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Posts tagged “candidate market”

 
 
 
 
2022 saw a lack of suitable candidates applying for each role and on top of this the withdrawal rate was higher than ever before for a lot of roles being recruited for. How do you deal with this whilst recruiting? 
Recruitment has been challenging in the first half of 2022. Three-quarters of companies are expecting to recruit in the next three months and from the latest East Midlands quarterly survey over 82% of companies are finding vacancies hard to fill what candidate behaviours can you expect to see currently? 
At Emerald Starfish we are seeing several unique candidate behaviours this year. 
 
1. High levels of applications but low levels of commitment. 
 
We are still seeing a high level of applications for the roles for which we are recruiting. However, when we come to book in candidates for interviews it is like handling a leaky bucket. Candidates don’t return calls and they will agree to attend an interview and then not show up. The key here is to make sure that you react quickly. Visit your candidate pool daily to review new applications. For any candidates that meet your criteria make sure that you speak to them quickly. As part of your interview process ask candidates whether they have any other offers on the table and whether they would have any reservations about taking your role. You don’t want to waste time with candidates that aren’t serious about your role. 
 
The candidate market is tough currently. There are not lots of candidates all desperate for their next role as some employers may expect. We are seeing a discerning candidate pool with clear requirements as to what they are looking for from their next role and their next employer. So, if you are recruiting currently what do you need to show potential applicants to make them interested in you? 
 
 
1. Stability 
We have all felt it over the last fourteen months. No one can look too far into the future and know what will be happening next with the pandemic. Yet for many of us, change does not sit comfortably. Most candidates, if they are looking for their next position will be looking for a company that is going to offer them stability. Make sure that your promotional literature reflects this – talk about your heritage and your plans for the future. 
 
2. Flexibility 
This is the number one requirement for candidates. They don’t necessarily want to work from home permanently or full time, but they do want to be offered flexibility within the workplace. Look at your policies around home working. What can you offer candidates – more flexible hours? a hybrid model of working from home as well as the office? You will lose out on candidates if you are still adopting a rigid 9 – 5, office working environment. If you are being flexible – shout about it! Candidates want to know – it will help to make their decision to apply to you easier. 
 
 
Up until March 2020 recruitment was taking place in a candidate-driven market, and this had been the way for at least 2 years. This meant that there were very few great candidates compared to the number of roles out there. Candidates were in the driving seat. A great candidate was in a position to be able to negotiate on salary, dictate when they were available for interview and keep employers waiting whilst they considered the best offer for them. 
Then COVID happened and other strange things started to happen to recruitment too. Firstly, potential candidates who were furloughed, or were no longer confident in the longer-term prospects of their company started to look for their next position. Secondly, huge numbers of vacancies were put on hold as employers started to try and guess their marketplaces and the long-term impact of COVID. Companies that were recruiting found that the numbers of applications started to increase rapidly. 
 
Finally, we have settled into a new norm (well for the time being at least!) where those companies that may have stalled for a while have pivoted within their market place and those that are growing need to fill their vacancies. However, the candidate pool is now huge and will continue to grow over 2021. 
 
So, what does this mean to you if you are recruiting? 
 
It’s been an interesting few months in the world of recruitment. I wanted to share some of my thoughts and observations of this time – as well as some advice as to what you should be doing as an employer at the moment. 
 
 
When lockdown first happened all of our vacancies disappeared overnight. Clients that we were running active campaigns for as their outsourced recruitment department asked that we hang fire for a while…which we did. We had nothing. 
 
We spent six weeks looking at our marketing activity and posting regularly across social media. We are lucky as we knew that we could weather this storm so was able to look at offering rewrites of job descriptions for free and to train up the Emerald Starfish team for sunnier days. We looked at the new world of working remotely and realised that actually recruitment is mainly a remote activity anyway so we could embrace the processes that we had already got in place. 
 
 
 
 

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