates who have the ability to learn and grow in the rapidly transforming world of work.

This empowers talent acquisition leaders to better identify and hire the candidates who align with the long-term goals of an organization, enabling the company to meet strategic objectives faster and stay ahead. However, this is another case where HR should be aware that the wrong tools and assessments could actually inject bias into the process, so leaders should be sure to partner with an organization that is aware of and carefully monitors for that risk.

5. Compliance Tools Will Reduce Risk, Freeing Funds and Resources

Another significant aspect of HR is dealing with the multitude of compliance risks that vary by jurisdiction. Technology can automate parts of that process, making it not only more efficient but also more compliant.

Compliance tools can automate background checks and drug tests as a part of the pre-employment and onboarding process. This ensures that every potential employee completes the testing and that the process aligns with all local and federal regulations.

According to SHRM, predictive analytics tools can also be used to assess pay equity, an incredibly hot topic in compliance right now. At least 12 jurisdictions have some sort of pay equity law preventing employers from asking about salary history in an effort to reduce pay discrimination. Because the issue is at the forefront, employers should track this information and take steps to reduce pay inequality at their own organizations. Data analytics tools can monitor and report on any pay gaps for protected groups.

Additionally, Forbes reports that AI can identify “red areas” where fraud or unethical behavior may be more likely and bring those to the attention of HR so they can intervene early or even before bad behavior occurs. AI can also identify behaviors that cause poor work performance, recognizing patterns of stress or bad behavior that could cause safety concerns.

Technology can also assist in the process of collecting documents from workers, and providing workers with required forms and legal documents, protecting the organization from potential regulatory errors. Compliance lapses can be expensive and time-consuming; having reliable tools can keep your organization safe.

Conclusion

The current talent acquisition technology landscape is both exciting and complicated for employers. Technology already available on the market will allow HR to be more strategic, but it needs to be implemented and used effectively. When selecting the right tools, employers need to look for solutions that have tangible benefits – not just tools that are interesting. Using the wrong tools has the potential to do more harm than good, so employers should look for partners that can meet their needs now and flex and growth with them into the future.

Google’s first commercial for the 2019 Super Bowl showcased Translate, Google’s language translation feature. Google’s second commercial of the night was also about the power of translation, only this time the focus was on helping veterans translate their military skills into civilian careers.

The aforementioned ad illustrated how Google for Jobs helps veterans and other U.S. service members quickly find civilian jobs by searching “jobs for veterans” on Google and then entering their military occupational specialty codes. They are then provided with search results for civilian jobs with similar skills to those used in their military roles. Now, a group of job seekers that had difficulty finding roles online can easily conduct a simple Google job search.

Launched in 2017, Google for Jobs, or Google Jobs, is a job search platform that goes well beyond simple search efforts by pulling relevant job-related data from multiple partners and company sites into one intelligent search function. In this article, we will walk through an explanation of what Google Jobs is, how it works, how it can affect talent acquisition and what to keep in mind before incorporating Google Jobs into your recruitment strategy.

What is Google for Jobs?

Google Jobs connects interested job seekers with relevant positions from job boards and career websites around the world. Google allows users to filter job searches the same way you can search for anything else online, with criteria like location, posting date, type of company, etc. It even includes pay estimates from several outside sources. With more than one-third of Google’s monthly searches coming from job-related requests, Google Jobs helps bridge the gap between job seekers searching for career opportunities and employers looking to provide them.

How Does Google Jobs Work?

Google Jobs pulls job board listings from around the web into its platform through partnerships with LinkedIn, CareerBuilder, Facebook, Monster and others. Postings on a company’s career site are also pulled into the Google Jobs engine. Initially launched in the United States, the platform is available to millions of job seekers from North and South America, Latin America, Africa, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

When a user searches for a job, Google serves up the most relevant job description, location, seniority, job types and salary content available courtesy of machine learning. Machine learning is a subset of AI that adjusts and learns without being explicitly programmed. Traditional Google search queries use algorithms to sort through hundreds of billions of web pages to find and present the most relevant, useful results to a user. Google Jobs’ search mechanism operates similarly, only its enhanced use of machine learning only retrieves results from job postings, which it lists at the top of a user’s search results.

If you start by searching directly in Google for “jobs near me for ‘Nurses,’” using Chicago as a location, roles with a few local healthcare organizations, along with 100+ more jobs, appear. Additional filters also are available, such as jobs posted in the “past 3 days” or “full-time” jobs. Users can view these filters at the top of the screen.

If a user clicks to see additional jobs using the “100+ jobs” link at the bottom of the results page, this next screen appears:

Users can then explore their Google Jobs search using the following features:

• Jobs are displayed in the left column.
• Filters are available across the top of the screen, such as title, date posted and type of employer. For example, if you click on “title,” related titles appear, such as a surgical or clinical nurse.
• Pay comparisons are available at the bottom of the listing from other sources such as Glassdoor.
• Alerts are available for your job search in the lower left-hand corner. You can turn alerts on or off with your Gmail account and save for future use.

How Does Google Jobs Affect Talent Acquisition?

Extending your recruiting strategy by integrating with Google Jobs benefits talent acquisition programs through increased reach, better candidate choice and reduced costs.

Expands Your Reach

Google Jobs expands your pool of candidates by crawling millions of job listings across the internet and presenting jobs relevant to a user’s inquiry that may not appear during a traditional search.

So, once you’ve posted your open positions on job boards integrated with the Google Jobs platform – your reach is instantly amplified.

Google also provides developers and website owners access to the new “jobs search feature” where they can embed company logos, job seeker reviews, ratings and job details. This feature functions outside of organic and paid search on Google, so job postings are easier to find and more prominent than before.

And for organizations with smaller recruiting teams, Google Jobs helps level the playing field by allowing their job postings to appear organically to the same candidates as those advertising on job boards.

Filtering Out Unqualified Candidates

When a job gets posted online, recruiters get inundated with a torrent of qualified and unqualified candidates alike. Filtering through these resumes is time-consuming and reduces a recruiter’s ability to quickly identify quality job candidates.

With Google Jobs’ multiple filters, it is possible for recruiters to better target candidates and only receive the resumes that best align with specific roles.

For example, instead of receiving generic resumes for nurses, now it is possible to filter results so that recruiters only receive resumes from entry-level nurses with two-years of experience in a hospital setting who live in Atlanta and expect to be paid $35K-$70K annually.

Reduces Cost

Increasingly, the need to go to CareerBuilder, Glassdoor, LinkedIn and others to post your job listing is waning as Google Jobs principally provides the same service in a more cost-effective manner. The average cost of interviewing, scheduling, and hiring a candidate is thousands of dollars; this cost could be reduced if recruiters work with fewer third-party job boards and advertising partners.

Considerations

Before your job postings begin appearing in millions of Google searches, here are a few tips to get started.

Optimize Your Job Listings

Keep your descriptions short and specific. Avoid any internal jargon that candidates would not search for or know. Study other ads in the market to make sure your job description has some similarity. Also, check to make sure your listing is consistent with your employer brand.

Enhance SEO

Google Jobs is a powerful tool. However, to harness its full potential, you should make sure your job postings are optimized for search. This means making sure you are tagging the correct keywords, titles and other attributes.

Mobile Ready

Make sure your listings are updated for mobile search, where 90% of job seekers now search first. You can use the quick test Google offers to check to see if your website is currently mobile-optimized as well.

What to Keep in Mind?

Connect Your Job Listings

There are a few main paths to connect your listings with Google Jobs. If you post jobs directly through your website, you can connect directly with Google. However, this option requires some technical knowledge such as marking up jobs, crawling, indexing, enriched search, APIs and structured data. This direct connection path can also come through your applicant tracking system (ATS) provider. Another option is to work through a third-party to manage your postings, e.g. LinkedIn.

Remove Old Listings

Google may penalize your site if job postings that have been filled are still being displayed, so make sure you regularly remove old listings.

Understand Not Everyone is Involved (Yet)

Certain jobs may not be included in Google Jobs search results, as some job boards are not integrated into the platform. As of April 2019, job search giant Indeed has not yet partnered with Google Jobs, so any efforts talent acquisition groups have with Indeed remain separate for now.

Conclusion

Working with Google Jobs benefits talent acquisition programs through increased reach, better candidate filtering and reduced costs. Before integrating Google Jobs into your TA strategy, organizations need to optimize their job postings. Companies need to understand the pros and cons of managing a Google Jobs program in-house versus working through an ATS provider or third-party integrator. Most ATS providers are optimized for Google Jobs, but make sure to confirm with your vendor. Talent acquisition leaders can also consider using the ATS module within PeopleScout’s proprietary talent technology platform, Affinix. Google Jobs is available today through Affinix.