A look into the future? Or reality in recruitment?!

When a trade fair calls itself a „Festival“ and in trendy Munich recruiters are wooed by an artist in a Superman costume while queuing at the entrance, it suggests a lot. The self-proclaimed „Expofestival“ TalentPro in Munich showcased current trends and future visions in recruiting.

Our Head of Marketing, Carola Schneider, reports on active sourcing via geo-location, robot Vera, and the absolute madness of recruiting.

TALENTpro 2018 in Munich – „Inspiring Recruiting Professionals!“

There was one point on which everyone, without exception, agreed: applicants are in demand! „Recruiters are salespeople. We need to sell our company, our jobs to the candidates.“ This statement wasn't just made by Gabor Toldi from Budapest in his presentation on the „recruitment handbook in the new age“.

Almost all speakers touched upon the topic of the applicant market, sometimes only briefly, sometimes in more depth. In addition to the tight applicant situation and the changed requirements of applicants for their employers, the transformation of entire professional profiles in the digital world was also a topic.

How will call centres develop in the future (in the photo on the left: the robot Amelia, who speaks and reads 20 languages)? What will the supermarket of the future look like?
And what does a recruiter need to know to find future employees your company is looking for (or to develop them further with HR colleagues, if applicable)?

Candidate at the centre on the TALENTpro

The central question in almost all presentations was: For which role do I need which applicant? Where can I find them and how do I approach them? How can I get them excited about my company?

Go to where the applicant is

Alongside a mix of classic job advertisements on – for the most part present as exhibitors – premium job boards, and measures for employer branding, „Programmatic Job Advertising“ is one of the trending topics at the trade fair – as it was already at Personal Süd 2017, as we reported. Job advertisements are no longer just displayed on job boards, where they are „only“ seen by active job seekers, but rather as advertisements in a suitable context.

Are you looking for an accountant? Then ask yourself: What specialist information do potential applicants read? What newsletters have they subscribed to? What hobbies do they have? Are they more enthusiastic about sports or wellness? Animal welfare or luxury travel? What „peer group“ surrounds them? And from this so-called „candidate persona“, you then derive your personnel marketing measures – ideally played out automatically using real-time bidding or other online marketing tools.

The Tech Titans all want your face – Visual Sourcing

Oscar Mager from Evertalent reports on how he conducts active sourcing via Google Images. Using photos taken, for example, by visitors at trade fairs, he researches interesting candidates from the images and looks for their CV information and contact details.

His vision for the future: Google Glasses for recruiters. As they walk by, recruiters scan passers-by and receive all relevant CV data in the periphery of their vision. And, of course, the relevant contact details…

Numerous other speakers are also showing trends in the direct approach to candidates, for example on XING, via Boolean search, etc. – after all, an estimated 60 percent of applicants are „only“ passively looking for jobs.

Back to basics: Employee referrals as THE recruitment channel?!

Less experimental, but still effective: institutionalised employee referral programmes. Anyone with recruitment from employee referrals significantly below 30 per cent has potential for improvement.

Whether Ob firstbird or talentry – the providers also offer visitors at their stands the solution: those who manage their referral programme through software using one of the two tools are promised more and more motivated, better-suited applicants.

A positive application experience – „Candidate Experience“ is in demand

Virtual reality headsets, chatbots or gamification – even once the applicant has been „identified“, they are being wooed.

Attractiveness check at Deutsche Bahn

Deutsche Bahn is not only concerned with where applicants come from, but also how they perceive the company as a potential employer, a field in which Kerstin Wagner, Head of Talent Acquisition, is involved. This is hardly surprising, given the 247,000 applicants per year – ranging from train drivers to developers to Office clerk – that's not a simple matter.

The German railway company's aim is therefore not just to „attract“ applicants through employer branding campaigns (most recently e.g. „Welcome, you fit in“). The logistics giant also examined its processes and delved deep into its employer brand with an attractiveness check of all individual departments.

Removing hurdles – Making application processes simple and professional

Besides, in her experience, it is important to remove hurdles for applicants, says Kerstin Wagner – whether that be cover letters that are time-consuming for applicants to create, grade certificates for student applications, or questions from potential candidates outside of recruiters' regular working hours. To offer its 6.3 million users of the Deutsche Bahn career website a 24/7 service in the future, the company is currently testing its own chatbot.

The Baden-based „hidden champion“ SEW Eurodrive is also focusing on the applicant experience. With a major restructuring of the HR department and the introduction of a recruiting centre, the company aims to further position itself as an attractive employer.

This company, most recently again, impresses with a swift, professional, and friendly application process. awarded the Candidate Experience Award, – reports Stefanie Schiebol, Head of Sourcing & Recruiting.

Long-term retention of (potential) employees as an HR objective

The positive candidate experience matters not only when it actually leads to a hire. The challenge for HR staff, as well as line managers and recruiters, is to retain candidates, former candidates, and former employees in talent management systems, alumni communities, or other networks over the long term and to turn them into ambassadors for the employer brand.

But is the recruiter still needed at all?

„Hello, my name is Vera. I am a robot. I'm searching for the company ABC for PHP developers.“
This or something similar is how „Robot Vera“, winner of the HR Tech World Award 2017, introduces itself to potential applicants, particularly in Russia. Vera has conducted around 1 million telephone and video interviews in the last 9 months.

The end of the recruiter?

We think no! But a new era for recruiting! An era in which not only in human resources management but also in the search for personnel, much is IT-supported or (in future fully) automated.

But in the end, the conversation from person to person will still last for a long time.