Meeting 2023’s recruitment challenges

October 17th, 2023 | Industry News

News from Robert Walters, the specialist professional recruitment consultancy, has highlighted the difficulties facing many recruitment agencies at present.  Robert Walters has had a 13% drop in net fee income over the past quarter and has let 150 staff go in the past 12 months. The agency’s specialism in technology and financial recruitment has been hard hit by hiring freezes and the big redundancies in the tech sector. So what does this mean for recruitment as a whole?

The good news is that recruitment management software has helped smaller agencies to ride the storm better by redeploying administrative costs to pay for elements that recoup costs such as:

• an outstanding website for recruitment;
• targeted social media advertising to generate new clients:
• investment in savvy, energetic consultants who can build strong relationships with both clients and candidates.

It seems paradoxical, given that current vacancy rates – 989,000 between June and August, are relatively high. However, the big boost to income after the pandemic is long gone, and instead quiet quitting and the Great Resignation have continued to challenge recruiters’ abilities to place talent.

The demand for temporary workers in the UK

In addition, while many UK businesses are struggling to fill vacancies, temporary staff are proving complicated too. The difficulties here are that while demand for temp workers is high, onboarding temps is problematic when a workforce is stretched to its limits. This means that while  recruitment agency software can be used to rapidly find and secure good temporary staff, the system can break down when the employer isn’t equipped to train temps adequately and swiftly and/or to give them the support they need to feel confident in their temporary role.

Around a third of UK businesses are relying on temporary workers to help run their businesses – this means that recruiters using a recruitment website design that is mobile responsive, attractive and swift can expect to obtain the best responses from call outs to temps on their lists. Similarly SAAS recruitment agencies are more likely to engage the best temporary talent – a pool that has become larger, and more exacting, since the pandemic as well-qualified, well-trained candidates have chosen to view temporary work as an option that supports their post-pandemic lifestyle choices to work when they choose. Online recruitment software helps address the challenge of helping these excellent candidates to find roles they will enjoy, because they are unlikely to remain in temporary jobs that they find unfulfilling.