We’ve been running our monthly CandE Pulse surveys for well over a year now and continue to have interesting recruiting trend data we’re sharing again in this article. There has been a burning question, though that we never had any data on from these surveys as well as our annual CandE Benchmark Research.
What recruiting technology systems are employers using that help them the most with their candidate communications, scheduling, and feedback (and include email, texting, messaging, etc.)?
Recruiting technologies are a big part of executing recruiting and hiring processes. However, the long-running, painful joke in talent acquisition circles is that the day before you implement a new recruiting technology, you start hating it.
The fact is, too many companies struggle with tech utilization because tech optimization is less than from the very beginning. And even though candidates only care about getting the jobs they apply for and not the technologies driving their communications and rejections, the very same technologies impact their candidate experience and their perception of fairness. Both of these impact whether or not candidates will continue to engage the business and the brand, especially if they aren’t hired, and most aren’t for any given job.
As we do each year in our benchmark research, and now monthly in our CandE Pulse surveys, we again highlight how employers self-rate their own recruiting and candidate experience and whether or not they are leading, competing, improving, or lagging. Of the over 100 responses in March, those who said they were lagging remained unchanged, while those who said they were improving decreased slightly (see figure below).
Those who said they were competing decreased 13%, from 52% to 45%, and those who said they were leading increased a whopping 64%, from 22% to 36%. Yes, these are self-ratings and are subjective, and they are a different mix of employers each month, but we definitely like hearing about the confidence in competing and leading. Of course, the proof is in the candidate experience rating pudding.
Self-Rating Recruiting and Candidate Experience
So, back to our burning question: What recruiting technology systems are employers using that help them the most with their candidate communications, scheduling, and feedback (and include email, texting, messaging, etc.)?
Since this is the first time we included a question about specific recruiting technologies being employed to help with candidate communications, scheduling, and feedback, the top 10 include:
When we filter the data by those who said they were competing and leading in their recruiting and candidate experience delivery, the top 10 shifts a bit, but includes the same providers:
It will be interesting to see how this trends month to month going forward. It’s important to note that this is based on those employers that responded and will respond going forward. We can’t tie these self-assessed results to our candidate benchmark ratings, at least not yet. In 2025, we’ll start tracking that.
Lastly, while we didn’t specify whether or not the above recruiting technologies had AI capabilities or not, we do know that the highest-rated employers in our 2023 CandE Benchmark Research (i.e., CandE Winners) tend to leverage AI recruiting technologies to improve recruiting and the candidate experience, more than all other participating companies (based on over 240,000 global candidate responses). AI technologies can help improve communication and feedback loops with candidates throughout the candidate journey. We’ve only just begun to collect for the 2024 CandE Benchmark Research Program, and there’s plenty of time for employers to participate.
You can see even more CandE Winner differentiators in our Candidate Expectations Versus Employer Realities report and the complete 2023 Global CandE Benchmark Research Report that’s now available and includes stage-based takeaways and CandE Winner case studies.
Although recruiting as a profession still feels lukewarm, the job growth numbers since January have exceeded expectations. March had another big number – 303,000 jobs created. The unemployment rate edged lower to 3.8%, even though the labor force participation rate moved higher to 62.7%. Growth was attributed mostly to healthcare, with 72,000 new jobs, followed by government (71,000), leisure and hospitality (49,000), and construction (39,000). Wages were up as well and are predicted to outpace current inflation.
Great news indeed. Since January 2023, we’ve been asking our CandE Community and beyond about what their priorities are month to month in our CandE Pulse surveys. So, with all this continued growth, what are the current recruiting priorities? For the fourth month in a row now, screening and interviewing has been the number one CandE Pulse recruiting priority.
A new addition in the top five is “recruiting events,” coming in at #4. It’s actually the first time it’s been in the top five, another sign of the hiring growth we’re seeing in the overall job numbers and our CandE Pulse surveys. It’s also great that “candidate experience” remains in the top 5. Priorities always fluctuate, and we’ve seen plenty of variation over the past year. This time, Preboarding / Onboarding came in at #2, Diversity & Inclusion came in at #4, and the Application Process and Recruiting Events were tied at #5.
Top 5 Recruiting and Hiring Priorities
As always, this is only a partial list of what we ask, and it’s clear that priorities can change. A lot. Every single month. Granted, there is a different mix of employers responding to these surveys each month, but it is still a sample set of current priorities.
Again, our March CandE Pulse survey respondents represented over 100 employers. Nearly 50% were 2,500-100,000+ in total employee size, and another 27% with 500-2,500 employees. This month’s top represented industries were manufacturing, healthcare, finance & insurance, construction, consumer Goods, services, government (public sector), and hospitality.
In addition to asking what employers’ priorities are month after month, we also ask them how they will get all the work done. Out of the top five monthly, the most regularly recurring is “Improving Processes.” This makes sense since it is where companies should tackle priority improvement and implementation first and foremost.
The next regularly recurring activity in March was “Current Staffing,” which also resonates with us. We’ve heard from many in our CandE Community that they are working hard to maximize their already thinner teams, just like in January and February. But as you’ll see below, hiring continues to be higher, and recruiting teams are increasing (at least for those who responded). Current technologies and new technologies were also key to recruiting for employers in March. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, we hope they’re continuously optimizing their tech stacks and supposedly improved processes because they impact a big part of the candidate experience.
Candidate/employee survey feedback was again in the top five, and of course, we’re happy to see that. Employers need accurate and timely feedback data to improve their processes, and that includes participating in our annual CandE Benchmark Research Program and investing in continuous candidate experience feedback with our survey partner, Survale.
Top 5 Ways to Get It All Done
March CandE Pulse respondents said they’ve been hiring, and it’s up again slightly. It’s also still higher than it’s been since early 2023. Laying off and redeploying are also down. This aligns with the Labor Department data and continues to contribute to the narrative of economic improvement.
Hiring Status
All job types of hiring except senior leadership (contract, entry-level, hourly, professional, and management) were about the same in March as in February. It’s important to note that the mix of employers responding to our CandE Pulse surveys do vary each month, and it’s not all net new hiring, but seeing stable hiring month after month is promising.
We also ask employers each month whether they’ve increased or decreased the size of their recruiting team. In March, recruiting team size increased dramatically, like in January, to 47%, and again, it has been higher on average since last fall. Those who said their recruiting teams decreased were at 5%.
Increased or Decreased Recruiting Team Size
We’ve also started asking whether recruiting budgets have increased or decreased, and in March, 49% of respondents said it had increased, which is higher than in both January and February. We’ll have to wait a few months to see if there’s a greater trend here since the responding companies change each month. This will be something we’ll continue to monitor as it impacts the ability of talent acquisition and their teams to get their recruiting and hiring work done.
Increased or Decreased Recruiting Budget
Our March CandE Pulse recruiting indicators look good and align with the broader jobs report. There’s a lot of 2024 recruiting and hiring ahead of us, and we’ll keep monitoring and sharing what happens month after month. In fact, you can jump right in and answer our April CandE Pulse here.
Recruiting technologies will continue to be a big part of recruiting success, especially when they help deliver timely and consistent candidate communications, interview scheduling, and more. Although recruiting priorities will vary over the course of any given year, TA teams should work to improve and sustain their recruiting and hiring processes, ensure their technologies are fully optimized, and deliver candidate experiences that are as positive and fair as possible. All of these combined will improve the business’s bottom line.
