The industry has seen a major shift in the way people seek job opportunities, right from high street to online job boards to various other options. However, data-driven recruitment is the one which is seeking attention at present. Today, with growing workforce demands, it has become difficult for the recruiters to keep up with the pace and fulfill the requirements. Also, fierce competition is another challenge for those high potential people who will deliver innovative solutions or go above and beyond to meet the company’s requirements. Data-driven recruitment is one of the major key to attracting and hiring them at the right price and keeping the right talent within the company to meet business objectives.

There is over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created per day, which is so much that 90 percent of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone, according to IBM. It is also predicted that less than five percent of the companies are analytical competitors – possibly fewer when it comes to the staffing space. Today, data-driven recruiting process can be a significant source of competitive differentiation and business advantages for organizations. With the rapid rise in big data analytics, social media, employer branding and the focus on candidate experience has majorly influenced the talent acquisition functions. The process has evolved to become more data-driven and a strategic part of the business today. In a candidate driven market it is necessary to engage

talent with innovative methods such as personalized marketing.

In the next few years, cognitive technologies will have a profound impact on recruitment and sourcing talent. Online job portals are now evolving to provide predictive hiring solutions that help the organizations discover, engage and hire talent. Most online recruitment portals offer a ready base of active jobs and help start-ups and entrepreneurs reach out to talent faster. Besides intelligent search algorithms, the new age online recruitment portals now offer more sophisticated platforms for end-to-end recruiting, digital, social marketing and CRM. IBM Watson Recruitment uses structured and unstructured data from applicants, automatically analyzes and ranks without bias the candidates who are most likely to succeed and thrive in the organization. IBM Watson Recruitment also monitors market perceptions and employee sentiment to improve conversations about the company.

With the rapid rise in big data analytics, social media, employer branding and the focus on candidate experience has majorly influenced the talent acquisition functions

Online recruitment portals will always continue to remain vital to recruiters given their power to connect with large audiences. Traditionally, online job boards have been offering two key services to their users - job postings and candidate search. Both these services heavily depend on the skills of the user (the recruiter). Job boards of the future will need to harness big data, social insights and Artificial Intelligence to provide predictive search capabilities and candidate insights so that they are able to reach out to relevant talent quickly. Industry specific talent solutions and candidate segmentation are the new areas of focus for the new age HR tech start ups. At IBM, we are focusing on data-driven and agile sourcing methodologies to hire top talent for our business. Having said that, 'Candidate Experience' also continues to be at the heart of our strategy. Jobs boards significantly contribute towards widening our top talent reach.

Today, online reviews are the new currency! Millennials are now cultivating and retaining digital relationships with organizations. They maintain their connections with recruiters, hiring managers and employees in companies that they are keen to work in. However, whatever method is being used, analytics in a do-it-once and done process. In order to have a successful recruitment, the HR or the recruitment firm must continuously keep looking for ways to improvise on the hiring processes.