Just like any other activity that depends on market fluctuations, job search trends are under constant change.
Candidates sticking to old tactics might find their efforts ineffective.
When looking for true talents and passionate employees, recruiters are taking into account more factors and information sources than ever to make the best decisions.
Read on! Knowing what recruiters are looking for will help you dramatically improve your chances of landing a great job.
The top 10 job search trends:
1. Mobile recruiting
It’s a fact. Recruitment is following other business sectors into mobile environments.
In 2015, recruiters will use their mobile phones to post job listings, research candidates, contact them, and forward their resumes to colleagues. Jobvite found out that over half of all recruiters plan to increase their investment in mobile recruiting. (Jobvite Social Recruiting Survey)
And where recruiters go, job seekers soon follow. In a recent survey, Glassdoor showed that 9 out of 10 candidates plan to use mobile devices in their job search within the next year.
This is 7 percent more than was reported last year. Takeaway message? To meet recruiters right where they’re hunting, extend your job-seeking activities to innovative digital technologies: they’ll ensure your presence on mobile platforms.
2. Social media presence
In 2015, social media presence of job candidates will be more important than ever. It’s safe to say that social recruiting has become nothing short of an essential resource for hunting talented and qualified job candidates.
The Jobvite survey demonstrated that 73% of recruiters used social media to hire candidates. (Jobvite Survey)
When it comes to candidate recruitment, the top social network is LinkedIn, but it’s not the only valuable social medium for recruiting.
In certain contexts, Facebook or Twitter might be equally valuable: helping recruiters to assess whether the candidate is a thought leader in their sector and whether their professional network is a significant asset to this hire.
3. Job search outsourcing
It seems surprising, but experts expect that in 2015, job search service outsourcing will emerge as a more widespread practice.
An increasing number of job seekers will resort to hiring private services both in their country and internationally to manage certain aspects of their job search, such as resume creation, recruiter reach services, LinkedIn profile optimization, and career coaching.
This of course doesn’t mean that hired professionals will appear with candidates on job interviews or in the middle of salary negotiations, but rather that things like company research, social media activity, networking, and relationship management will be scratched off from the busy calendars of candidates.
4. Social networking
Social networking is a major trend that is simply bound to expand in 2015. Recruiters use more and more social media platforms to create relationships with candidates each year.
Still, LinkedIn gets the majority of their trust with an astounding 57% increase in recruiting activities on its site the last four years.
That’s why candidates should consider social networking seriously. It’s not just about having informative profiles and lots of connections: it’s also about the value that they bring to their professional community.
Social networking also allows networking with recruiters who use their social media accounts precisely to engage with (and recruit) candidates who are active online.
5. Thought leadership
Content marketing is on the rise and this development is likely to spread to job search in 2015. Ever since LinkedIn launched its blogging platform, it promoted a space for personal branding and thought leadership.
It’s a brilliant way to drive more traffic to your LinkedIn profile: LinkedIn content usually boasts very high ranking in Google, so by posting and sharing relevant and interesting articles of your own creation, you’ll attract the attention of recruiters, hiring managers and company owners.
6. Video recruitment
The use of videos in job seeking has been gaining steam for years, but 2015 is taking this art to a completely different level. The proliferation of video in recruiting practices means that if you want to use this form seriously, you need to find a way to be original and authentic.
Why not create a short video and attach it to your LinkedIn profile? Showcase your professional experience and brand.
Or, focus on one accomplishment, showing why it was challenging, what was the action you took and what were the results. For ideas, search for “video resume” on YouTube.
7. Passive recruitment
In 2015, recruiters are hunting for passive candidates (employed candidates who are not actively looking) like never before. Passive talent is especially important on the American scene, where 72% of companies admit that they prefer to hire passive (employed) candidates.
This trend of recruiters targeting employed prospects is why you should have a great resume ready at all times, not just for when you decide to look for other opportunities. A resume showcasing your achievements and reflecting your career brand is vital in passive recruitment.
Likewise, it’s essential to have a fully optimized LinkedIn profile. How essential? According to LinkedIn, candidates have a 40 times greater chance of landing a job with a fully optimized LinkedIn profile than if they have no profile or a bad one. Get a fully optimized profile from LinkedWISE.
8. Online profiles
The 2014 Jobvite survey showed that 93% of recruiters looked at a candidate’s social media profile (particularly LinkedIn) before making the hiring decision.
Just like your resume, your online profiles should tell a story that perfectly reflects your career brand and resonates with recruiters.
When creating online profiles, make sure that all of your information is accurate and that there are no inconsistencies between your resume and information on your online profiles. Recruiters are less likely to trust you if they catch discrepancies.
Depending on your industry, choose your profile photo carefully: for some sectors, casual dress works fine, but for others, business dress is expected.
9. Talents go external
There is a major global shift in employment happening in 2015. Many companies now hire mostly outsourced talent, such as consultants, freelancers, outside providers, and contractors, rather than hiring full-time workers.
Smart job seekers should take this trend into account and let staffing agencies know if you are interested in their contract, temp-to-hire and temporary positions, in addition to full-time job opportunities.
10. Data-based decision making
Data and metrics are at the center of practically every business decision-making sector of a company nowadays. Recruitment is finally embracing this trend.
It’s likely that in 2015, more recruiters will go for data-driven hires … and for good reason. Recruiters have already determined that metrics-based decisions are 25% more successful than those made based on instinctive candidate assessments.
Moreover, instead of seeing historical metrics take the lead, recruiters will use impressive real-time and predictive analytics to support their hiring decisions. What does this tell us? That data will be extremely important for job seeking.
This new development should also help candidates in depersonalizing the recruitment process. Instead of thinking there’s something wrong with them, they can interpret bad news as a particular instance when an analytics algorithm clearly wasn’t in their favor.
Recruitment practices change along with the economy, job market and culture, so you’ve got to be ready. Acknowledge the importance of the job trends and incorporate the latest recruitment changes into your job search repertoire to improve your job chances.