Trends that will shape recruitment in 2015

Come 2015, recruiting leaders globally will have higher budgets and even higher hiring volumes, with a strong need to focus on "quality of hire". 

They will also need a much stronger focus on social networks, and will need to structure a strategy for passive candidate recruiting, which currently only 61% of global companies have. 

These are the global trends highlighted in LinkedIn's latest recruitment trends report, which gathered input from more than 4,000 recruiting leaders across 31 countries. 

The findings outlined that for the first time in four years, 63% of leaders expect hiring volumes to rise, as well as 46% who anticipate an increase in hiring budgets. 

It also found that a significant 38% expect to source talent from social professional networks - a number that has increased by 78% since 2011 - second only to internet job boards at 42%. 

"Because of this increased competition, recruiting leaders must come up with a long-strategy for winning over talent and arm themselves with the latest talent pool data," said the report.

"Where do your target hires live, what’s the breakdown in seniority levels, where did they go to school, what did they study, and what’s the best tailored message to get them interested in your job? If your competition knows these things and you don’t, they will have a leg up."

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The biggest obstacle to landing talent, however, is not the hiring budget; but competition and compensation, far more serious than other issues like 'lack of interest in the employer brand' or 'location'.

The war for talent is expected to be especially heated in Southeast Asia, with 58% citing 'competition' as a major challenge.

Perhaps that's why passive recruiting is on the rise, with 61% of global companies constantly on the lookout for candidates. China is the most aggressive in passive recruiting at 83%, while the US follows at 72%.

"Globally, 75% of professionals are open to new opportunities yet only 61% of companies recruit passive candidates. When companies only focus on the 25% - active candidates who apply to jobs, they miss out on fishing in the deeper end of the pool – the 75% who are open to considering a career change," noted the report.

Meanwhile, as candidates become increasingly mobile, companies are looking to embrace mobile recruiting. Almost one in every three companies (30%) has mobile-optimised its job postings, and its careers website (34%).

Online job boards continue to lead the way, though, as the top preferred candidate source, followed closely by social professional networks, a metric which has risen by 73% over four years.

This trend of social recruiting was especially evident in Mexico (52%) and Spain (51%). Indian companies were the most reliant on online job boards at 79%.

Image: Shutterstock

For more on recruitment, follow the conversation at Recruitment Interactive 2014.