The latest from Global Recruiter UK Summit

April 11th, 2017 | Industry News

Shake up in recruitment in 2017

The recent Global Recruiter UK Summit opened with a headline talk about how technology is changing the workplace, and therefore how the operation and focus of many recruitment businesses will need to change too: the ‘human cloud’ and increasing workplace automation are both expected to lead to different ways of packaging recruitment; uncertain economic situations will lead to shorter lead times for recruitment; and talent platforms like Recruit so Simple are likely to be delivering $2.7 trillion to the global economy by 2025 according to one speaker. Where ‘human cloud’ resourcing operates, online recruitment software is an essential component of a realtime recruiting policy and cloud-based Software As A Service will be vital to managing complex workflows in real time, often at a geographic distance.

Changing career structures present problems for recruiters

Other key concepts at the event included the increasingly clear pattern amongst millennials to have more than one job, whether this is choice or necessity – a career pattern that makes talent recruitment more complex, and the portfolio career a more demanding one for recruitment consultants to market. There is also the risk that in-house recruiters, seeking the classic ‘single path’ candidate will miss out on the best talent by failing to recognise the rise of these multi-focus, multi-job candidates. Sophisticated recruitment software will be needed to enable recruiters to ‘re-map’ such careers to explore transferable skills and experiences that are no longer presented in a linear fashion.

One fascinating development was hearing how one organisation examines Return On Investment (ROI) from each hired candidate by assessing the quality of the individual at a set period after they have been recruited into the organisation and then allocating some of that ROI to the recruitment source that delivered them whether that was a recruitment consultancy, direct advertising or a word of mouth approach.

In a separate development, many industries in Europe appear to be experiencing greater government intervention in ‘agency’ or ‘temp’ hires. The latest story comes from the NHS where trusts are no longer allowed to hire agency nurses who already have a substantive role at another trust. The Recruitment and Employment Confederation has said that this may prevent NHS trusts being able to fill all shifts. The government says the ruling is designed to limit the amount the the NHS spends on temporary staff.