Lockdown II and recruitment

November 22nd, 2020 | Industry News

One industry that was hard hit by the first lockdown was the legal sector. New law graduates have been finding it hard to find employment because of the hiring freeze in many chambers and ‘zoom court’ has in itself limited who can participate in legal activities. Recruitment agency software in the UK shows an underlying new trend though, a demand for contract and restructuring expertise. This is the result of damaged supply chains and disappointed clients, as well as the need to manage employment contracts for senior personnel during lockdown. That trend has just accelerated again, as online recruitment software reveals, because employers are trying to work out how they can balance the legal requirement to ‘agree changes to employee contracts in advance’ with the 60 hours notice or a return to lockdown. Particularly for senior personnel and those who have tailored contracts, this chop and change approach to employment requires care and attention at a time when many are working from home and unable to easily access legal advice on how to handle critical employee decisions.

SAAS based recruitment agencies have also been seeing a surge in technical recruitment, particularly at the senior level. Digital transformation has become a necessity for many companies, and some are racing to keep up with competitors. Because quite a large percentage of senior technology personnel have faced redundancy, they are many strong contenders for the senior positions that are becoming available. Recruitment management software is being used to identify key candidates and to conduct the whole process from interview through to an induction process that works to bring candidates working from home into the company culture. What’s hottest in tech recruitment – unsurprisingly it’s cyber security, both because with so many employees working from home, employers are aware of the risks of conducting so much sensitive business online and because with individuals shopping so much on line, retailers are ramping up their defences as hackers and scammers divert their attention to these new targets. As furlough extends again into December, many companies are also hiring change management specialists to help them streamline cobbled together processes created at short notice when COVID-19 first hit. Web-based recruitment software is increasingly in demand in HR departments trying to manage a remote workforce for the foreseeable future.