What Does The Future Hold For Recruitment Tech?

5 top talent leaders weigh in

The Great Resignation is still in full effect, the war for tech talent is raging fiercely, and remote and hybrid recruiting is continuing to throw talent teams for a loop. In this candidate-driven labor market, technology is not just a nice-to-have aspect of the recruitment process, it’s an absolute necessity. 
 

According to a recruitment technology study we conducted earlier this year, 24% of talent leaders reported that their teams have more than 10 technology tools in their stacks – and over half had added new tools in the past year. Much of this technology is geared toward solving what they said are their top three hiring challenges: building a solid talent pipeline, improving talent quality and bolstering candidate diversity. 

The pains of passive recruiting are also weighing heavily on talent acquisition professionals. In our study, 71% said they’re doing more passive recruiting than they were a year earlier – and that was before the Great Resignation really took hold. When you consider it can take upward of 20 hours over several weeks to fill a single role with a passive candidate, recruiters are happy with any assistance technology can provide. 

Technology is already demonstrating profound and measurable effects on the recruitment process, and there’s more to come. I connected with several prominent talent acquisition leaders from across the country, and gathered their expert insights on the biggest trends defining the future of recruitment technology and how technology is aiding their searches for top talent. Here’s what I learned. 
“The future of recruitment tech is virtual hiring to unlock a truly global workforce. We’ll also see the enhanced use of AI to help us source, select and hire the best candidates at speed, and tools to support an unbiased and inclusive hiring process to elevate diversity and inclusion. Also, any technology that will help people leaders and teams predict on-the-job performance and success.”

“In the post-pandemic, extremely competitive and remote talent landscape we're in today, we're looking to technology to help us find untapped talent sources across the globe and to help us make better hiring decisions, faster. We're also leveraging technology to help us hire a more diverse workforce and expanding the definition of diversity beyond the common factors”

“Looking out over the next couple of years, there are three buckets of recruitment technologies that I expect will be leveraged more industry-wide. The first is technology that will help organizations provide a world-class candidate experience. It’s a must. With it being a candidates’ market, we need to be leveraging technology to give candidates a differentiated and truly special experience so they want to join our team! The second is technology that helps us find untapped talent around the globe.”

“Traditional talent search isn't working, so we need technology that will help us dig deeper and think differently about the type of talent we're looking for (soft skills, transferable skills, not-so-obvious traits or attributes, etc.). The third is tech that supports and helps us manage and drive internal mobility. Growth and development is the number one driver of employee engagement and given today's competitive talent landscape, employees are looking for opportunities for growth and progression in their current roles, which organizations need to do a better job of facilitating.”
   
“AI-based sourcing tools are proving incredibly useful and bringing great efficiencies to recruitment, so that’s one major trend set to see significant growth. Another is the ease of use of all types of recruiting tools on mobile devices. It’ll be a critical capability for recruiters moving into the future. A third is integration with social media marketing and brand, which is an area where we’re focused.”

“We’re in high-growth mode, expected to increase employee headcount three-fold in 2022, so we’re currently leaning heavily on technology to help us find ready-made candidates, conduct very targeted sourcing and create very targeted ads for our job postings. Looking ahead the next couple of years, we’ll be tapping more into AI and embedded sourcing tools, as well as leveraging technology to help us integrate social values and priorities into the EVP (Employee Value Proposition).”
 
“In my view, one of the biggest trends in recruitment technology is leveraging AI and machine learning to find people with the required skills, regardless of specific educational backgrounds and geography (helped by more hybrid working arrangements). When done well, this technology will help find the right people in a non-biased way, which will be a critical enabler as leaders continue to focus on DEI strategies and really moving the needle.”
 
“From my perspective, the biggest trends defining recruitment technology are those that will transform the hiring process to expand access to talent, assess talent more expansively and qualitatively, and create greater space for human relational interaction–both to enhance the candidate experience and showcase the company's values, culture and leadership throughout the process."

"In this regard, companies that invest in recruitment technology to filter out bias to appeal to a greater diversity of talent, expand sourcing beyond traditional talent pools, transform candidate experience into meaningful skills and attributes of performance and potential, and translate hiring requirements into success and growth profiles will have an edge in finding and recruiting top talent.”

“The competitive advantage to attract and retain talent, however, will always be a company’s human connection, which is even more true in today's intensely candidate-driven job market and for a workforce that is looking for connection and opportunities to contribute and grow. Work is a human endeavor, and whatever recruitment technology that companies choose needs to enhance the human-to-human and the emotional aspects of talent acquisition that cannot be replaced by a technology solution."
  “Looking to the future of recruitment tech, sourcing and candidate outreach are by far the biggest trends. Sourcing has grown to be an even more challenging proposition, and it’s one area where technology can play a big role in helping talent teams successfully unearth qualified candidates, even when they’re not actively searching for a job. Teams that are able to masterfully incorporate technology into their sourcing strategies will win in the competitive talent landscape.”
 
“For my personal team, automation has been a game-changer and something we’re implementing more of. It saves us a ton of time and can enforce solid candidate follow-up. When I evaluate new technology, my litmus test is whether it can help us eliminate repetitive rote tasks and get my team more time on the phone with candidates. Automation is a big piece of that for us.” 

Hari Kolam is Co-Founder and CEO at Findem. A serial entrepreneur and accomplished technologist, Hari counts nearly two decades of experience building companies and creating trailblazing technology solutions.   Connect Hari Kolam