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Organizations made investments this year to give recruiters an efficient, simplified process for finding and hiring the best candidates. These investments are expected to continue shrinking the time it takes to fill requisitions, according to the new Employ Recruiter Nation Report, released today.
Employ, which offers popular ATS platforms such as JazzHR and Lever, surveyed more than 1,200 TA pros and recruiters during August and September and bolstered those survey insights with data from its more than 22,0000 customers across its ATS platforms.
“Businesses are really focused on making sure the hiring process is more flexible to alleviate stress and improve the candidate experience…speeding up the hiring process is the leading change here,” said Jennifer Purcell, Employ’s director of content marketing. “Employee customers saw a time to fill decrease by seven days in the last 12 months. It’s down from 48 days in 2023 to 41 days this year.”
Employ customer data reveals that nearly all industry segments represented in its platforms saw reductions in the time it takes to find and hire a new employee. Customers in education reduced time to hire by 27%; retail by 20%; construction by 18%; internet software and services by17%; and manufacturing by 17%.
Time to fill across financial services and healthcare both increased, but by less than 1%, according to the platform’s data.
Tech it out. Automation has always been a key feature of the TA process, but with rapid gains in AI and generative AI technology more broadly, 89% of recruiters report using AI to augment the recruiting process “frequently” or “very frequently.”
“Not only are we seeing an increase in the use of AI, but we’re seeing a change in the activities that AI is being used to support,” Purcell said, pointing to an increased use of the technology for candidate matching, specifically. “The initial screening is much more efficient, so recruiters can connect with more quality candidates and spend more time creating a great candidate experience.”
New technological impacts on the profession are bolstered by findings that more companies plan to invest in recruiting technology in the coming year. According to the survey, 64% expect to increase in recruiting budgets in the next six to 12 months, a jump from half the previous year.
Of those looking to increase recruiting budgets, 64% plan to use that larger budget for recruiting technology investments.