I’ve written about 325 articles on 2016 recruiting trends. You will see my work all over the internet during the month of December, but it goes something like this.
Trend No. 1: You won’t fill that job quickly.
Guess what? Recruiting is hard. Remember that piece of technology that was going to disrupt and disintermediate the hiring process? Well, it wasn’t technology after all. It was marketing.
Trend No. 2: Good candidates are cocky as F.
In a war for talent, talent wins. If you’re talented and you know it, clap your hands because you just won the motherfucking lottery for the next 18 months. I’m jealous.
Trend No. 3: Everybody is selling a predictive assessment, but nobody’s got one.
Predictive assessments are like that weird Sphero robot that the kids want for Christmas. Everyone wants one, but nobody has one. If you end up buying an assessment that bolts onto your ATS, know that you’re buying a knock-off product built on pseudo-science mixed with marketing. That’s okay if it makes you feel good, but let’s not make a mountain out of a molehill. Have some dignity and be honest with yourself when you’re signing the purchase order and approving the invoice. Assessments barely assess the human soul, and nobody can predict shit when it comes to hiring. Thank god your hiring managers have short-term memories and aren’t strategic thinkers.
Trend No. 4: 2016 is all about swapsies.
Everybody (including me) will be telling you that 2016 is the year of retention. That’s awesome, but it’s largely incomplete. You can throw all of your time and money at your A-players, but it’s too late. Recruiters are already busy as hell stealing A-players from their competitors. So 2016 is all about swapsies.
Trend No. 5: This year, recruiting might detangle itself from HR and report into marketing or into a separate function that reports on performance-related analytics.
Just kidding. That’s a lie. Recruiting will always be a part of HR as it should be. Once you start splitting apart the people-related processes and stop seeing the employee lifecycle as a whole, you denigrate everything from the candidate experience through the process to ensure fair and equal protection under the law. You need HR. You need us on that wall. And recruiting is a part of HR. Sorry, suckers.
So those are my predictions for the most important 2016 recruiting trends. Did I miss something? See something you hate? Let me know.
This is truly great stuff, Laurie. I think the Predictive Analytics for hiring will get better. Enough soon at least to check your gut against.
I have this weird theory that we’ll know when predictive analytics for hiring is good when terrorists use it. Not just foreign terrorists but domestic terrorists, too. They have sticky recruiting brands, but everybody needs bookkeepers and IT professionals — along with violent offenders and butchers.
When jihads across the world and jackwads in the Appalachians can’t live without a system to help them identify long-term A players, B players, etc. — and help them weed out potential spies and people who aren’t quite a fit for intifada and anarchy — then I’m sold. Otherwise, meh.
Great post, particularly about assessments. PLEASE stop thinking that a test will magically tell you the right person for the role. Be smart about it. At the most, it’s an interesting data point. Even skills-based tests only show you so much.
(For the record: I have that Sphero robot. And it’s the bomb.)
Love this, Laurie, and spot on. Two points: predictive analytics is claptrap, at least for now (potential, attitude anyone?), but not sure I agree re recruitment and HR. I have the amazing good fortune of running a recruitment team completely free of any HR involvement. I don’t work for them or with them. It’s fantastic, incredibly liberating.
I think I’ve found my favourite blogger of 2016. Can’t wait to hear what spills outta tour head next!!!
M.
Fun article. Well done.
Great article and thanks for telling it to me straight (expletives and all!). I look forward to the next 324.
You’re wrong about recruitment belonging in HR.
HR has had numerous chances to get recruitment right, but it fucked-up.
Time to give it to Sales & Marketing, or let it be its own department.