What COVID-19 means for recruitment

August 24th, 2020 | Industry News

There’s good and bad this month as we look at the future of recruitment in the UK. As the
Recruitment and Employment Confederation has just become a signatory to the Race at Work Charter which seeks to improve opportunities for black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) individuals in the recruitment industry, web based recruitment software has a role to play, not just in improving recruitment of people of colour, but in benefiting the recruitment industry by offering a more diverse and robust recruiting industry itself.

How?

Online recruitment software has the ability to strip away information that can support unconscious bias, which has been demonstrated to limit profitability and productivity. A more diverse recruiting industry would, in turn, have less (or at least different!) unconscious bias, leading to exactly the kind of stronger, more profitable organisations that we’re going to need post COVID-19.

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COVID-19’s unexpected effects on recruitment

August 12th, 2020 | Industry News

There are some surprising developments in the impact of COVID-19. For example, in the USA, recruiting doctors has dropped by 30% since April, although specialist recruitment has increased substantially.

Difficult to understand at first view, it makes perfect sense in the wider recruiting picture. Recruitment management software reveals that in fact, healthcare spending in the USA has all but collapsed, with the most dramatic spending decline since 1959. Add to this abnormally high expenses as a result of coping with the demands of the pandemic, and many US healthcare organisations have opted for a spending freeze. It’s good news for the UK, where we may actually have a buyer’s market for healthcare that benefits from a surplus of general practitioners looking for employment.

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How optimistic are we about recruitment?

July 23rd, 2020 | Industry News

Very. A recent survey of the impact of COVID-19 on the recruiting industry suggests that only 2% think there will be a ‘sustained depression’ that continues longer than 2021. More than half also expect the economy to improve by the end of 2020.

More surprisingly, hard data seems to back up this positive view. A third of those surveyed said that their businesses are doing as well, or better, than they were a year ago. Of course this might be a sectoral response and as we all know healthcare and IT have been in demand all the way through the pandemic.

Online recruitment software has been a major contributor to recruitment success – not just because of the obvious sense in which it has allowed recruitment consultancies to continue to operate during lockdown, but also because it has been able to support an internal workforce in a way that other recruitment agencies just haven’t been able to manage.

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Recruitment begins to recover from Coronavirus

July 11th, 2020 | Industry News

While there’s evidence that recruitment is starting to pick up after the lockdown process, there are also painful signs that COVID-19 has hit the sector hard. Big recruitment agencies have laid people off, while some smaller agencies will not be reopening at all. Candidate supply still outstrips demand, but there’s more evidence of large corporations running recruitment drives. The best recruitment software for agencies is helping recruitment consultancies to drive new business. Online recruitment software can be used for much more than simply tracking applicants and managing the administration of each vacancy. It can also be used to predict trends to to help recruitment consultants to be proactive in approaching clients and finding new business.

As employers return staff from furlough, there are also opportunities for recruitment agencies to use recruitment management software to help fill gaps or to engage with businesses that are changing direction as a result of the Coronavirus outbreak.

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Getting started in recruitment

June 24th, 2020 | Industry News

Recruit So Simple has been observing the recent changes in the UK economy with interest. One thing that seems to be happening is a small upsurge in the opening of new recruitment agencies. Why? Several reasons:

A depressed economy brings opportunities for new start-ups

While many of us might be hesitant about leaving a good job to start our own business, the effect of COVID-19 has been to cause people to look around and ask themselves if they couldn’t be doing better. The slowing down of the recruitment industry means that we’ve moved from a candidate driven to an employer driven market. This means that good recruitment CRM software can now power through the steps of converting the recruitment process from an applicant tracking system, UK or even worldwide, to a client-led ‘search and onboard’ process. A nimble start up agency can make a great start by focusing on this new paradigm and working closely with a small client base that is just starting to hire again.

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COVID-19 and recruitment – the story continues

June 12th, 2020 | Industry News

Today Recruit So Simple is focusing on the national stage – how is COVID-19 affecting the UK recruitment industry as a whole, and what challenges is recruiting software going to face in the weeks ahead?

The Coronavirus Job Retention scheme has been an interesting development for recruiters – whilst it has underpinned existing positions and given companies a chance to continue recruitment programmes for existing jobs, it has acted as something of a brake both on the creation of new jobs and on the movement of potential candidates who have felt the certainty of an existing position to be much more attractive than the lure of an unknown (and untested) one.

Record numbers of people have used online recruitment resources in the past few months, evidence of the way that web based recruitment software is likely to lead the way in future recruitment initiatives.

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COVID Secure working – what does it mean for the recruitment industry?

May 26th, 2020 | Industry News

Recently, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that “anyone who can’t work from home… should be actively encouraged to go to work”. However, several recruitment bodies have criticised the lack of clarity in the statement. Recruitment software was never designed to cope with current circumstances and yet it will be vital to restoring the UK to a fully-functioning economy.

The needs of workers, including temporary staff, need to be built into any reopening plan, bearing in mind that no business can guarantee a COVID-19 free workplace, and no online recruitment software can deliver certainty about roles, responsibilities and daily tasks in a period of such upheaval.

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Coronavirus – recruiting and retention

May 13th, 2020 | Industry News

So much is up in the air for businesses in the UK, and few businesses have been as impacted as the recruiting industry. Even the best recruiting software cannot answer some of the questions being posed by, and to, the recruitment sector. Such as those about the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS). This scheme, which looked like a solution for much of the temporary employment sector, is still confusing many recruiters. Promised by the government, it cannot come soon enough for the UK’s temporary worker sector. It’s not clear whether holiday pay can be included in that 80% salary sum that can be claimed back from the government pot. This means that many recruiters are expecting to cover that payroll cost (12.7%) themselves. Others believe that they can include holiday pay in the 80% and that they will be refunded by HMRC. The confusion comes because furlough allows employers to ask their employees to vary holiday entitlement, but as there is a statutory 5.6 weeks paid leave, this must presumably be covered – whether by the employer or HMRC.

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Digital recruitment – a Recruit So Simple guide

April 28th, 2020 | Industry News

The COVID-19 lockdown has disrupted every aspect of our lives: home, work, social, romance – everything… but when it comes to keeping businesses running, or at least ticking over, there’s quite a lot of help around. Government grants and loans, business support seminars, banks offering payment holidays etc.

We have our contribution to make too. While many businesses are mothballed, others are working against the clock: research teams seeking vaccines, builders refurbishing premises to become hospitals, and frontline staff in many sectors. How can recruitment software help?

Well, digital recruitment has to be open and transparent, as well as cost effective and precise.

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Coronavirus and recruitment – the current impacts

April 16th, 2020 | Industry News

Even the most basic recruitment database software reveals that COVID-19 has had immense impacts on the UK job market. From a record employment high of 33 million in January, recruiting in many sectors has slowed, hiring freezes are commonplace and job losses are certain to follow. Volatility in the market is commonplace – much recruiting software has been scrambling to keep up with the need to find applicants for a range of sectors, whilst handling the need to put other forms of recruitment on hold for the period of the lockdown.

Who’s hiring through online recruitment software?

Healthcare and supply chain are the obvious sectors that are in a massive recruitment drive. Frontline NHS staff, social care personnel and new key-worker roles supporting those on self-isolation have all become positions it is vital to fill.

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