Diversity and technology will dominate the recruitment agenda in 2018, with changes to the interview process and artificial intelligence (AI) identified as key trends, according to LinkedIn research
LinkedIn’s Global Recruitment Trends report revealed that 82% of recruiters consider diversity to be their primary consideration currently.
While employers believed that having a diverse workforce was vital to both a positive culture (78%) and company performance (62%), they also admitted to coming up against barriers when trying to improve diversity. Almost two-fifths (38%) said that they struggled to find employees from diverse backgrounds, while 27% said that they found it difficult to retain diverse employees.
Changes to the ways applicants are interviewed were also identified as significant. Half (49%) of hiring managers said that changes to interviewing techniques would be 'very' or 'extremely' important to the future of recruiting. Assessing a candidate’s soft skills (63%), understanding weaknesses (57%), and interviewer bias (42%) were all highlighted as challenges.
Techniques such as interview auditions (54%), interviews in casual settings (53%), and virtual reality assessments (28%) were all cited as alternatives to the traditional job interview.
Jon Addison, head of talent solutions at LinkedIn, welcomed the recruitment industry’s desire for change. “Over the past few years hiring talent has become a repetitive, and sometimes transactional, process,” he said.
“But there is a shift happening, and these emerging trends are helping to elevate recruitment to a more strategic profession that focuses on the most important and gratifying parts of the job – the human part and thinking critically about how to win the right talent.”
Addison said that these changes would encourage a fairer interviewing process. ”Many respondents noted a problem with interviewer bias in the traditional process. Unfortunately, sometimes more charismatic candidates are unconsciously viewed as more capable, even when they’re not,” he told HR magazine.
Few saw AI as a threat to the recruitment industry, with only 14% of respondents claiming that it could eliminate a recruiter’s job all together.
“Hiring managers find traditional interviews to be too long a process for everyone involved. Introducing things like assessing a group of candidates through virtual reality tests could help find the perfect professional far quicker,” Addison added.
LinkedIn’s annual report surveyed more than 8,800 recruiters and hiring managers from 39 countries.
