About a decade ago, recruiting was a very different landscape. The technology companies used kept candidate files organized in a system that functioned more like an electronic filing cabinet or an Excel spreadsheet. Certainly, the field of recruiting has made drastic improvements based on the consumerization of technology, changes in the global workforce and in accommodation of a new and different type of candidate experience. Applications are slightly more user-friendly, recruiters are exposed to additional candidates (and candidate details) and the source of hire firehose continues to become a stronger force for any recruitment team to contend with.

So what we can we expect from a field that innovates and changes as often as it has in the past decade? Can we really attempt to anticipate the peaks and valleys in a landscape already so changed from ten, five or even three years ago? Will it be more of the same or true innovation this time around? Let’s try to suss it out:

Not Mobile? Not Visible.

Companies who don’t have an application process that is easily accessible via mobile device are already behind in recruiting. It’s not just winning the tech wars, they are losing potential candidates in all verticals because of it. These organizations have the very real possibility of losing the 70% of candidates who would rather apply for a position via their mobile device. It is critical at this point in the technology age to have a career site and application process that is mobile-friendly in order to attract and retain candidates throughout the hiring process. Don’t have a mobile site? You could be missing out on traveling nurses, manufacturing talent or oil and gas talent. It goes way beyond Silicon Valley.

Analytics: More than a Gut Feeling

Big Data… it can be a scary thought for some organizations. As the amount of data of candidates grows at an exponential rate, technology is slowly becoming more equipped to handle the massive amounts of information. With that development, these recruitment tools and systems will become less of “data aggregators” and evolve into “data-driven applications” as Josh Bersin (@Josh_Bersin), Principal & Founder of Bersin by Deloitte, said.

The recruiting landscape will change in accordance with the growth in analytics and Big Data. A field once predominantly reliant upon the instincts of the recruiter, is no longer solely based on intuition. It is advancing with the developments in corporate technology. In a recent post, we noted:

“The gut-feeling, while valuable in the hiring process, is no longer the cornerstone of effective HCM planning.”

Or as Bill Boorman put it at a recent BDAS event: “We’re running our organizations on guess work and that’s not good enough.”

Indeed, while big data makes the headlines, it’s disruptive data that will make the difference within organizations of any size. Understanding just what you expect the data to change within your company is the real question for 2015, not which data platform to use (ours!)

A Change in Sourcing

Currently, the post-and-pray method is popular to find candidates for open positions. This, however, is not an efficient means to find new talent in the modern recruiting. Towards the future, the field will progress from the traditional Applicant Tracking System into a highly interconnected system of network recruiting applications. Tools like LinkedIn and Glassdoor are examples of this medium, and as these professional platforms become increasingly more popular (roughly 3 billion people use LinkedIn) they will become more valuable to recruiters as they source new talent.

ATS companies are already implementing changes into the systems to accommodate for candidate behavioral changes (i.e., social sharing job postings). Recruiters, therefore, have to become comfortable with the adaptations and new networking tools to better source highly talented candidates. Using a candidate sourcing platform that aggregates not only distribution data, but competitive intelligence, geographical data and more will become de rigueur as sourcers demand more sophisticated funnels to prove their ROI.

Recruiting has come a long way in the last several years, but it still has a long way to go. In order to attract the best talent, recruiters have to change the way they source candidates in the first place. A majority of the modern world has a smartphone, so candidates are more apt to apply for a job and send their resume through their cell phone. That means if the recruiting platform isn’t optimized for mobile devices, you’re likely to lose talent. The increase in technology usage has also produced vast amounts of information and data… Candidate recruiting will move further away from intuition based hires towards a systematic, data-influenced system.

While much of this may seem like more of the same, it’s really about deciding which data is worth taking in and which distribution channels to use when sending data out to the world.

Bio: Kelly Robinson

Kelly Robinson is the founder and CEO of Broadbean Technology, a sourcing and recruiting technology company. Broadbean Technology has created a strong global presence with offices in the US, Europe and Australia The company remains true to the core fundamentals of its inception: “Keep it light and fun while getting the job done!” Kelly writes about leadership and culture, as well as reducing friction in the candidate experience.