5 Surprising Recruitment Statistics That Will Help Your Strategy


With the constantly changing market, it's crucial that you stay up-to-date with all the most recent data, so you can adjust your processes and continue to get top talent, no matter the circumstances. If you get stuck in a certain way of doing things just because it worked for you in the past, you'll lose.

The best recruiters know their market and the wider recruitment landscape inside it and out. It is essential to stay on top of trends to add expert-level value to your clients’ and candidates’ hiring journey. As such, we have looked at some of the most surprising stats in the recruitment industry today that may just change some of your recruitment processes and keep you one step ahead of your competitors!

4 in every 5 job board applications come from candidates already in an agency’s database

Applications to your job ads may have been a little harder to come by in recent years – which, in return, might have lead you to spend more time creating the perfect advert or perhaps increase your ad spend by posting across more and more job boards.

The reality is that with most of your applicants coming from people already in your database, this is the first place you should be looking at well before you write a single line of advert copy. This should also encourage you to keep your candidate records up to date with current in-depth information, so your candidates are primed and ready when the right role comes.

Better yet, with a good CRM, you can let your recruitment software do the hard work for you by pulling relevant candidates directly into your live vacancies.

Top candidates are only available for ten days before being hired

This means that if you speak to a top candidate on Monday, they will be in a new role by the end of the following week - and in a market where top talent is hard to come by it could be even quicker. Might seem a bit scary, right?

This means that it’s up to you to be proactive with your best candidates and get them in front of relevant clients or into the process for live roles as soon as possible. A great way of making the most of these candidates is by creating a ‘Spec CV’ and sending it to companies with live roles. This could lead to a placement for your candidate or at the very least act as an excellent BD tool, showing prospective clients that you have access to good-quality candidates who are relevant to their needs.

2023 Recruitment Report

70% of the global workforce is passive talent, with the remaining 30% actively seeking jobs

This is a double-edged sword for recruiters - on the one hand, it may seem that this makes finding top candidates more challenging. But on the other, it shows the importance of the role of a recruiter to your clients and prospects.

This may change your processes by forcing you to be more proactive in searching for talent with job boards: Furthermore, it should show how crucial it is to nurture the passive candidates in your database. You can easily do this by setting regular check-ins, and adding value when engaging with them by keeping them updated on industry developments, blogs, and current wage and benefits package expectations. This will put you in the best possible position when the right role comes around.

Better yet - take it one step further and let your CRM keep them engaged by sending targeted job alerts when a new role goes live!

Social posts that include video content get 157% more searches than those without it

It will come as no real surprise to many recruiters that video content is king on LinkedIn and other social media platforms. In today’s recruitment landscape, you will simply fall behind if you don’t embrace LinkedIn on a regular basis.

Taking a short video running through your live roles is a great way to dip your toe into the water. And for more experienced posters, a day in the life of a recruiter, client testimonials, or trend-based skits like those seen on TikTok are a great way of driving traffic to your page (and therefore your jobs).

89% of job seekers consider their mobile devices essential for job searching, and 45% use them at least once per day

This one is perhaps more for your marketing team or those in charge of your web offering, but can still be useful for updating your processes. With so many candidates using their phones to search and apply for a new role it is crucial that your website is optimised for use on mobile and tablets.

And for your own recruitment processes, it would certainly be worth taking advantage of bulk SMS campaigns where it fits your market to nurture passive candidates and engage those actively looking.

To learn more about recruitment market of 2023, have a read of your industry report!

2023 Recruitment Report

Andrew Watson

As Product Marketing Executive Andrew shows off all the Firefish features that help change the way you recruit. Keep an eye on our news page and social channels to see what's new with Firefish each month!

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