Where is recruitment heading?

June 21st, 2023 | Industry News

If the USA is a harbinger of the recruitment sector in the UK, there are tough times ahead. Massive US job site, ZipRecruiter, says it will lay off 20% of its workforce, and Indeed which has a greater UK presence than ZipRecruiter, laid of 15% of staff worldwide in March. So why is this happening in a time where employers are crying out to fill positions?

Web based recruitment software reveals why. Job openings have slowed in both the USA and the UK, it’s a jobseeker’s market, and in these conditions, recruitment agencies and even HR departments suffer, because their recruitment processes have been inverted.

Recruitment agency woes – or opportunities?

SAAS recruitment agencies are still experiencing a boom – a vacancy posted on a job site might generate thousands of applications – but the sorting and ordering of those responses tends to be a back office process. Rather than recruitment consultants, admin personnel or even automated software processes, can organise applicant data. Reducing the levels of communication between candidate and hirer has many benefits – recruitment management software can be an invisible intermediary, allowing both parties to talk to each other more immediately and clearly, finding out if they are a good fit.

As the focus moves from functional competency (hard skills) to social competency (soft skills) there is more work for recruitment consultants and HR professionals, although they need to bring a different skill-set of their own. Rapid change in all sectors means that hiring companies are looking for personnel who have the ability to handle change and ambiguity; to take personal initiative but to be part of a team that operates well together, often in digital or hybrid environments. To find these candidates, recruiters need to be much more knowledgeable about the companies they recruit for, and the present and future prospects of the sector they are recruiting into.  While recruiting software can handle hard skill assessment effectively – often more effectively than HR professionals – nothing beats the ability of a well-resourced recruiter to engage with a candidate and find out if they are a good match for the organisation they are hoping to join.

So recruitment may be slimming down, and focus may be changing, but the combination of first class recruitment database software with an intelligent, engaging human recruiter will continue to be the best blend of skills to find the best possible candidates.