The South African situation is very different. Only half of companies have moved online and technology is still used in a very basic way to advertise on job boards and direct candidates to an email address or applicant tracking system. A tiny number of companies have fully woken up to social recruitment and are driving relevant jobs and content to niche online communities to engage talent.
3 big opportunities this year:
Recruiters should start figuring out how to integrate mobile into the recruitment process as a job application channel. When looking for options, choose software that not only does mobile marketing of job ads, but can also automate the job application process via various mobile channels including SMS, mobile internet, Instant Messaging (like Mxit) and USSD.
Only the strongest and most innovative will survive and the days of the traditional job board is numbered. Recruiters need to start focusing on aggregators like Indeed.co.za for smarter use of their budgets and better exposure on a job-search tool giving candidates what they really want: quick, simple and effective search of their job niche.
An increasing number of vendors are now building candidate referral systems. Integrating these with an applicant tracking and workflow system can easily help track referrals along with the source, comments, notes and other content to make better hiring decisions.
2013 will be the year that companies deploying well thought out strategies can get a massive advantage. Recruiters have to urgently up-skill on technology in the recruitment space and how it merges with marketing to stay relevant.
In the US, recruitment has already started unraveling for companies that are behind the curve. Local recruiters will start to feel the pressure this year as stopgaps for timely, cost effective and efficient recruitment stop working.