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Nov 1, 2012

Soon enough, we’ll have an idea of what the next four years at the White House will look like.

But technology is a bit harder to predict — and four years can have a dramatic difference in the products and services available for recruiters, HR professionals, and employers.

How will HR and recruiting technology evolve over the next four years?

1. Millennials will dictate evolution in HR Tech

Most of the 10 million Millennials entering the job market during the next three years will expect a far better candidate experience than today’s. This more-demanding “customer” of human resources dictates that HR technology be upgraded to initiate timely candidate interaction and utilize social media as a communication tool. Essentially, rather than the cold shoulder being given candidates now, evolving HR tools will deliver a digital handshake and a virtual smile.

Mark Babbitt, YouTern

2. Embrace social media, digital technology, online video hiring

With more and more applicants spending increasing amounts of their online time using social media, HR technology will find new ways to use the social space to find great candidates. Social media will be used to find a larger and more connected talent pool of candidates for companies looking for particular skill sets. While online video will be embraced as a better way to get to know these tech-savvy candidates faster and more personally than the traditional phone screens.

Josh Tolan, Spark Hire

3. Video & crowdsourcing will impact HR technologies

Because HR is always looking to lower hiring costs, HR technology trends will shift toward techniques that not only work, but also save money. Two dirt cheap techniques that are kicking up the recruitment space are the use of video and crowdsourcing in the recruitment sphere. Video allows employers to explain a lot of information to job seekers in a more engaging format that can also promote their brand. Crowdsourcing is basically a ton of free help in creating and promoting a job. Stay tuned.

 — Rob Kelly, Ongig

4. A shift toward social performance

The talent management industry isn’t currently keeping up with the demands of employees who want user-friendly performance management platforms. Social Performance is slowly seeing adoption across the workforce, and this will continue in the next three years since it’s easy to use and deploy–not only HR, but for every leader and manager–in order to drive autonomy and results. It’s also ideal in meeting the need for HR processes to be continuous, and allows for more informal feedback in real-time.

 — Morgan Norman, WorkSimple

5. Force HR to grow to a highly strategic organization

HR Technology is making our lives as HR practitioners much more efficient — even in spite of the huge learning curve that most professionals face in adapting to new technology. As HR Tech continues to collect and display metrics, more and more businesses will be able to make strategic business decisions as a result of these findings — not just from C-Level conversations that leave HR out.

 — Joey Price, Jumpstart:HR

6. Social capabilities integrated into the platforms

When a candidate applies for a position, a HR manager or hiring manager will see the application and their social profiles as an integrated aspect of their application. For example, it will show what company the candidate worked at, the recommendations they received while at that position from his or her LinkedIn profile, recent tweets, and Facebook wall posts.

 — Sudy Bharadwaj, Jackalope Jobs

7. More advancements in technology, but focus on people will prevail

Technology has an important place in recruiting, but it cannot entirely replace human interaction. Technology will continue to enable quick and cost-effective recruiting through applicant tracking, screening, evaluating, and communicating. Smart hiring managers will use technology to their benefit, but recognize the need for in-person meetings and phone calls to discover who the candidate behind the computer is.

 — Michele St. Laurent, Insight Performance

8. Technology determining fit will Be critical

The ubiquity of a professional persona and the amount of structured and unstructured data surrounding it has created a massive problem determining signal from noise. The ability to create intelligent applications that leverage these data to quickly determine intent and fit will be critical to the success of any new recruiting technologies, otherwise there can only be incremental improvement to legacy systems.

Michael A. Morell, Riviera Partners

9. Employer value proposition, branding will be real recruiting difference

It will become much more like CRM and less tailored to the application of active job seekers. Employer value proposition and branding will be the real difference makers and the technology will evolve to support this. It will enable talent acquisition leaders to engage with a community of talent via multiple channels.

Larry Jacobson, Vistaprint