Recruiting Trends That Meet the Challenges of 2024

The unemployment rate as of January 2024 was 3.7%, and we’ve seen stable and low unemployment for the past few years. Given the number of positions open, that creates an environment for employers that requires aggressive and up-to-date strategies to compete in the marketplace. Here are some of the areas where you can make a difference in your recruitment marketing strategies in 2024.

1. Employer Branding

60% of companies say employer branding is a priority.

82% of people consider a company’s reputation and employer brand before applying.

75% of U.S. job seekers are more likely to apply if the company maintains an active employer brand.

An employer brand is a fantastic way to make a powerful first impression, communicate quickly what your company is all about, and create an emotional connection with candidates. It also serves as an organizing principle for all recruitment marketing, telling a consistent story across all media and job seeker touchpoints.

The components of a great employer brand

• Do your due diligence and discovery to learn what your authentic story is.
• Distinguish yourself by incorporating what truly sets you apart from your competition.
• Find something ownable and uniquely yours that can be part of your brand.
• Ensure flexibility to talk to all candidates or specific targets.
• Develop a visual approach that can scale up or down as needed.
• Avoid common or cliched themes that can apply to any company.
• Including real employees as part of the messaging.

Check out our blog post on employer branding here: https://www.nasrecruitment.com/2023/04/21/what-is-employer-branding/

2. Career Sites

Your career site is your first impression (the handshake moment) with candidates. It should be an engaging and informative resource for job seekers. Make sure it is easy to navigate and provides clear information about your company’s culture, values, and mission. Use visuals and employee testimonials to bring your brand to life. Not sure where to start?

Take a good look at your career site.

• What does the headline say?
• Is the design appealing – on desktop and mobile? In 2021, 67% of application traffic originated from mobile devices.
• Does it capture what your company is all about?
• Does it showcase real employees through photos and video? People are 35% more likely to respond to a real photo vs. a top-performing stock photo.
• Does it include information on your DEI efforts? 76% of employees and job seekers say a diverse workforce is important when evaluating companies and job offers. Learn more about the importance of DEI.

Inclusion Infusion: Elevating DEI in your Organization

• Would it inspire YOU to learn more or apply?

Here’s a case study showing what a good career site can do.

3. Programmatic Advertising

Programmatic advertising is a tool that can dramatically transform your recruitment media through buying, placing, and optimizing job ads using software, rather than people. Although advertising budgets continue to rise, approximately 40% of job advertising spend is misused. By using programmatic job advertising, you can better control spending, set rules, and track real-time performance data to determine the performance of each job ad. And if a job ad is not performing well, it can be optimized to ensure your spend is used correctly.

Here is what programmatic advertising can do for you:

• Optimize your budget to increase clicks and applications.
• Decrease cost per click and cost per apply.
• Create greater efficiency by eliminating the need for individual vendor contracts (i.e. Indeed, ZipRecruiter).
• Boost your ROI with quality applicants.
• Budget more effectively by stopping spending when your target or budget is reached.
• Optimize your campaigns with multiple set-up options, which allows NAS to create a campaign that works best based on your jobs and their locations.
• Provide agency expert management, including performance insights, recommendations, and daily monitoring.
• Understand your data and performance through monthly/quarterly reporting.

Learn more about programmatic advertising.

4. AI

Although the uses and complexities of AI are still evolving, it’s important to stay connected with how AI is being used in the recruitment industry. According to LinkedIn, Talent Acquisition teams are looking at AI for its potential to assist in screening candidates, writing job postings, and answering simple candidate questions through chatbots.

If your organization is just diving into AI technology, chatbots are a great place to start.

The benefits of a chatbot.

As the demand for career site chatbots continues to grow, let’s explore a few use cases to understand how they can benefit both job seekers and employers:

• Instant Information: Job seekers can instantly access job postings and company culture details, as well as receive answers to their open-ended questions through a career site chatbot. This quick access saves time and streamlines the application process.
• Job Matching: Chatbots can help candidates find roles that best suit their skills, preferences, location, and more. This means a more tailored job search experience for the candidates and more qualified applicants for the company.
• Data Collection: Chatbots efficiently gather candidate information, such as contact details and resumes, for use in other systems – such as a company’s CRM.

Learn more about NAS’s chatbot solution.

Conclusion

Although we will continue to see changes in the economy that impact recruiting, these four trends are essential for meeting your hiring goals today. If you’d like to expand your recruitment marketing strategies, build your employer brand, and create an engaging career site that allows you to connect with candidates, reach out to our team at NAS Recruitment Innovation.

Contact us today to get the conversation started.

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