Monster: Digitizing HR means new challenges, but plenty of new opportunities

Candidates and companies agree that digitization is advancing - and new challenges in recruitment are simultaneously becoming a cooperative opportunity for intelligent machines. This is shown by the results of the 17th edition of the study Recruiting Trends, which was published by Monster together with Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg and the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg. 

THE MAJORITY SEE DIGITALIZATION AS AN OPPORTUNITY

In the next five years, 35.3% of job profiles will change significantly, with many of them not yet known and answers only developing over time, according to both the HR managers of the surveyed top 1,000 companies and the top 300 Companies from the IT industry in Germany. The question of whether candidates as a result of these future scenarios are afraid to be replaced by intelligent machines in the job can be answered according to today's view with "no": only one in ten candidates has this fear, and conversely, over half (58.4% ) see great opportunities in cooperation with or use of intelligent machines. 

Of course, there are also exceptions: three out of ten candidates fear being replaced by a machine in 20 years. However, four out of ten candidates see it the other way round and look forward to working voluntarily and intrinsically motivated, while intelligent systems or machines, for example, take over recurring activities. Most of the respondents are therefore in favor of further digitization.

"In addition to the changes or even new developments in job profiles, digitization also exerts a strong influence on human resources and thus on the entire candidate journey", says Dr. Tim Weitzel, Study Director and Professor at the Chair of Business Informatics, University of Bamberg. "The recruiting and active sourcing phase is being digitized, which almost all the companies surveyed also find to be good in terms of efficiency and effectiveness."

5-YEAR PLAN OF THE JOB ADDRESS: MACHINE READINESS BEFORE CONTENTS AND FORM

Of course, with all these changes, there is also the question of what qualities a job advertisement must bring today in order to address the right candidates. For almost all companies surveyed in this year's Recruiting Trend Study, these are the points of content and branding.

Half of the companies rely on machine readability (for example, to be found by "Google Job Search Experience" or "crawling") and interactive elements such as social media links. If, on the other hand, the job ads persist in this way, they must generally be more dynamic and have higher machine readability for nine out of ten companies in order to be correctly processed. 

AUTOMATION BY TALENT RECOMMENDATION

The same applies to talent recommendation software who propose suitable candidates to companies: seven out of ten companies assume that these will be used more frequently in the future, however, only 3.8% of the top 1,000 companies and one in ten IT companies currently utilize these systems. 

Here, the candidates are more skeptical: more than half of them think it's good to see them used more in the future - but six out of ten candidates have concerns about data misuse. 

Despite the concerns of some candidates, the benefits to companies and candidates of these systems are obvious. For businesses, this sourcing is facilitated by a referrer, making it more effective than, say, more than half of the top 1,000 companies surveyed. Four out of ten companies are aware of the advantage, in particular for candidates, of possibly promoting a more discriminatory form of active sourcing: the digital recommendation system automatically compares candidate profiles with the requirements for the advertised position on the basis of publicly available data. Based on this analysis, they propose suitable candidates to the company.

"The current recruiting trends show that digital selection systems are used by almost twice as many companies as in 2017," says Sylvia Edmands, Managing Director of Monster in Germany. "At 10.3%, the share is still low, but the tendency to use a selection system is increasing." Both companies and candidates are positive about the trend: digital selection systems accelerate and simplify the process on both sides - and make it discriminatory poorer. 

GENERATION Z: A FUTURE OF VIRTUAL REALITY AND DIGITAL ADVISERS 

Companies see great opportunities in new technologies to inspire candidates - one in ten top 1,000 companies express interest and intent - but only 2.4% currently use virtual reality in recruitment. Additionally, an even amount of the top 1,000 are aware that by using artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and augmented reality applications, they can set themselves apart from competitors and other companies.

The young generation is also open to automated advice. More than half of Generation Z would use digital career consultants (e.g. chatbots) that could answer their questions about careers, vacancies or companies in general; these are only offered by 2.4% of companies. Nonetheless, the opportunities and potential of digital career counselors were rated better by companies and candidates than they were two years ago.

The ubiquitous digitization is already having a major impact on the recruiting and active sourcing phases of the candidate journey - even more so over the next five years. This is received positively from all sides, as candidates and companies see many opportunities in intelligent machines. Whether these are actually implemented successfully and en masse in the future remains to be seen.

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