Recruiting Support: Hiring Trends for the Second Half of 2010

Is recruiting new talent one of your top business growth strategies for late 2010?

It seems that for many companies in the U.S., it is. Some interesting information came out of a survey released last week by Dice Holdings, a provider of career websites for professional communities including information technology. Dice’s survey was compiled from responses from 800 interviews with U.S. companies, government entities, and recruiting firms from every region of the country. Each of the entities hires and recruits a variety of professionals.

Although not specific to expansion stage companies, as someone who provides recruiting support to OpenView and ten of our portfolio companies, I felt that the information uncovered in the survey was an interesting indication of where hiring trends are moving in 2010. Below I have outlined what I thought were some interesting findings from Dice.

• Dice’s survey found that 52% of employers and recruiters plan to hire more professionals in the second half of 2010, and that of those planning to hire, 49% project that they will add up to 10% more employees than in the first half of 2010. Of those surveyed, 28% plan to increase hiring by 11 to 20%. While this would be good news for the economy at large, it may also spell increased competition for smaller companies trying to hire and retain staff.

• When it comes to the time it takes to fill a new position, 26% of employers and recruiters said that they expected the time to shorten either slightly or substantially, and 20% of the respondents cited an increase in recruiting for new positions, indicating a greater urgency to build staff.

• On the negative end, it is getting harder to find qualified employees. According to Dice’s survey, 33% of employers and recruiters are seeing flat or declining numbers of qualified professionals applying for positions, juxtaposed with 17% only six months ago.

Fewer applicants and an increase in job openings mean that many companies will need to upgrade their employee retention initiatives in order to keep valuable staff.

What about your company? Are you planning to increase your staff in the second half of 2010 more than you did in the first?