12 months of recruitment in focus

December 30th, 2020 | Industry News

The UK’s recruitment sector increased to a £42.3 billion turnover in pre-pandemic 2019, that’s an overall 8% expansion and totals 2.1% of the contribution to the UK economy of each industry. That’s a greater benefit to the UK as a whole than education or the arts. More interesting to those seeking the best recruitment CRM is the breakdown between temp and contract and permanent placement/headhunting. Just £4.5 billion of that total comes from headhunting and permanent placement activity. After the impact of COVID-19, which has challenged the temp and contract sector with boom and flatline cycles that have taxed even the best recruiting software to keep pace, permanent placement has started to look like an attractive proposition to hard-hit smaller agencies. And that’s most of us. 81% of the recruitment agencies in the UK have fewer than ten staff and 2020 has forced many small operations to merge or go under.

2020 tested agencies to destruction – SAAS recruitment agencies benefitted from the ability to work with temp placements from home, assisting warehousing, food retailing and care and health sectors to fulfil short term contracts and move contractors around to deliver essential services in lockdown. Having lost more than a few agencies during the crisis period, many of those who remain are hoping to top up their disappointing profits by helping UK businesses find the personnel they need, mid COVID and post Brexit.

Finding the right candidates for permanent placements

Technology has been the make-or-break in finding the right individuals for permanent roles. The best recruitment software for agencies allows them to present great candidates efficiently and attractively. Linking recruitment agency software to social media also gives agencies the best chance to create an attractive social presence, reaching more candidates and building a sense of even a small organisation as a power-broker in the all important stages of identifying and onboarding permanent talent.

With the massive changes brought about by the proposed Brexit deal, any applicant tracking system UK based, needs to be sophisticated enough to manage potential changes to legislation. One key area is professional qualifications, and here the news isn’t good for recruitment agencies lacking online recruitment software. There probably won’t be an automatic recognition of professional qualifications across borders, which means that they may have to apply to (or from) each individual country to get their qualifications accepted – and there’s no guarantee these acceptances will be swift, or straightforward. While there’s a tentative framework in place, there’s no guarantee that it will be comparable to the current automatic mutual recognition protocol.