I recently participated in a panel discussion with Bill Kutik, Gerry Crispin and Elaine Orler at the Peopleclick user conference.  One question Bill asked was a question I hear often from ERE members and companies faced with a slowing economy and the retirement of the Baby Boomers…

Name your three top Talent Acquisition trends that you believe will have significant impact in the next 18 months and why?

My answer is always the same…Onboarding, Workforce Demographics and Social Networking…

Onboarding because I love talking about it. It’s fascinating and companies can’t seem to get enough of this topic. Effective onboarding is directly tied to retention strategies. Research I have conducted indicates that 38% of companies admit to losing a talented employee due to a weak onboarding process and over 90% of companies believe their employee makes their decision to stay within the first 6 months. I could go on and on and on…but I won’t…

Workforce demographics…Gen X/Gen Y…entitled or not entitled? The reality is recruiters need to use new tools and adopt a new attitude. New tools include social networking sites, videos, text messaging. New attitudes because this generation expects more from their employer/recruiters and has a different perspective on work/life balance.  In a business week article, 28% of the Baby Boomers live to work while 17% of Gen X live to work.

I want to challenge the last topic on my personal list of trends. Social networking…love them or hate them, these sites are growing like crazy! A recent Boston Globe article stated that venture capital money for Web 2.0 sites including Facebook and MySpace hit $1.3 billion in Q1 of this year. A study by Knowledge Infusion and ERE found that only 21% of recruiters DON’T use social networking sites. Bottom line, they are everywhere and everyone seems to be using them. My question to you is are they effective at finding quality candidates or are they just a branding tool? I have talked to many recruiters who post profiles but are unsure how to use these sites.

Any feedback would be great!