Year-End Roundup: 3 Creative Staffing Trends to Will Continue in 2017

The story of recruitment in 2016 is one all about peaks and valleys: the peaks of the bullish market driving job growth combined with the valleys some hiring managers find themselves in when trying to locate quality talent. This made creative contract staffing trends a key focus for companies nationwide throughout the year.

“As the employment market continues to tighten, it will become increasingly difficult for employers to find the quality, skilled candidates to meet their needs,” Joanie Courtney, senior vice president of global market insights at Monster, told the Society for Human Resource Management at the start of 2016. “Attracting and retaining talent will remain a challenge as top candidates experience an increase of competitive job offers, along with better salaries and opportunities.”

As we look back on the year in review, here are three of the creative  staffing trends that drove recruitment and how that will continue into 2017:

Digital Recruitment

People spend the majority of their recreational and professional time online, which in turn has made digital recruitment essentially the only method to lean on. Candidates, tech savvy or not, are attracted to simple application processes, as well as the opportunity to share a broader picture of their skills and achievements.

From social media recruitment to online video interviews, in addition to the usual online resume features, hiring managers found digital recruitment to be an essential source of recruiting perspective candidates.

Expanded Talent Sourcing Strategies

Gone are the days of want ads. To find the highest quality candidates, employers have to think beyond traditional creative staffing sourcing strategies. Rather than looking for an exact match while sourcing, recruiters are expanding their means for finding talent.

Rather than seeking exclusively candidates with very specific backgrounds and training, recruiters are looking at the less quantifiable ways that candidates might fit the job. Whether its transferable skills or experience with the unique culture of a workplace, recruitment is putting the emphasis on who could grow into a position rather than simply who fits it. For some, this took the form of creating more apprenticeships, building robust in-house development programs and bolstering the role of current employees and interns in the bigger picture.

Recruitment Marketing

According to a recent report from Aptitude Research Partners, 70 percent of U.S. companies plan to invest in a recruitment marketing platform in the next 12 months. This means that recruitment efforts are taking center stage as companies shift from reactive recruitment to proactive recruitment, investing in technology and techniques, such as content marketing, SEO and email marketing, to attract the highest quality candidates.

In pursuit of more efficient, cost-effective creative staffing in the past few years, companies have turned to staffing firms to simplify the task of vetting and hiring top-level candidates. This investment in creative job agencies is expected to continue well into the new decade as 2016’s trends cement into best practices.

Contact Profiles

When it comes to creative staffing trends, Profiles has the know-how in attracting top talent in the marketing and creative technology space. Contact Profiles to build your marketing or creative departments. From graphic designs to copywriters to web developers, Profiles has your back in your creative, marketing, and interactive candidate search.