Dear Recruiter

Back at IHR London, Hung Lee talked about research on those who consider themselves lucky. One thing they have in common is that they know how to be in the right place and talk to the right people at the right time.

More practically, they go to more events, engage in more communities, and talk to more people, which increases their chances of having valuable conversations and making invaluable connections.

The lesson? To have more luck, have more conversations.

📈 Data Point: RecruitmentTrends

Data and insights direct from the Pinpoint team

We’ve updated RecruitmentTrends 🎉

You can now explore trends based on jobs opened in Q2 2024. Sharing data based on jobs with at least a quarter to close gives you a representative picture of time to fill and hire, and application volume.

Let’s zero in on Applicants per Hire by Channel

At first glance, job boards appear increasingly inefficient in their application-to-hire ratio, while the quality of sourced candidates has improved. But there’s more to see here.

Go a layer deeper and look at the breakdowns for those channels. Looking at the 1st and 3rd quartiles, you can see that the distribution of data points around the median has changed for sourced candidates.

24-Q1 had a very wide range, suggesting many people struggled with the quality of their sourced candidates. However, in 24-Q2, we see a significant drop in the median, bringing it back closer to the first quartile at about 20 applicants to each hire. And the third quartile sits much closer to the median of around 30.

Could this be the start of a new trend? Given the volatility of the last few quarters, that's far from certain.

Right now, the question is what might be driving an improvement in sourced candidate quality? And for those in that first quartile of sourcing greatness, how could we all learn from their successes? What do you think is going on? What does your network think?

🎙️ Talent Talks - with Mathew Parker

Quick fire questions to get to know leading recruiters

The latest Talent Talks is with Matthew Parker , founder of the Open to Work Community. Matthew is such an articulate, curious person—this conversation was a real treat.

As a wild card question, we asked if there was a product or a business he wished he could take credit for creating. 

“The interview assessment, right? … That is where I see the biggest opportunity for the recruiting industry as a whole is going to be. How do we unpack what is actually happening in those conversations?” 

I love this answer because interviews contain a wealth of knowledge. There's the industry knowledge that candidates share, and there's the insight into what techniques help tell us what we need to know about candidates (and which ones don't!).

Watch the full episode on YouTube here.

📍 The Pinboard

What's new in recruitment?

• 📸 Recruiting Brainfood’s Live Crowdcast on Friday featured this very snappable slide from the recent Arctic Shores State of GenAI report. It’s clear that, more than ever, TA’s skills in conversation need to be recognized and nurtured:

• 💡If you’ve been recruiting for IT roles over the past few years, you’ll know the roller coaster it’s been. KellyOCG & RocketPower ’s recent blog reflects on where we were a few years ago, where we are now, and what we expect for the near future.
• 📆 HR and Talent teams in growing organizations—are you free Tuesday, November 19, at 8:30 am EST / 1:30pm GMT? Sign up for our webinar with Mike Bradshaw , our Head of Talent, and Lee Harding , Talent Acquisition Director at Join Talent , on practical advice to improve your hiring process and attract the talent you really want to find.
• 📆 TA Leaders in London: If you're struggling to find the right talent for your team, then November 13th from 9-11am GMT is the date for you. Pinpoint and Humaans are holding a breakfast roundtable focused on why hiring in professional services has become so hard—and what you can do about it. Space is limited, so if you want to attend, email erin.sheppard@pinpointhq.com, and we'll share more details!

🍞 Tips from hospitality TA: How to move fast and be strategic with new tools

From the Pinpoint team and our customers

We mentioned a few weeks ago the event we ran with Tech On Toast for TA in hospitality. The panel's conversation was so insightful that we wanted to ensure more people could benefit from it.

We’ve written a guest post for the Tech on Toast blog. It's all about how to balance the pace of TA demands in the hospitality industry with the desire (and need) to push forward on strategic initiatives.

It’s not an easy balance, but the conversation on the day revealed some practical ways in which it is possible—and has been done.

Finally—a reminder that there’s another chance for some luck-boosting conversations at IHR Bristol on Thursday. Come chat with us at stand #20 and grab yourself a complimentary coffee with one of our iconic coffee cups. 

I’ll also be sharing a step-by-step guide on how to build a more transparent, data-led approach to hiring manager engagement on the main stage at 10.45am. (Informed, of course, by conversations with our ⭐ customers ⭐ .)

To continue the conversation, email me at dear.recruiter@pinpointhq.com or drop us a message on LinkedIn

All the best,

Tom Hacquoil

Pinpoint CEO