Earlier this week, we put out our 2018 Pre-Employment Testing Benchmark Report which sheds light onto the hiring practices and priorities of companies across all industries. Based on a survey of hiring professionals, the report reveals some interesting trends in the hiring space.
One that shouldn’t necessarily be a surprise: hiring professionals expect their hiring needs to increase from 2018 to 2019. On average, the companies we surveyed predicted their hiring volume would rise by 2.3%, a seemingly modest increase that appears less benign when put into the context of the current hiring landscape. In the US, hiring demand already exceeds the number of unemployed, putting more and more pressure on employers to attract and retain the best candidates. This predicted increase in hiring demand suggests that hiring in 2019 may be even more difficult than before.
Across the board, about 40% of companies are planning to increase their financial investments in things like maintaining a strong employer brand, fostering career development, finding high quality job candidates, cultivating a positive work environment, optimizing employee training programs, making the hiring process more efficient, and reducing employee turnover.
One of the common threads that emerges from these priorities is the need to attract great candidates. Employer branding efforts, for example, are designed to make a company attractive to job seekers, while other goals like fostering career development or cultivating a positive work environment play into those employer branding efforts by making current employees happy (or happy enough to leave a positive Glassdoor review!).
Interestingly, companies aren’t as worried about getting enough applicants despite the low unemployment rate, suggesting that they may be getting enough applicants but not necessarily the right ones. This makes those employer branding efforts all the more important for holding onto the rare great candidate that comes along.
According to our report, while the vast majority of companies either planned to increase their financial investments or keep them the same, only about 2% predicted that they would decrease their HR spending in the next year. This suggests that most companies are committed to beefing up their hiring efforts in preparation for the rising hiring demands in 2019. Hiring isn't going to get any easier in 2019, but at least employers are bracing themselves for the challenges ahead.
Want more data on how companies are hiring? Download the report.
