Staffing professionals have experienced a huge shift in the way the hiring process works just in the past decade, with an ever-growing landscape of technological tools and advances ready to help find the best candidates more efficiently. The main tools to be excited about now and in the year to come are once again mostly linked to technology. The overall trends of streamlining and automating work continue in 2020, and likely beyond. Let's take a look at some 2020 staffing trends we expect to see gain more popularity in the months to come.
Automating Whenever Possible
Most staffing professionals prefer automated resume screening with their ATS system to manually skim every resume until their eyes glaze over—no one wants to take the time to manually enter information into their data systems. Automated processes really make the busywork of staffing more efficient. For example, automated onboarding can reduce the tasks new hires must complete, and staffing professionals can automate analytics so they no longer need to pore over spreadsheets to determine their strongest clients. Automation can reduce the number of steps it takes to perform a background check. Even sending follow-ups with candidates can be automated.
Perhaps most importantly, staffing professionals might get most excited about automation and sourcing, a top priority for many staffing professionals. While most automated tasks help professionals reduce work that's labor-intensive, sourcing, because it is the building block of every job search, involves careful thought and strategy. Automating sourcing (with an assist from data) can help talent acquisition build a strong base for any job search and find better quality candidates—and a stronger applicant pool overall.
Texting As An Appropriate Way To Communicate
Texting with candidates is a 2020 staffing trend that is exciting some professionals because it's immediate. Nearly every candidate you want to reach is carrying their phone around with them at all times. And, whatever you text, it has to be short and sweet—that is the nature of the medium. From the candidate’s perspective, it is easy to write back a quick text no matter where they are, whether on the bus or at a restaurant. It’s much easier to respond via text than pick up a phone call.
As a staffing professional, you have a short space to make your pitch and connect with candidates to meet them wherever they are. Just a few years ago, it may have seemed jarring to some candidates to receive a text as a potential hire, because it comes off as way more casual than an email, which may include a standard letter format, a “sincerely,” and the sender’s position title and address. As it becomes more commonplace, the texting trend will make it easier to connect with candidates—both for its quickness and as a way to keep candidates more easily engaged in the process.
Utilizing Chatbots
Many retail websites have embraced the chatbot to interface with customers. Rather than refer people to a website full of FAQs, chatbots use artificial intelligence (AI) technology and natural language processing to find and answer people’s questions with the specific information the person needs. Why make a customer sift through information they don’t need when it's better to provide them the answer more quickly? When applied to the hiring process, this type of tech can be valuable for candidate engagement. Oftentimes candidates have the same questions come up again and again. Rather than have staffing professionals take time to answer the in the same way, again and again, bots can inform and keep your candidates engaged in the process.
Saving Time And Enhancing Outreach With AI
Taking automation one step further, AI has a lot of potential to enhance multiple areas in the hiring process. Perhaps one of the most exciting is in job advertising, where there is a lot of potential data to sift through. If you get tired of sifting through resumes, you might also find it a little time-consuming to scour the entire internet for the best job ad placement. But AI will not get tired of the task—and can do it very efficiently. Job advertising on boards with CPC bidding make the process daunting. But AI tech, which has algorithms that can predict the best sites for your post or optimize your job ad budget, is a truly exciting option for staffing professionals who have lots of positions to fill.
Putting Time And Resources Into Reskilling
The trend of reskilling meets the challenge of a talent shortage by widening the scope of the staffing agency from scouring for talent to creating talent. If it takes hold, this 2020 staffing trend will be an exciting expansion of the talent acquisition industry. Candidates might have one kind of skill, but be ready and willing to learn another kind of skill better matched to the needs of industries in the current economy. By investing in online learning, training programs, or apprenticeships, staffing agencies can better meet client demands by targeting candidates who may have potential, and then ensuring that talent is fostered and “upskilled.” While this trend isn’t about tech—it still sort of is. Companies that need tech-savvy labor will be most interested in this 2020 staffing trend.
