The role of recruiting software in new industry sectors

May 21st, 2018 | Industry News

China’s executive recruitment

One of the most surprising areas of growth for recruitment agencies in the past 18 months has been headhunting executives for China.

The People’s Daily newspaper reports that the recruitment market in China has seen a 12.9% growth year on year and the shortage of high level candidates in the country has led to a number of sectors seeking help to find executive talent via recruitment consultancies around the world. Web based recruitment software has given headhunters and recruitment consultancies the scope to identify candidates who are willing to help China’s rapidly expanding industries and that same recruiting software is able to fast track ideal candidates whilst helping consultants educate their clients about what kind of package might best appeal to this external talent pool, persuading it to commit to a career that includes a spell in China.

UK oil and gas

In similar fashion, the projected upswing in UK oil and gas industries is being met by a wave of innovative approaches to recruitment. The review, carried out in partnership with the Oil and Gas Institute at Robert Gordon University, suggests that 40,000 new recruits will be needed by 2038 and that a quarter of those recruits will be moving into roles that are brand new. It’s a complex scenario – while the total workforce is expected to reduce as a result of natural wastage (retirement and redundancy etc), new sources of employment in radically different fields are emerging.

This means that the best recruitment software for agencies will need to be able to identify people with classic engineering skills who may also be able to move into the new areas of oil and gas technology such as data analytics, robotics and remote operations. Similarly, the best recruitment CRM will be able to track applicants through non-core fields of study and expertise, spotting those who have the ancillary skills in data science and virtualised geology to fulfil the many new jobs that will be created by ‘carbon transition’. Extractive industries have traditionally be difficult to recruit for, with their classic reputation as environmental degraders, but the new lower carbon economy means that automation is creating a different structure for UK oil and gas sectors, requiring a flexible workforce, often based remotely to the extraction site. This change of focus means recruitment agencies have a new role in helping employers funnel existing and new employees into the relevant training schemes and candidate roles that support the industry as a whole to progress.