In 2018, the main priorities of staffing firms are a deep focus on candidate sourcing, increasing profitability and revenue growth. These priorities can be only met with strategic planning and new technology. Candidates need to be engaged to deliver them a better and improved experience. Recruitment process needs to be automated for hiring candidates quickly.

Let’s talk about six trends which staffing firms believe will influence the industry. 

1) Automation
Automation has become a top priority for staffing firms. With a need to excel in this competitive world, finding quality candidates is a challenge. Resume parsing software is an effective solution which can speed up the entire recruitment process. It is an excellent technique which helps in shortlisting candidates by extracting candidate data from their resumes. Automation has not only increased efficiency of recruiters but also improved overall productivity of the organization.

2) Less confidence level in the industry
Economic growth and political factors have put an impact on the thinking of HR professionals. It is felt that inflation, healthcare policies and current administration will be affected by the same. Whereas a few are positive about the future of staffing firms in 2018. 

3) Increasing usage of digital staffing platforms
The use of digital staffing platforms is quite common in staffing industry. A few popular platforms such as Catalant, Shiftgig, Upwork etc are already impacting the growth of these firms. These are important sources of finding potential candidates.

4) Texting is going to be the next trend
That’s right! Calling is taking a backseat. Millennials prefer to get text messages from recruiters. This makes staffing firms use text messaging (SMS) as a communication channel. 

5) Referrals is the new talent source
One of the best source of talent acquisition is referrals. Most of the staffing firms find candidates through this channel. 2018 will see a rise in this trend.

6) More investment in technology
Staffing firms are adopting technology to deliver better results. A major part of their budget is utilized to get the best technology tools available in the industry. Also, market expansion is not an area of focus in 2018 but firms are definitely looking at getting more number of offices. 

The industry feels that these trends will bring a change and make the business achieve new milestones. What do you think?