iHire today published its 2021 State of Online Recruiting Report, an inside look at the most prevalent challenges, opportunities, and trends in the talent acquisition space. The third annual report, which showcases the results of iHire’s survey of 6,370 U.S. employers and job seekers from 57 industries, illustrates job market recovery and an ongoing talent shortage.
Key themes found in the 2021 State of Online Recruiting report include the following:
- Hiring is back in action. After a tumultuous 2020, companies are hiring fast and furiously – 86.2% of employers surveyed indicated that they are currently hiring, a 13.4% uptick from last year’s report. In addition, 66.6% of employers said they increased hiring within the past year, and just 20.6% expressed concern with limited hiring budgets in the next 12 months.
- Employers are (still) experiencing a talent shortage. Despite the 5.9% U.S. unemployment rate and potentially deep talent pools, 73.9% of employers cited “too few qualified candidates” among their most significant online recruiting challenges. Similarly, 77.0% anticipate a shortage of qualified applicants throughout the coming year. For perspective, 2021 marks the third straight year that survey respondents struggled with candidate quality above any other hiring challenge.
- Job board usage is up. 58.9% of employers said they increased their reliance on job boards and online recruiting platforms in the past year. Further, 49.6% said they do most of their recruiting through job boards, and 23.4% said they do all their recruiting through job boards. However, employers are also leveraging referrals (used by 70.6% of respondents), social media (57.0%), and their websites (50.2%) to source talent.
- Applicant-employer communication is lagging. 46.8% of employers said that “unresponsive candidates” (not hearing back from applicants after reaching out) is a top online recruiting pain point. On the other hand, 48.8% of job seekers said the same about employers – they are frustrated with applying for jobs and receiving no response. Moving forward, both parties will need to commit to communicating with one another and say “no” to ghosting if they want to find the right hires and the right opportunities.
- Employers and job seekers digress on the future of remote work. Despite remote work taking center stage since March of 2020, just a quarter (25.5%) of employers said they expect to see continued candidate interest in remote work in the coming year. However, job seeker responses suggest no shortage of “work-from-home” interest and opportunities: Only 16.5% of job seekers said they struggle to find remote work when searching for jobs online, and a mere 19.2% foresee difficulty finding remote work in the next 12 months.
To access iHire’s 2021 State of Online Recruiting Report, visit https://go.ihire.com/cbgjn.