From Data to Decisions: Using Labor Market Trends to Hire Smarter

Labor market data is a powerful tool for talent acquisition teams. In this episode, Appcast Chief Economist Andrew Flowers shares how to turn labor trends into actionable recruiting strategies. Whether you’re navigating a tight market or planning ahead, this conversation brings clarity to the complexity of today’s hiring landscape.

Summary

In this episode of Advancing Talent Acquisition, Andrew Flowers, Chief Economist at AppCast, shares the significance of labor market data in recruitment strategies. He discusses how data helps hiring managers benchmark against market trends, avoid unnecessary costs, and improve candidate match quality. Andrew also emphasizes the importance of considering talent competitors beyond just industry rivals, as job seekers often think in terms of occupation, pay, and location, not just industry.

Episode 5

Jenna Hinrichsen 
Welcome to the Advanced RPO Podcast, Advancing Talent Acquisition. Our guest today is Andrew Flowers. Andrew is the chief economist at Appcast. Welcome, Andrew. Will you tell us a little bit about your background? 

Andrew Flowers 
Hi, thanks for having me. It’s a real pleasure to be here. My background is in economics. I study economics and I worked at the Federal Reserve for six years. And that led me eventually to the broader world of recruiting and job boards. So, I was hired as an economist for Indeed. And I worked there out of the hiring lab for several years. And I really enjoyed all the data that was both proprietary to Indeed, but how I could connect that with broader trends in the labor market to help talent acquisition and HR leaders make sense of the world. So that’s my kind of background that led me to Appcast. So, four years ago in 2021, I started at Appcast and I’ve been really pleased to build a data and insights team that includes several economists and data scientists and analysts and basically it’s continuing that thread of connecting the macro economy, the capital E economics that you learn in school with the actual recruiting tactics, the boots on the ground know how that so many TA and recruiting leaders know, but how do you connect those two worlds? That’s been kind of my story at Appcast. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
Awesome. I love all this. The topic that we’re going to cover today is the importance of labor market data in recruitment strategies. Let’s just jump right in. And if you would tell us why is labor market data so important for companies and hiring managers in the hiring process? 

Andrew Flowers 
Without labor market data, hiring managers and recruiters can be in the dark in terms of both the ease or difficulty of fulfilling that rec and making that hire, but also the cost. And it’s not just the cost in terms of compensation of what to offer to actually get an accepted hire, but also in terms of the recruiting cost, both in money and time. 
And so, when I think about labor market data, right, we have employment trends, both hiring and quitting and layoff rates at the industry or occupational level. I think of wage or benefits for benchmarking purposes. So, all this labor market data, it’s basically it’s enabling hiring managers and TA leaders to benchmark themselves about what forces they cannot control. So, there’s lots that companies and hiring processes can control, right? You can think about your employer brand, you can think about your apply process, and a lot of that is important, no doubt, for kind of judging your success. But if you eschew labor market data, if you’ve got to push it to the side, you don’t know whether you’re actually succeeding or failing because you’re in the dark. So, when you add in the labor market data, you’re adding in these forces that are beyond any one company’s control, right? So, think of things like supply and demand of workers for specific jobs, or also government policy as it impacts wages, like inflation, for example. So, all this is important so that you’re not left in the dark. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
Right, and I think it really sets the stage for your whole hiring process. I look at it really as the foundation or the framework before you start doing anything, you need to understand the market. Otherwise, it’s like you’re going in blind. 

Andrew Flowers 
Exactly. Yes. I think a lot of hiring managers may feel like, “Hey, this is a good candidate pool or we’re offering compensation that’s, you know, middle of the bell curve or, this is such an easy rec to fulfill in this location. Why aren’t we doing it? Is it a problem on our end?” And so it’s sometimes hard to contextualize. Is your success of your own doing or is it because the macro market has made it so there’s more job seekers available for that position or is your failure to kind of hire at the rate your company needs to? Is that your failure as a recruiter or TA leader or is it actually just because the market has shifted? 

Jenna Hinrichsen 
What would you say are some potential implications of companies not being armed with this data during the hiring process? So, we just talked obviously about the importance of that. they go into it kind of like what you said, just sort of putting that aside, what can happen as they’re hiring? 

Andrew Flowers 
Yeah, I think there’s three things I’ll mention here in terms of implications of companies not taking this seriously. One is cost in terms of money. The second is cost in terms of time. And the third is the quality of the match of the job seeker to the position. So on the first, by not looking at labor market data and potentially seeing, for example, a surge of demand through job postings or through higher employment levels growing through hiring, you’re missing out on maybe a surge of competition. And so without that kind of tell, your cost, both in terms of the compensation you would offer these job seekers, but also in terms of your recruiting or recruitment marketing costs, rather, in terms of actually getting the eyeballs, the clicks from your job ads to get people to apply through your funnel, that’s a major cost that companies would be hit with in terms of dollars on their budget if they didn’t have this data. 
But the second cost is sometimes actually even greater, which is the cost in terms of time. A classic recruiting metric of time to fill. When you miss out on shifts in say labor supply, job seekers, right? And so in the US, for example, in recent years, we’ve got a huge influx of foreign born workers, a lot of immigrants into the country. And so we’ve seen for specific occupations, it becomes easier to fulfill certain roles because there’s just more workers to do those jobs. And if you didn’t have that information, you’re benchmarking for the time it would take to fill your positions could be off radically, both to the positive or to the negative. And so that’s the second element of cost. But finally, I’ll mention quality. The quality of the match really matters because if you’re thinking of your talent pool of candidates who apply for a position, and you’re looking at the skills, education background, work experience that those candidates have to judge whether that’s a successful talent pool that you can actually source from and interview, screen and hire eventually, that judgment on the quality of those candidates really needs to be put in the context of, who else is actually trying to hire for these roles or what are the shifting skill needs in the labor market? So there’s a whole, you know, a plethora of reasons why companies not being armed with labor market data could have a suboptimal hiring process, but those are the three that come to mind. 

Jenna Hinrichsen 
Yeah, and I think a lot of times companies will push that aside, as we’ve said, and just jump right in. I’ve got to get going. I’ve got to make this happen. But ultimately, they’re going to have to go back and look at data anyway. So you might as well do it upfront because you’re going to run into challenges in the market in some capacity. And so it’s going to stop you and your tracks or your recruiter in their tracks to have to go back and say, well, we weren’t expecting this or now we’ve run into this hurdle. How do we address it? And to your point, then you can jeopardize the potential candidates that you have in process or the time to fill because now you’re having to do the homework, if you will, during the hiring process versus coming prepared. It’s like showing up to a meeting with no information. You’re not prepared to do it and then you’re scrambling and trying to do that. So it just makes sense to do it upfront.
What do you think are the best sources of data? one of the things that I data has been a big passion of mine for a long time. And, you know, back in the day, I worked at career builder and we had supply and demand. We had purchased MZ at that time. And so that really embedded into the CareerBuilder platform data and analytics. And so it was great to have that. But one of the things that I struggled with with employers or getting them to understand, a lot of times they’d come back and say, well, what source is that from? Do they feel that that source is a reputable data source? well, in CareerBuilder’s case, it really only represents the CareerBuilder ecosystem. Now, I know that tools have gone beyond that and you’re able to aggregate and capture data from multiple sources. But what do you think are the best sources when companies are looking at labor market data? And not necessarily like a name of a company, but is it government data? Is it employer driven data? What would you say are the best practices there? 

Andrew Flowers 
Yeah, I think of this stool as a three-legged stool. There’s government publicly available labor market data, number one. I got to start there. And specifically in the US, the Bureau of Labor Statistics does just a fabulous job from the monthly employment situation report, which talks about a payroll employment and wages to the Joltz report, which talks about hiring and separations like quits and layoffs. 
There’s just lots and lots of great data from the BLS, but also other government sources in different countries as well. So that’s the first key leg of the stool. The second and third key legs of the stool are where we move into private data. And so the second leg of the stool, I would say, is third party labor market metrics. Like you mentioned MC or Burning Glass, now known as Lightcast. There’s other vendors in this space. Think of Talent Neuron and Text Curl, Horsefly and Public Insight, you can go down the list. There’s lots of good kind of third party labor market analytics companies. And I find that when they either aggregate job postings and they’re able to parse out details of those job postings like salary and skills, they’re able to really provide a good analytical product that again is private and proprietary, but I think is a key second part of that stool. Especially if you’re looking at competitive intelligence of like who else is trying to hire for this role? Say it’s a registered nurse in Los Angeles or a forklift driver in Chicago, whatever the role in market is, those third party labor market analytics providers are really good. So that’s the second leg of the stool. The third and final leg, I think, is proprietary data internal to the employer.  
So if you work in talent acquisition, or recruiting, if you think about all the ATS or CRM data you’re getting, right? In terms of applicants through the ATS, and you’re seeing the different disposition statuses from candidates as they progress through the funnel, and you can actually do analysis based on the sources of those applicants in your ATS system. There’s lots of data wrangling and issues that come with that endeavor, but it’s a really critical third leg of the stool. And it’s not just ATS data, right? Your CRM data in terms of, as you build a talent pool of previous applicants or different candidates, that also is a great asset if you want to kind of do internal sourcing, right? And so I think of it as this three-legged stool, public data, private data, and then your own proprietary internal data. 

Jenna Hinrichsen 
Right. I love that. I have a view that maybe differs sometimes from the industry that there’s not, you know, we mentioned a lot of different names of, of data tools out there. I tend to go with the approach that you do, which is you’ve got to look at it from multiple angles to tell the full story. And so it’s hard because there’s great tools out there, but it’s not just as simple as going and clicking, you know, Chicago, account executive, run report, and then boom, I have all the answers I need. You really have to dig in from these different sources and piece together, I think, the puzzle that’s gonna tell, ultimately tell you the story. So I love the three-legged stool approach or the view of that and just getting people to understand that you’ve gotta be looking at this from multiple angles.
What are your thoughts on talent competitors versus industry competitors? So as we talk about some of the tools, they’ve gotten really good at breaking down, whether you’re in manufacturing or healthcare, different industries that are hiring for similar positions. But that being said, what are your thoughts on talent competitors versus industry competitors? I often find myself having to remind clients, you’ve got to look bigger picture beyond just your industry competitors. There are other people hiring for similar roles and I get a lot of pushback, which baffles me sometimes. What are your thoughts on that? 

Andrew Flowers 
I think if you work in recruiting and talent acquisition, and I’m guilty of this too, you can be a bit parochial to your specific industry. Meaning if you work in retail, you can think about, who are the other retailers that compete? Maybe it’s like Lowe’s and Home Depot or Walmart and Target. But your observation is a really critical one, which is that that’s not how job seekers think of it. Job seekers think about the job search in terms of occupation, pay, and location. Those are the three things. I’ll give you two examples for why this matters, this mismatch between the industry focused idea of talent, which is bad versus the occupation focused idea of talent, which is good. So first example would be tech workers, right? Increasingly, the US economy is becoming techified. And by that, I mean, there’s a high share of jobs, employment in tech related occupations. But the key point is they’re not just jobs at tech companies per se, like Google and Meta, right? So think of, used Home Depot and Lowe’s earlier. Well, they’re hiring scores of software developers and data scientists and other types of tech workers.  
And so to think of yourself as only competing with, say, if you’re trying to hire tech talent, you’re only thinking of your competitors as other tech companies, that’s a big shortfall. The second kind of, and this is a bit more controversial way to think about it, or rather political way to think about it. 
Another good example of why occupation matters more than industry is the current policy debate around immigration in this country. So think about what the new Trump administration is proposing to do, right? They’re proposing to deport undocumented workers. Well, when we look at what data, the best data we have, we find that those undocumented workers are often concentrated in a few industries like agriculture, farming, or construction or food service.  
And so, one of the things I’ve talked about when I’ve talked about this idea of immigration impacting recruiting is when employers look at me and say, that doesn’t apply to us because we don’t hire any undocumented workers. I think they’re misunderstanding what I say when I say of an occupation focused view of the job seeker. That’s what they’re thinking about because what’s gonna happen is there’s lots of companies in agriculture and manufacturing and food service and construction. They’re gonna have to hire more workers if these deportations proceed. And who are they gonna poach workers from, right? There’s plenty of workers who say work in retail or at a warehouse, but if you offer them a high enough salary, they would totally go and do roofing, or they would work at a meat processing factory, or they would go and pick strawberries. It’s all about the wages. if it’s a skill set where they’re able to slide from say retail warehousing into manufacturing or agriculture, that’s where you have to think about your competitors as focused on the, your talent competitors as focused on the job type. And job seekers are really fluid.  
And the last thing I’ll say here is just since COVID, there’s been a lot of switching in turn, particularly during the so-called great resignation of 2021 through 2022 or so, where there’s lots of quitting. But it wasn’t just quitting to take the same job in another industry. A lot of job seekers, a lot of workers were actually contemplating switching careers altogether, different employers, not just within the same industry, but maybe an occupation in a totally different industry. And so I think that’s why this mentality of focusing on talent based on the job type, not the industry’s key. 

Jenna Hinrichsen 
Yeah, you’re so right. And I think you make a good point when you started answering that at beginning that people in the talent acquisition or recruiting space, I think we get used to recruiting. So, when you’re doing a search, you have very specific things that a client is looking for. And so, you narrow as much as you possibly can to get to that right person. And I always have to go back and say, you’ve got to kind of take your recruiter hat off for a minute and look at data from a different perspective. You’ve got to look at it more broadly than you do an actual search. So yeah, I think that that’s really helpful information, I think, for companies to digest and really start looking at it from a different angle.  
One more question for you. I like to end every podcast with the same question for every guest, because I’m always curious and I think our audience is too. What is your top career tip that you’d like to share with our listeners today? So, it doesn’t have to be related to this topic, but just in general, you you’ve been in business. What would you offer out there as advice to career seekers. 

Andrew Flowers 
I would say keep applying for jobs, at least one every year, and try to get a conversation. even if you’re happy in your current role, it’s important to sharpen your skills in terms of presenting yourself, like crafting a resume, answering basic interview questions.  
I think this is a good exercise for everyone to do, even if it’s just for your own sake to kind of recommit to your current role, but to be able to exercise those muscles of like, who am I? What is my education and skill set? How does it apply to the role I currently have, but also maybe other roles I want? It’s just a good exercise to kind of, a lot of people get tenured in a role for three or four years and they, and I think you lose that edge if you’re not trying to sell yourself on a regular basis. 

Jenna Hinrichsen  
Yeah, you’re so right. think that is such a great tip. And I think that benefits anybody at any level in their career. Just so you’re not rusty, if you have to be in a position to be looking for something, whether you choose to or not. It’s kind of like companies knowing, going back to our topic of the podcast, companies knowing the market around them. You as a worker or as an employee also should know the market around you, even if it’s just understanding what other companies are hiring for, what pay is like today, or what benefits other companies are just for you to know. So that’s awesome. I love that tip. 
Thank you, Andrew, for joining me today and for sharing your insights. For our listeners, please make sure you subscribe to this podcast. And if there are any topics that we haven’t covered that you’re interested in, please share in the comments and let us know and we’ll pick that topic up for a future episode. Thanks again and we’ll see you next time!  

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