Finding a job just a few years ago took initiative, motivation and commitment. Up until the early 1990s, the best source of talent came from the classified ads in the Sunday newspaper. Job seekers had to type, mail or fax a resume or even visit the place of business and fill out an application in person. Finding a job required intention and effort on the part of the candidate.  

Technology changed everything. Today a candidate can upload a resume or fill out a form one time and with the click of a key, apply for 100s of jobs at companies they know nothing about. Unfortunately most companies still recruit and screen candidates like jobseekers are still living in the 1970s! This disconnect is one reason  for the explosion of “ghosting” – where candidates don’t respond to employer requests.  But we shouldn’t blame the candidates, Wolfe says, “they’ve been trained for years because recruiters have failed to acknowledge job applicants or respond promptly (if ever).

Sohn believes companies take too long to screen, interview and hire employees. Most companies take 42 days or more to hire a candidate, which is unrealistic in today’s market. Forty-two minutes often makes the difference between hiring an employee or losing him to your competition.  The most recent results from The Talent Board’s CandE Benchmark research continues to show the top two job candidate pet peeves are “my time was disrespected” and “the recruiting process took too long.”

To help gauge the market and hiring sentiment, Recruiter.com started their own recruiter index in May of 2020. Sohn says it’s based o the idea that, “recruiters are the air traffic controllers of the job market.” The index has already become a recognized indicator of job market trends and challenges, relying on a variety of variables, such as the quanity of jobs, variety of jobs, compensation trends and others.

One variable with rising importance is work life balance. According to The Recruiter Index, work-life balance (aka flexibility) is now more important than compensation as a candidate magnet.

Throwing money at candidates is a short term band-aid. 

Sohn cites how Amazon couldn’t attract enough employees for its full time shipping job. So it shifted its strategy and started messaging the job as a part-time job attractive to people who needed extra cash for the holidays. It proved successful. A few companies have taken even more extreme positions – targeting non-vaccinated candidates. Regardless of the strategy, all these variables will lead to what Sohn calls the “Gig Economy.” In the future. companies will need to get much better at matching and balancing the priorities of job seekers with company needs.

In the short term, Sohn also suggests the solution to these changing variables is that recruiters need to create a bigger recruiting funnel to end up with the candidate they need and want. You can’t just recruit purple unicorn candidates who live in the neighborhood and will accept market wages with no consideration for personal life and well-being.

Recruiter.com ranked diversity as a top six issue going forward. Workers, community, and government are beginning to demand more diversity, not just on the front lines but in the C-Suite too. Sohn predicts diversity will be a leading issue and spur changes in the workplace in 2022.