Every quarter, CareerBuilder surveys over 400 staffing industry professionals to gauge national industry trends and business insight—then shares the results with you. Check out where you stand amongst the competition, how other staffing organizations are growing and the Q2 trends that will impact your back half of 2015.
Growth and speed of business
A robust economy means more and more staffing firms are putting people to work—internally and externally. When asked how they anticipate their average number of open job orders will change from last quarter to the current quarter, 70 per cent of staffing professionals anticipate an increase (down slightly from 72 per cent in Q1 2015). Twenty-five per cent expect their job orders to stay the same, and 5 per cent anticipate a decrease.
Of those who anticipate an increase, 51 per cent expect the number of job orders to increase by 6-15 per cent. According to one pulse survey respondent, “It’s a candidate-driven market, given their ability to vet their own opportunities aside from ones a staffing firm represents. The importance of timely feedback and realistic expectations of hiring associates is imperative, now more than ever.”
That applies to staffing firms’ internal hiring strategies, too, especially when 66 per cent of staffing industry professionals anticipate increasing their number of recruiters in Q3 2015, up from 63 per cent in Q1. “If there is a candidate you are interested in, make time to interview them as quickly as possible. Most candidates do have more than one offer out there and are also actively interviewing,” another survey respondent says.
Data for the above graph:
| Question | Decrease more than 10% | Decrease as much as 10% | No change | Increase up to 10% | Increase more than 10% | Total Responses |
| Internal sales | 1 | 2 | 38 | 28 | 15 | 84 |
| Recruiter | 1 | 2 | 29 | 35 | 23 | 90 |
| Manager | 0 | 1 | 62 | 16 | 7 | 86 |
Competitive recruiting and signing
It often feels like recruiters are from Mars and candidates are from Venus—expectations can vary wildly and getting both parties to agree to the terms of a new job is an uphill battle. How you source your candidates, combined with the experience they have, can impact the quality and quantity of talent available to you. A survey respondent says, “I think people are realizing that social media is going to play a huge part in hiring for the future. Great talent pools are getting harder to find, and the most common thing I hear from clients is that the talent pool has never been smaller. That’s where CareerBuilder and I come to the rescue!”
There are plenty of solutions to growing your own internal talent pool, as well as connecting better with job seekers. One major fix you can apply to your own hiring strategy today is to make expectations clear—from the job posting to the interview to salary negotiations. For instance, 66 per cent of respondents say job candidates’ salary expectations exceed employers’ offers, which translates to a lot of candidates carrying very different expectations throughout the interview process. These misaligned expectations will not only affect how your offer is received, but they will also result in both you and candidates wasting each other’s time when the salary difference is too large.
The most common reasons for a candidate declining an offer are:
As the economy—and with it the labor market—continues to grow, recruiters will be expected to grow and manage the influx of talent. The first step to tackling today’s challenges is to understand what is (and isn’t) working for your staffing industry peers.