For the 13th consecutive year, CareerXroads, the American recruitment consultancy organization, has examined how businesses go about recruiting employees. The figures show an increase in sourcing and a decrease in referencing, which remains the top source of external recruiting. .
To get to the bottom of it, CareerXroads asked more than 50 major American companies how they found the workers they hired in 2013.
The companies surveyed first considered their own pool of talent to find that gem. Indeed, over 40% of recruiting processes take place internally and almost half of the recruiting job is done entirely by their respective human resources teams, and not delegated to outside companies.
Fundamental trends at work
Referring a candidate is the leading source of external hires, with 19.2%, followed closely by the career section found on a company’s website and job sites. Sourcing came in fourth with 12%. On-campus recruitment and the use of lead agencies represent 7.5% and 6% of new hires respectively. Job fairs, print ads and spontaneous candidates that arrive on the company’s sites are ranked last.
In comparison with previous years, the results show that since 2005, recruiters are increasingly turning away from referencing, job fairs and recruitment through paper ads. Instead, corporate sites, job boards and sourcing methods are on the rise.
Gerry Crispin, co-founder of CareerXroads, has analyzed the decline of referral programs, which have lost their novelty. They are quickly being replaced by means that rely more on the social dimensions of the Internet, such as sourcing. In fact, 60% of respondents reported having a team dedicated exclusively to sourcing, a sign that it is becoming more and more popular.
The active use of LinkedIn
This study also offers another lesson, which is that recruitment via social media depends on the type of job being posted. Rarely used by employers who hire employees paid by the hour, it is mostly preferred when trying to find experienced professionals and, to a lesser extent, managers and beginners. However, for all types of employees, social media’s influence is still far from dominant. For experienced professionals, 19% of respondents believe it is dominant and 35% believe it to be significant.
As for recruiters making use of LinkedIn, it too has its active components – checking LinkedIn profiles – and passive workings – posting jobs on LinkedIn and waiting for candidates to emerge.
In the future, the majority of respondents said they would further explore LinkedIn profiles and contact potential future employees by sending them LinkedIn messages. They also consider devoting more time in participating in LinkedIn groups in order to find candidates.
With the growing popularity of LinkedIn, CV banks are loosing their appeal. Half the companies that go through job sites hire directly from posted announcements rather than tapping into the resume database. Only 12% of respondents said they were directly looking for CVs rather than going through an ad.