3 of the Latest Recruiting Industry Statistics for 2017

By Tony Mastri

On a day-to-day basis, recruiters face many of the same challenges. In order to have a successful recruiting career, you need to keep up with the latest recruitment industry trends. Stay up-to-date on current recruiting industry statistics to guide your recruitment processes.

Top Echelon recently surveyed over 5,000 recruiters in its customer base. Recruiters were asked questions about challenges they had in 2016. A report compiles information about their responses and provides recruitment industry trends for all recruiters to keep in mind during 2017.

3 of the latest recruiting industry statistics

Need to up your recruiting game in 2017? The report revealed three key pieces of information about trends in the recruitment industry:

• The top placement industries
• Client complaints recruiters hear after candidates have been submitted
• The most common reasons candidates turn down client job offers

What does it take to improve your recruiting strategies, make more placements, and keep both your clients and candidates happy? Check out some common problems recruiters face, industry statistics to explain why, and actions to take to improve.

Top placement industries

Your job is to make placements. To do that, you must find qualified candidates for your clients. Sounds easy enough, right? But, sometimes, it can be hard for recruiters to develop and execute the right talent sourcing strategy.

Some industries have more of a demand for hiring than others. What industries did recruiters source for the most?

Five industries dominated the reported placements:

• Manufacturing (17.2%)
• Information Technology (12.8%)
• Healthcare (10.3%)
• Engineering (7.0%)
• Accounting/Finance (6.6%)

You can see the demand is greater for certain industries than others. However, the top industries can also be the most challenging ones to place. If you’re having trouble making placements in industries that are booming, you aren’t alone.

The report revealed that recruiters had the most trouble making successful placements in information technology (18.3%), followed by engineering (11.4%), healthcare (11.0%), and manufacturing (10.6%).

Common client complaints

Your clients aren’t afraid to voice their opinions. Maybe you feel downtrodden because you feel your clients aren’t satisfied with the service you provide. There are different reasons clients might complain, and many of them are out of your control.

According to the trends from Top Echelon’s State of the Recruiting Industry Report, there is one gleaming complaint recruiters hear over and over again: “There aren’t enough candidates to pick from.” Out of the recruiters surveyed, 45.8% said that lack of candidates is the biggest complaint they hear from their clients.

The next biggest complaint was candidates having unrealistic salary expectations (17.9%), followed by under-qualified candidates (14.7%).

Reasons candidates turn down job offers

As a recruiter, you might know this scenario all too well: you find the perfect candidate for your client. Your client makes that candidate an offer. But then, the candidate turns down the job. After all that work, you’re without a placement and back to square one.

Qualified candidates decline offers for several reasons. Here are the most common reasons for job offer rejections, according to the report:

• The salary was too low for the position (29.7%)
• Other offers were better (24.5%)
• Your client took too long to make an offer (24.2%)

Not only are there not enough qualified candidates for skilled positions, clients aren’t making offers candidates want. That makes it difficult for you to make placements. With the top placement industries being the most challenging ones, clients can’t expect to find the perfect hire if they drag their feet.

If the hiring process is too slow, a candidate won’t want to wait around. They might accept another offer if the client takes too long. With the lack of qualified candidates and the disconnect between client and candidate expectations, you might run into placement problems.

Recruiting industry statistics: what it all comes down to

To recap, qualified candidates are in high demand: 

• Not enough candidates is the #1 reason clients complain
• The top placement industries are the most challenging to place due to lack of qualified candidates
• Clients are losing out on candidates because of low salary offers and slow hiring processes

Your clients call the shots when it comes to making offers and hiring candidates. In the end, it’s up to them to know how to hire great employees. It can be frustrating to see the vicious cycle unfold: there is a lack of qualified candidates for in-demand industries, but your clients are slow to make an offer or that offer is lower than the candidate desires.

Though your hands may be tied when it comes to the duration of the hiring process or the compensation offer, there are some steps you can take to improve placements.

Use recruiting software

As a recruiter, consider using recruitment software to find and compare candidates quickly. With recruiting software, you can easily sort through resumes and develop a database of candidates.

When you receive resumes from candidates, you can import them into your recruiting software. The software then parses the resumes and extracts information so each candidate’s profile is in a uniform format, making it easy to compare candidates. This saves you time from reading through stacks of resumes. Plus, the software lists candidates from most-qualified to least-qualified.

With recruiting software, you can sort candidates by industry. When you get a job order from your client, you can consult your software database to see what candidates you can recommend.  

Talk to candidates

If you want to target the top niches in your recruitment strategy, be prepared to scout talent and hang onto them. Talk to candidates to find out if they are right for the position. Make yourself available to answer their questions.  

Talk to your client

Encourage your clients not to drag their feet during the hiring process. Top-notch candidates don’t want to wait around. They will go to a different business that makes them an offer.

Since there is a lack of qualified candidates, clients need to understand that high-quality candidates will have high salary expectations. Help your clients see that they will need to offer attractive, reasonable salaries if they want to hire top talent.

Matt Deutsch is the Marketing Director at Top Echelon. Top Echelon started solely as a split placement network, but it has expanded over the years and offers four main products and services: a leading split placement recruiting network; Big Biller recruiting software for applicant tracking; contract staffing services; and recruitment web design. Connect with us today!

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