Recruitment Trends 2011

It’s that time of year again everyone. The start of a new year typically gets us recruitment trendsters thinking about our prognostications for the upcoming year in recruitment. 2011 in many ways will be a telling one I think in terms of setting the course for the next couple of years. Our economy has rebounded from the recession of 2009, with employment numbers climbing back to pre-recession levels. There will be no excuses in 2011, organizations that claim to be leaders in the attraction and engagement of top talent will need to step up. Here are some high level trends I see unfolding in 2011.

• Expect an extremely active candidate market in 2011. A stronger economy, increased #’s of gen Y’ers in the market, all are conducive to increased candidate mobility. With the ice off the employment market, I expect top talent to get itchy and look to trade up

• The contract recruiter market cools down after being on fire for most of 2009. A relatively stable 2009 means organizations will have increased comfort in once again hiring permanent recruiters to meet their needs

• Social Recruitment is not a “trend” – it’s a game changer that isn’t going away. 2011 will bring further evolution, as organizations learn to better harness the branding and recruitment power of this communication platform

• LinkedIn will continue to be the in recruitment vehicle for specialized and passive candidate recruitment. Look for LI to introduce a number of product enhancements in 2011 to continue to grab headlines and engage recruiters globally

• An increase in corporate sourcing and research teams. An increasing # of organizations will split out candidate sourcing and research from other traditional recruitment deliverables. Leaders are starting to get that sourcing and hunting are specialized skills that require massive amounts of time

• Recruitment technology – organizations will continue to move away from traditional ATS platforms, turning to CRM technologies with pipelining and nurturing capabilities

• Selective outsourcing – not “RPO”. That’s right, strategic outsourcing as opposed to full recruitment process outsourcing will come back into vogue in 2011. I expect organizations to look to strategically outsource the recruitment of lower level, repetitive roles to outsourcing providers. Expect 1 big RPO deal as well in 2011!

That’s all for now everyone. If this blog caught your interest, please check out Granite Consulting’s 2011 HRPA session where myself and Simon Parkin will be digging deeper into “Recruitment Trends and Best Practices 2011”. Have an amazing 2011 everyone!