Dive Brief:

• Reducing the time it takes to hire candidates is a top priority for growing companies, according to Spark Hire's 2018 Growth Hiring Trends in the United States. The group surveyed 500 talent acquisition professionals.
• A quarter of companies surveyed expect growth in their workforce for 2018 and many of those say they'll face challenges around staffing. The pressure is on to shorten the time it takes to hire, for one. For 49% of the survey respondents, seven to 14 days from receipt of application to offer letter was the norm; 24% of companies reported that its takes them 15 to 30 days. Many said they want to reduce that time, and that held true even for those with the shortest time frame. Of the companies that take less than a week, half of them responded they can still improve their time to hire.
• Employers also said they expect a lack of qualified candidates, and many said they'll look to new talent pools as a result. Turnover also troubles employers, though soft skills and cultural fit were identified as keys to reducing it.

Dive Insight:

Across a range of industries, supply is not meeting demand for new hires. The talent gap continues to pressure employers to explore previously untapped talent streams, but high turnover and low unemployment are blocking hiring goals.

For many employers, a long hiring process will ultimately mean they could lose a viable candidate to the competition. New recruiting technologies have long-since emerged to try and combat this problem, but now many employers face applicants that game the system by hiding key words in resumes or answering personality tests with the expected answers — meaning recruiters often are still left sorting through applicants the old-fashioned way.

Companies that anticipate rapid growth in the coming year and who experience high turnover face additional challenges. The job-hopping phenomenon extends far beyond millennials, who are usually tagged with the 'job hopper' moniker. While salary can certainly play a role in why employees take their talents elsewhere, a lack of career management and a lack of opportunities for development may prompt an employee's exit. In response, more employers have focused their efforts on career development and education benefits to try and stymie high turnover rates.