7 Hiring Trends of 2013

If you’ve got a hiring hole to fill, breathe easy. The good news is there is a workforce out there, willing and able to take on complex tasks quickly and get your business moving. But the go-to techniques that used to work in wooing ace candidates or in narrowing a broad field may not cut the mustard now.

Among the hiring trends for 2013 that are emerging, is a heavy focus on a highly personalized, digital approach. Here’s a glimpse of what seems to be key as the next ‘season’ nears.

1. More mobile

TechSling reports this will be the year more job hunters let their thumbs do the applying. With so many smartphones and apps, Techsling notes more candidates are looking to apply for posts via their mobile devices: “Job seekers and employees manage almost every aspect of their professional life digitally so recruitment managers need to get ready
for this. They need to invest in recruiting initiatives that include support for mobile and tablet technology.”

2. Upping the candidate experience

Sarah White & Associates figures that the candidate’s personal experience throughout the recruitment process is going to be more important than ever. This means active engagement, offering a positive and rewarding experience the whole way through, and putting in some extra hard work at the marketing and networking stage.

3. Niche recruiting

It’s not one net to catch them all – particularly for smaller businesses. Responding to the increasing difficulty of filling critical positions, some experts predict that more small businesses in 2013 are likely to make the investment in external recruiters, often for openings in technical niches.

4. More grunt work

Recruiters will continue to shift their emphasis away from the task of “finding” candidates, according to this post by Dr. John Sullivan. Instead, he writes, there will be a move toward the still tricky task of successfully “selling” star talent. This will see many recruiters reframing what they do, and putting the premium on knowing their candidate well – and
their target.

5. A growing emphasis on online candidate assessment

Dr. John Sullivan also writes that “to ensure that managers see only candidate slates

that exclusively contain high-quality candidates, more applicants for high-volume jobs will be required to complete a brief but effective online technical knowledge and skill assessment test.” Pre-employment psychometric tools help employers to save time and recruitment costs. In a sea of similar-sounding resumes, this kind of testing can help to make sure improve accurate selections. The testing will also highlight long-form questions – a sort of virtual interview before the short list even makes it to the first cut.

6. Non-active prospects fire up social media

For people who aren’t targeting a specific firm, LinkedIn will be the tool of choice for people looking to step up their career. That means including a new search layer of strategy in targeting candidates. “Companies will use industry-related groups, feeds and networking pages to develop relationships with a pool of pre-qualified candidates for a variety of positions – reducing the time required to fill a vacancy before they're even ready to post a job,” according to this post at Hcareers.com.

7. Deeper profiling

Once the resume gets the OK, more employers are taking a look at what a candidate brings to the table healthwise. Although not yet a popular policy, for example, many U.S. hospitals refuse to hire smokers. Still other companies are screening out people who show tobacco in their systems at all. It all ties back to what the employer is willing to pay in
health insurance costs (and, ostensibly, to have a healthy workforce for the long run). It’s precariously personal territory, and may not roll into a trend, but it is worth considering how soon your firm is willing to start tackling employee health issues.

In the end, employers are taking extra measures to ensure that the quality of the candidates they are bringing in are much better. With these trends on the rise, there is greater likelihood that employers will create much stronger teams by filtering out the bad applicants and only hiring the top 10%.

About the author: Christine Bird is the Co-Founder of Cream.hr, a psychometric pre-employment assessment platform that determines top-performers based on a powerful proprietary algorithm. Christine lives and works in San Francisco, California where you’ll find her running half-marathons, hosting dinner parties or spending time with her dog, Tucker. Connect with Christine on Twitter at @christine_bird.

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