Study: 68% of HR professionals report challenging recruiting conditions

The New Talent Landscape, HR professionals across industries are reporting a more challenging market for talent in 2016 compared with recent years. The reasons? A low number of applicants, lack of the needed work experience among candidates, competition from other employers, candidates’ lack of technical skills, and the local market not producing enough qualified candidates. The study surveyed HR professionals on a range of recruiting and skills issues to get a better understanding of what the current talent market looked like across a range of industries. The responses indicate a clearly challenging time for HR professionals. Here are a few of the key findings:

• 68% of HR professionals report challenging recruiting conditions (an 18% increase from 2013)
• It is not uncommon for HR professionals to work without a training budget. Whereas 69% of HR professionals surveyed said their organization had a training budget over the last 12 months, almost one-third (31%) reported that their organization did not.
• One-half of HR professionals reported that over the past 12 months their training budgets had remained the same. Meanwhile, 39% said training budgets had increased and 11% said they had decreased.
• Employees receive their training most often through conferences, seminars, workshops and professional organizations; via on-the-job training; or through webinars or other online training applications
• Whereas few organizations reported that they provide registered apprenticeship programs in their organizations, larger organizations (those with 2,500 or more employees) were more likely to have them compared with smaller organizations
• The most commonly reported applied skills shortage are critical thinking/problem-solving, professionalism/work ethic, leadership, written communications and teamwork/collaboration