Top 5 Recruitment Predictions for 2021
Posted on 8th December 2020 at 16:03
Over the last 12 months, we have seen recruitment do a full U-turn. At the start of the year, there were lots of vacancies and very few candidates. Candidates were “king”. They may have had several offers on the table to consider and companies were having to work hard to “woo” them. As we leave behind 2020 the market is flooded with candidates, some of them have been out of the workforce for the best part of a year as a result of the furlough scheme. Most of them are keen to secure a new position and have lots of skills and experience. They are now finding themselves in a busy marketplace where competition for each role is hard and companies suddenly have the pick of the best candidates. So, what does 2021 look like for a company looking to recruit?
What do we think the top 5 trends are likely to be in 2021?
1. Recruitment processes will become more automated. Are you keeping up with the brave new world where you may have 10x the number of applicants for a position that you had a year ago? How can you process huge numbers of candidates fairly and consistently, whilst feeding back to those that are unsuccessful in a meaningful way and so protecting your employer branding? Automation of some of the recruitment processes will enhance your brand, reduce the time spent and give an overall better candidate experience.
2. If as a business you have changed the way you work you should change your recruitment process to reflect this. If you are looking at recruiting in 2021 and your way of working has really changed over the course of 2020, look at the skills that your teams that have adapted well are demonstrating and recruit based on these traits. Generally, it is worth thinking about flexibility and adaptability, resilience and self-sufficiency particularly if people spend large periods of time working from home and need to make decisions more independently than before.
3. Look at other ways to attract new talent into your business. If an advert creates lots of candidates, many of whom are completely unsuitable for your business can you look at other ways of candidate attraction? Now is the time to look at networking, referrals as well as using automated processes to ask elimination questions to weed out those that aren’t suitable.
4. Candidates are looking for flexibility. Whilst many organisations want to return to the office environment their workers have enjoyed the flexibility that working from home has given them. By maintaining flexibility as an organisation if you can offer hours that work around childcare provision or study this opens up the talent pool. If you can remove the barriers of the location around an office, suddenly your candidate pool can open up nationwide, if not around the world.
5. Look at new ways to build your branding and to onboard employees. If you are recruiting more remotely because you have reduced or eliminated office working then to get people onboard look at new ways to help them to engage with your company and your culture. Think about using videos to tour around sites where it may no longer be appropriate to take people round to different sites. Think about a buddying up system so that recruits have someone that they can ask all of the little questions that they will have at the start, or create a booklet with the answers to all of the little questions that don’t need an email trail created such as payroll cut-offs etc.
Emerald Starfish takes the time out of your recruitment processes by running your recruitment projects for you to ensure that you are only seeing the best from the pool of candidates whilst ensuring that all candidates in the process are treated fairly and have a great experience. For more information please email recruitmentsolutions@emerald-starfish.com or call 0116 2080246 to find out more.
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