Employer brand will take on greater importance and get more investment from the UK’s in-house recruiters as the national economy emerges from recession, according to the results of Recruiter’s recent ‘Future of Recruitment’ survey. (For most questions more than one choice could be ticked.)

A vast majority - 80% - of in-house recruiters responding to the survey said they expected to place increased emphasis on developing their employer brand over the next 12 to 18 months. Nearly 65% reported that they expected to put more money than they were currently into development of employer brand or company reputation as part of recruitment efforts.

Although a significant improvement in the economy may still be a few months away, 55% of the respondents revealed that they are planning now for the economic upturn with regard to staffing. A further 29% said that they have already planned for better times ahead.

The portion of the survey directed at in-house recruiters drew nearly 200 respondents, of which 20% were heads of recruitment or resourcing and 38% were recruitment managers. The largest representation of respondents - 62% - came from companies with 1,000 or more employees.

The in-house recruiters were asked about their anticipated spend on recruitment over the next 12 months, as well as any planned improvement in the quality of future hires, internal pressures on recruitment and the types of hires they expected to make in contract terms.

Although a significant majority (71%) of respondents believed that their organisation’s performance would improve over the next year, 48% plan to spend less on recruitment overall and 59% said they will spend less per hire in 2010.

The best news for external agency partners was that 59% don’t expect their procurement departments to become more involved in the recruitment process

The news was less than encouraging for external recruiters: 79% of the respondents said that they planned to spend less or a lot less on agency fees, and 65% said they would spend less on headhunters. Increased spend on in-house recruitment initiatives was planned by 61%.
Interest in online recruitment remained solid, with 55% anticipating they would increase their spend on online recruitment advertising. In the online arena, half of the respondents expected to spend the same amount as they are currently spending with generalist job boards, while only 25% anticipated upping their investment there. Niche job boards fared better; 44% of respondents expected to increase the amount of money they spend with them, and 37% expected to continue spending there at their current level.

Social networking sites will get more money from 47% of respondents, while 38% will continue at the same level. A greater proportion, or 63%, said they will devote more of their recruitment budget to the careers section of their organisation’s website.

For web visionaries who predicted that the greater availability of 3G technology for mobile phones would revolutionise the jobseeking experience, the 35% total of in-house recruiters who plan to spend less or a lot less may come as a surprise. Nearly 60% indicated that they would continue to spend the same amount on mobile recruitment marketing in 2010 - which could mean spending a lot or nothing at all.

The results revealed that in-house recruiters clearly believe the eyes of their organisation are upon them to make the right match between candidate and role; 65% said they expected increased pressure to hire the right person for the job.

The most often-cited method to improve quality of hire, at 86%, was by improving line managers’ recruitment skills, with plans to improve the capabilities of central recruitment or HR teams not far behind at 76%. Other responses were:

• Skills assessment, 71%
• More rigorous CV checking, 62%
• Background checking, 51%
• Psychometric testing, 50%
• Demanding more from recruitment service providers, 46%

As part of developing their employer brands over the next 12 to 18 months, the in-house recruiters said they planned to put more effort into the following:

• Better recruitment training for line managers, 76%
• Improve the recruitment process, 71%
• Develop the capabilities of their central recruitment/HR team, 68%
• Improve the talent management/retention programme, 62%
• Increase central control over recruitment, 60%

Additional options for developing employer brand, including more sophisticated use of social networking sites, were chosen by less than half of the respondents.

And possibly the best news for the in-house recruiters’ external agency partners was this: 59% do not expect their procurement departments to become more involved in the recruitment process.