The demand for recruiting professionals has increased by 63%

• The demand for recruiting professionals has increased by 63%, and expectations for the role shift everyday

LinkedIn released the Future of Recruiting report, based on survey responses from thousands of members of the global talent community, billions of LinkedIn data points, and interviews with talent leaders

To inform how HR, talent acquisition and business leaders should approach their recruiting strategies for the coming year, the research identifies seven ways recruiting is changing, including new skills recruiting teams will need to master to get ahead, the metrics that will be most important, and the new tech tools that will unleash a team’s full potential.

Report highlights include: 

  • Demand for recruiting professionals is at all time high. Recruiting the right talent is increasingly mission-critical in today’ tight labor market. Our data shows the demand for recruiting professionals has increased 63%  globally since 2016. 
  • The career path to becoming a recruiter is evolving. More than one in three current “Heads of Recruitment” came from a role outside of HR or TA (most commonly sales, operations, and business development), likely because leadership roles are valued less for functional expertise, and more for business acumen. As part of this, recruiters role will increasingly become that of an advisor. 
  • Deeper investments into technology required to find quality candidates. Recruiting professionals agree that making the biggest impact involves investing in tools that will help them find and engage candidates, assess soft skills, analyze talent markets, and interview via video.
  • Metrics will track outcomes not just actions. 
    • Quality of hire: Over half of companies (52%) aren’t currently tracking, but 88% say it will be very useful in the next 5 years
    • Candidate experience rating: Almost 3 out of 4 companies (73%) aren’t currently tracking this, but 70% say it will be very useful in the next 5 years
    • Diversity of candidates: Only 1 in 3 companies are currently tracking for it, but a little over half (56%) think it will be very useful in the next 5 years.
  • New skill requirements for recruiters. The #1 priority for recruiting organizations during the next five years will be keeping pace with rapidly changing hiring needs. One way we’re seeing this manifest is that “talent analytics” roles have grown by 111% since 2014. Also according to the data, the 3 skills that will become more important over the next five years are:
    • Engaging passive candidates (communication skills increased by 3x among recruiting professionals since 2015)
    • Analyzing talent data to drive decisions (data analysis skills increased by 2x among recruiting professionals since 2015)
    • Advising business leaders and hiring managers (problem solving skills increased by 2x among recruiting professionals since 2015)

Access to the full report with more insights here.