The recruiting statistics on hiring, employer branding, diversity, and culture will influence and impact your ability to hire top talent. As a smart talent professional, you should watch the recruiting trends to plan and prepare the strategy for the year.

We studied the trends in HR & recruiting and picked a few that matter the most to recruiters and hiring managers to stay ahead in the competitive talent market.

1. 69% of recruiters reported that their company’s hiring has increased in the past year [Source: Jobvite]

   As per this stats, hiring is strong and is expected to grow in the year 2017. 95% of recruiters say hiring will be as or more competitive and 35% of recruiters anticipate filling 100 job openings this year, compared to last years 26%.

   If you want to win the talent over your competitors, adopt new ways to find passive and active job seekers – scout for talent in social media, Quora, Reddit and quickly move the candidates through the interview workflow. Leverage recorded video interviews for pre-screening applicants and live videos to interview remote candidates. Start gathering analytics on every stage of the interview process and constantly improve the process.

2. 67% of active and passive job seekers say that when they’re evaluating companies and job offers, it is important that the company has a diverse workforce [Source: Glassdoor]

   Diversity is an important factor that influences the job seeker’s decision. Job applicants spend a lot of time reading reviews on Glassdoor about the company culture and team composition before even going to the interview.Incorporating diversity into your recruiting strategy is essential to building a diverse workforce. Your talent pool should include applicants from various background and your interview process should not eliminate candidates based on unconscious biases.

   This is where the talent management platform like EasyHire.me helps – it provides a framework to conduct a structured interview, defines key criteria based on the job, asks the same set of questions across candidates. It brings visibility and accountability to the whole hiring process and enables you to make evidence-based hiring.

3. 69% would not take a job with a company with a bad reputation, even, if they are unemployed [Source: Glassdoor]

   Company brand matters a lot. People often identify themselves with the work they do and the company they work in. A company with a good reputation that is focusing on providing value to humanity in some form and is associated with a social cause is seen as an attractive place to work.

   Build an employer brand that identifies your team and company. Promote your company’s brand and promote it in your recruiting process. Educate your interviewers about your company brand and train them to showcase the employer brand talk about it in their interviews. Job seekers evaluate the company based on how the interviewers talk about their job, role, company, and culture. Train your interviewers to showcase the employer brand.

4. 61% of employees say new job realities differ from expectations set during the interview process [Source: Glassdoor]

   A job interview is a two-way process. Applicants want to see an attractive job preview with a detailed job description that actually reflects their expected day to day work. During the interview process, the job seekers try to find insight about the work, culture, and team. A transparent recruiting process would help the applicants evaluate if they fit in the job role.

   Train your interviewers to be open and transparent with the candidates and share details on expectations and realities about the job. Being open and transparent about the job, company, and the culture sets up everyone for long-term success.

5. 56% of recruiters attribute lengthy hiring practices is holding managers back from filling positions [Source: MRINetwork]

   Recruiters attributing lengthy hiring practices is holding managers back from filling positions. A job seeker is typically interviewing at multiple places at the same time. The lengthy interview process may result in losing the applicant’s interest and often times lose out the talent to competitors.

   48% of recruiters say they typically conduct 3 interviews per candidate, Conducting 3 interviews per candidate works fine if you are hiring in a small volume. If you are hiring in scale, then this stat is definitely going to make hiring a long and painful process.  Instead, leverage video interviews for pre-screening and cut down the number of interviews per candidate.

We hope that these recruiting stats and our analysis on these trends will help you in building the right recruiting strategy.