The pendulum has swung hard over the past two years. We’ve seen a jump from record unemployment to massive resignations, fully in-office work shifting to entirely remote teams, and an economic recession followed by soaring consumer demand. For many, our heads are spinning. 

As a result, talent teams across the globe are under-resourced while fighting for top talent, and are increasingly looking for ways to reallocate what resources they do have for maximal impact. 

We asked 1600+ talent leaders worldwide to see how they’re navigating current hiring challenges, as well as steps they have taken to overcome these barriers, for our latest Global Hiring Trends report. 

Can’t hire fast enough 

The most pressing change talent leaders want to see is a faster turnaround time for new hires, followed closely by streamlined communication between recruiters, hiring teams, and candidates. Both heavily impact organisational efficiency, candidate experience, and success in landing the best talent. 

Across the board, it’s taking talent teams much longer to fill open positions than it was this time last year. Our data revealed that last year it took 15% of respondents as little as 1-2 weeks to fill a job, this year half as many respondents are filling roles in that amount of time. Likewise, last year it only took 8% of respondents 3 months or more to fill a role; now, it’s taking almost twice as many companies that long. 

To improve time-to-hire, businesses need to implement tools to help them reduce the number of steps in their hiring and onboarding, identify the best candidates earlier, and make it easier for those candidates to build a relationship with them. For instance, conversational artificial intelligence (AI) tools and text recruiting give talent leaders the opportunity to build relationships with candidates fast, no matter where they live, and guide them quickly through the next steps of the hiring process.  

Fierce focus on employee retention 

The Great Resignation is proof that workers will leave their role, their organisation, even their industry to find what they’re looking for – for instance, more learning and development opportunities or flexible working policies.  

Our data revealed that the companies with the lowest turnover were the same companies making investments in becoming an employer of choice. These companies also invested more in job-matching technology to reduce the risk of hiring new employees who later quit because their skills don’t fit the role.  

Job-matching technologies greatly reduce the likelihood of poor job fit and subsequent resignations, as it matches the correct person to each role, saving time, cost and effort in the recruiting process for everyone involved. But recruiting technology shouldn’t just be used for new hires. Another way to boost retention is to continually provide growth opportunities for existing employees, by leveraging psychometric assessments to source and assess for internal mobility. 

Digital tools blended with in-person touchpoints 

With a greater number of under-resourced talent teams, more open roles due to increased employee resignations, and a lingering global pandemic, something has to give. Technology that complements the capabilities of talent teams can produce high-touch hiring experiences that meet candidate expectations at a speed and scale not otherwise possible. 

Integrating technology into talent processes is strongly correlated with a shorter time-to-hire, empowering employers to win top candidates before a competitor does. It’s not possible for most talented teams to connect one-on-one with every single job applicant. 

Structured interviews are proven to be a better measure of job-fit, yet 71% of respondents are still using resume qualifications, and 37% rely somewhat on gut instinct despite the bias it invites. 

Moving away from subjective measures and toward more systematic approaches has a huge impact on talent teams’ ability to find a larger pool of qualified candidates, as well as meet diversity and inclusion (D&I) goals – in fact, nearly half of respondents are increasing D&I budgets this year. 

The winning talent experience 

The overwhelming majority of companies that are meeting talent demands more successfully, and more quickly than others are the ones who are actively taking action. They’re automating what can be automated, recruiting from within organisations and using both digital tools and in-person touchpoints, instead of one or the other. Only by following the above can businesses stay in the game and win the race for talent.