There are many valuable sourcing stats and insights in the “Sources of Hire 2017 Report” from applicant tracking system company Silkroad. Here are the top 7 that caught my eye:
- 46% of employers had difficulty filling jobs in 2016 (up from 32% in 2015)
- 92% of employers expect an increase in competition for talent this year
- Employee referrals remain the top sourcing method for hires, increasing 5% over last year
- External sourcing applicants make up 62% of interviews but just 48% of hires
- Indeed is responsible for 72% of interviews and 65% of hires, easily beating out competitors like LinkedIn, CareerBuilder, Monster, and Glassdoor (Ongig note: we expect Indeed’s market share to go down as a result of Google for Jobs!)
- External sourcing applicants have a big hill to climb getting to an interview: completing 4x the applications and 2x # of interviews to find a good fit versus internal sourcing applicants (employee referrals, recruiter sourced)
- Campus recruiting appears to be gaining in effectiveness (hires increased 14% from last year even though interviews decreased by 4% during that time
Another gem from the report was related to the “Best Practices for Finding the Best candidates” — here are some of their tips:
- “Know your audience” (emphasizes prep working on job descriptions)– research the audience, qualities and characteristics needed for the position and company, review star performer’s profiles
- “Create a persona” qualities — create a career story to attract that persona
- “Develop employee value proposition” — conduct interviews with staff to expand on patterns found in data. Craft a compelling message to attract and then market it heavily in all communication avenues
- “Evaluate the current candidate experience” — go mobile, remove complexity, create communication process that reflects the brand, provide training to staff on how to present the brand and to hiring managers on the interview process to reduce bias
- “Connect candidate to company goals” — help candidates envision their role to create vested interest and promote programs in place to set them up for success
