Talent Acquisition Leaders Cite Candidate Relationships As Key to Hiring, But Slow to Make Real Change In New Tech Report From GoodTime Reveals

Findings Show Tech Companies' Struggles Around Hiring and Talent Retention; Just 46% of Companies Met Their Hiring Goals, and 45% Say Creating Candidate Relationships Will Remain A Top Priority


SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 25, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- GoodTime, the world’s first Meeting Optimization Engine company, announced the findings from its 2022 Hiring Insights Report specific to the Technology industry. In March of 2022, GoodTime surveyed 409 HR, talent, and recruiting leaders across the U.S. in the tech industry and uncovered their most critical hiring challenges in tech, and what steps they’re taking to adapt to an ever-evolving landscape. The data from respondents illustrates an industry that recognizes these ever-changing times, and how the right tech stack optimization now can set an organization up for future hiring success.

Findings from the 2022 Hiring Insights Report: Tech Industry Spotlight include:

  • In 2021, tech companies met just 46% of their hiring goals.
  • 47% of tech companies agreed that in the past 12 months, meaningfully connecting with candidates has become crucial.
  • 45% said that creating candidate relationships will remain a top priority in the coming year.
  • While 47% of respondents stated building better candidate relationships over the past 12 months was a priority, only 34% prioritized it and only 35% plan on improving relationships with candidates in the months ahead.
  • Only 33% of respondents say that they show an interest in a candidate’s well-being during the candidate nurturing process.
  • Making DEIB a measurable priority was the lowest priority with only a 33% response rate.

The Hiring Landscape

Against a backdrop of economic uncertainty, many tech companies have gone through a series of cutbacks ranging from layoffs to hiring freezes. Globally, the tech industry has laid off 44,000 workers as of October 2022, according to a TechCrunch news tally.

Hiring will invariably rebound. And when it does, tech companies need to be in an optimal position to win the best talent. Talent leaders are taking advantage of this time to assess processes and refine their hiring strategies.

Hiring Goal Attainment

According to GoodTime’s findings, hiring teams at tech companies recognize the importance of cultivating strong relationships with candidates (47% state that it’s a top priority), but they aren’t willing to take action (just 35% consider it a priority for next year). These teams want to deliver an efficient hiring experience, but they continue to see their time-to-hire increase. And the result? Poor hiring goal attainment. If tech companies want to make the most of this downturn in hiring, they cannot choose inaction. It’s time for less talk, and more action.

Candidate Relationship

With hiring slowing down across the tech landscape, talent teams have new bandwidth to double down on the quality of their hiring process. A tell-tale sign of a high-quality process is its ability to cultivate genuine, strong relationships with candidates. Neglecting to prioritize these relationships means bad news for company hiring goal attainment. Hiring leaders recognize that connection is key: 47% of tech companies agreed that in the past 12 months, connecting with candidates has become crucial. Likewise, 45% said that creating candidate relationships will remain a priority in the coming year as well, underscoring the need to focus on the core elements of candidate relationship building.

DEIB

With the increased awareness surrounding DEIB in hiring over the last couple of years, one would think that tech as a whole would’ve made great strides. The data, however, fails to demonstrate any meaningful level of progress. When asked which aspects of their hiring process they looked to improve over the past 12 months, making DEIB a measurable priority was the lowest response (33%). The next 12 months don’t look promising, either; prioritizing DEIB was the second lowest response at 34%.

Hiring Efficiency

Speed-to-hire is a critical KPI for tech companies, even in less competitive hiring markets. Regardless of hiring volume, the competition for quality talent isn’t going anywhere. Hiring efficiency remains top of mind well into the future. In the past 12 months, improving overall efficiency was the main focus area of tech companies (42%). Likewise, this is still their biggest priority for the next 12 months (41%). The majority of talent teams in tech—58%—said that their time-to-hire increased. Only 9% saw it decrease.

“Talent teams know what they must do to succeed in tumultuous times, yet our data shows that they've struggled with execution,” said Ahryun Moon, co-founder and CEO of GoodTime. “Now is the time to hire with precision and optimize your operations.”

About GoodTime
GoodTime helps people and companies drive better results from their most important meetings. The GoodTime Meeting Optimization Engine automates scheduling, ensures the right people are in the room, and provides actionable insights to meet smarter. Its flagship product, Hire, allows organizations to win top talent faster with Candidate Relationship Intelligence. Over 300 leading companies like Spotify, Slack, Pinterest, Okta, HubSpot, and Box have scheduled more than seven million smart meetings with GoodTime. Learn more at goodtime.io.

Media Contact
Elena Lopez | Audree Hernandez
Jmac PR for GoodTime
goodtime@jmacpr.com