The previous year had brought about radical changes in the recruiting industry and 2014 is all set to take those changes to a new altitude altogether.

Experts reveal that the face of our careers in 2014 will be determined by the changing world economy and the ever varying needs of the job market of the world.

Even if your corporate recruiting function has low resources and expects little change in the current year, you still have a moral obligation to stay abreast of the latest trends and predictions in the world of recruitment.

Here are some top career trends predictions for recruitment agencies in 2014:

Job Interviews will Change their Focus: Till now, a job interview has only been seen as a tool in the hands of the hiring expert to figure out whether the candidate being interviewed is capable enough in terms of qualification and experience to carry out a certain job or not. The criteria that have been governing such interviews till now have been grades and scores in the mark sheets. Such a trend is unlikely to be seen in 2014. It is predicted that employers will shift their focus to quantify the candidates' problem solving skills. Behavioral interviews will be resorted to in order to gauge the candidate's ability to meet the challenges of real world problems. GPAs and test results will lose their credibility in the eyes of the recruiters and pragmatism will gain prominence.

Rise in Social Media Recruitment: Social media has emerged as a potent hiring tool in 2013 and will continue to remain so in 2014 as well statistics reveal that as many as 73% of US recruiters and 71% British recruiters have been using social media to recruit their staff. It is a debatable issue whether social media platforms such as Linkedln will completely take over other forms of carrying out recruitment such as local newspaper classifieds and advertising agencies but what stands for a fact is that 2014 will see several new social platforms which will be exclusively dedicated to recruiting and HR. Besides this, HR solutions will also focus more on data and quantify all behavior at work' to assess a person's individual and organizational performance. Such quantification will not only enable recruiters to do better headhunting but also enhance the employees' performance.

Boomerang Rehires will Rise: The year 2014 expects to see a marked rise in boomerang rehires. They have proven themselves to be one of the top quality hire sources and the shortage of talent is expected to throw them into prominence once again after several years of inattention. The competition for talent will certainly heat up in 2014 and many firms will prefer swinging their alumni groups into action to use them as a mechanism of bringing back good former employees with an established track record. Such re-energizing of alumni groups will result in boomerang hires reaching at least 15% of all recruitment.

Increase in Mobile IT: Ignoring the necessity of going mobile will be a suicidal act. Going mobile cannot be ignored any longer or else you will begin losing candidates that are vital for the growth of your firm. Every recruiting agency must have a mobile website in order to be able to allow their candidates have an access to all the information they need through their mobile devices. Besides getting information, they should also be able to apply through the mobile optimized website.

With economic indicators being positive and optimism at its all time high, there are more than reasonable chances that 2014 will be a busy year for recruitment agencies.

Jenny Ho is with International Workplace Consulting Pte. Ltd., Singapore.