Benchmark Survey Released on Corporate Recruitment

 In its first annual corporate recruitment benchmark survey, The Novo Group has found that most companies lack both the time and resources for finding and hiring top talent. Two of the most pressing challenges for recruiters are the increasing number of passive candidates and a general lack of proactive sourcing. The survey found that 55 percent of the candidate pool is employed and not looking for other employment though only 9 percent of those employed reported being satisfied with their job and not seeking a career move.

Corporate recruiting departments were found to be aware of the number of passive candidates but only 13 percent said that over half of their hires were passive candidates and only 21 percent cold called candidates.

“With corporate America leaner than ever, employed candidates are crunched for time. The reason many of them fall into the category of “passive” candidate is that they just don’t have the time to actively pursue a career move,” Cindy Lu, CEO of The Novo Group, said. “To connect with these candidates, recruiters need to not only pay attention to where passive candidates spend time in their search but they also need adequate time for sourcing proactively.”

Even with a continually high national unemployment rate, the vast majority of companies (90 percent) said their top recruitment challenge was finding qualified talent but rated talent management practices only third on the list for top priorities in 2013. Other key findings from the survey include:

• 65 percent of companies reported having two or fewer in-house recruiters;

• 80 percent of companies used outside recruitment help to supplement internal efforts;

• 30 percent of companies are not tracking recruiting metrics ; and

• 29 percent of companies are unsure of annual recruitment spending levels.