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? 

At Emerald Starfish we are seeing several unique candidate behaviours this year. 

 

 

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. 

 

 

 

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. 

 

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. 

 

 

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. 

 

 

 

 

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.