We previously published The Recruiter Life Survey and decided it was time to follow up to see how things have changed. Here are the results.
Social media is a viable client acquisition method
Over 40% of recruiters said that they use social media to find new clients for their business. Given that these platforms were launched 15 years ago (and much more recently in the cases of Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat), it is somewhat surprising to see how many recruiters rely on them for such an important task.
On the other hand, it’s not that shocking when you consider that they have proven to be highly effective. Whether it is locating new clients through the jobs they’ve posted in Facebook groups, discovering new businesses through their tweets or finding firms that have just accepted VC money on LinkedIn, social media provides multiple avenues for recruiters to grow their business.
It’s not easy to find new clients
Almost 90% of recruiters said that they experience some slow periods, suggesting that recruiters are sometimes (and in some cases, frequently) struggling to keep their pipeline full.
With the advent of paid advertising tools that can replenish an empty funnel with a bit of ad spend and SEO tactics that let the few recruiters who are “in the know” dominate Google’s search results, it’s unfortunate that many recruiters are still not taking advantage of the opportunities available to them.
LinkedIn for the win
Despite the grumbling you often hear from recruiters about LinkedIn, it’s clear that they lack a credible alternative when it comes to finding new candidates. The data is clear — recruiters use either the free or paid versions of LinkedIn a lot.
Hiretual also had a surprisingly high usage rate, with almost 30% of recruiters mentioning the sourcing tool.
It’s also not easy to find new candidates
Almost 95% of recruiters mentioned some challenges with finding new candidates. After reading their written responses, it’s not hard to see why.
One recruiter summarized the problem as follows: “Finding candidates is easy, but qualified candidates with the specific skillet and location our clients want is more difficult. “
Another hit on a technology problem that could likely be fixed with the right setup (a problem we’ve heard many recruiters mention on our lead calls). “Because of the scarcity of candidates, we have to connect with a larger percentage of candidates than in the past. Given the different modalities used by candidates nowadays, this can mean a great deal of time spent reaching out to non-interested potential candidates. This wastes time and money, but our current ATS doesn’t readily integrate with social media and texting.”
Most people find it more challenging to find new clients
Almost ⅔ of recruiters reported that it’s more difficult to find new clients than new candidates, a finding that is mirrored by the results we’ve seen in our calls with recruiters. This is not surprising given that there are far fewer potential clients in the market than candidates. Furthermore, candidates, on average, are more likely to want to talk to a recruiter (though, of course, this doesn’t mean that either group wants to talk to recruiters that frequently).
Tech and IT recruiters dominate the market
In a result that we found a bit surprising, it turns out that the majority of you work in the technology, IT and software space. While it was not too shocking that this grouping led the way, the magnitude of the gap between the first and second industries was not expected.
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