Instability and uncertainty in recruitment – and what to do about them

August 12th, 2022 | Industry News

Boris Johnson’s resignation and the subsequent leadership contest have lead to further upheaval in the UK. Recruitment trade organisations have pointed out that this instability at the top, alongside a cost of living crisis, is affecting both businesses and individuals. Significant skills shortage in sectors like healthcare is made worse by political uncertainty, and even reputedly ‘rational’ recruitment sectors like IT are seeing problems. Applicant tracking system UK software shows that the country is becoming less attractive, not just to non-nationals but to UK citizens who are increasingly looking for a more stable place in which to base themselves.

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Business slows/business grows in recruitment

August 5th, 2022 | Industry News

There’s a paradox at the heart of current recruitment consultancy life. Just as billings are reported to be at their lowest rate for 16 months for temporary work, more recruiters are choosing to go it alone than at any point in the past four years.

What’s driving the increase in small recruitment agency growth?

Oddly, it’s the very thing that’s causing difficulties for big recruiters. Candidate shortages. While the large recruitment companies point out that clients are slowing down their decision-making processes on permanent hires due to higher economic instability in the UK, there’s no doubt that the decline in candidate numbers is a huge problem. But – for those who choose to start a recruitment agency now, there are a couple of advantages.

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Big Pharma recruitment – big problem

July 22nd, 2022 | Industry News

A recent US Bureau of Labor Statistics report says that demand for people to work in physical, life and social sciences is predicted to grow by 7% by 2028, faster than all other occupations. this is in part driven by the convergence of life-sciences and technology and especially by the way that the pandemic has driven the work of the pharmaceutical industry into new places at rapid paces. All this is happening at a time when vacancy rates in the sector are high.

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Recruiters recruiting recruiters and other post-pandemic recruiting puzzles

June 24th, 2022 | Industry News

One effect of the increasing tensions in the labour market is the demand for recruiters. According to recent research by LinkedIn, nearly 3% more UK recruitment vacancies were advertised on the platform in April 22 than two years previously. This is actually one of the lowest demand levels, as the trend is 4.3% higher in Spain and 5.9% increase of advertised vacancies in Germany. Recruitment software UK wide is demonstrating that one of the biggest growth areas is recruiting at the entry level … and this demand is actually outstripping supply at every level in the sector, as is true across the UK where job vacancies are greater than unemployed persons for the first time in living memory.

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The new normal for recruiting

May 20th, 2022 | Industry News

Recruitment has always been a challenge. Add to that the difficulties of the pandemic and the unique tribulations of relatively new industries like fintech, crypto and blockchain and even the best recruitment CRM is facing unprecedented demands. But all this is part of the new normal for recruiting – and web based recruitment software is at the forefront of it all.

While research suggests on average we change jobs a dozen times over our career, for fintech, crypto and blockchain this is the low end of the scale. There are two reasons for this:

1. There is no established career path into two of these industries (crypto and blockchain) and fintech is an industry still relying on transferable skills
2. The growth in all these areas is exponential (in 2017 a study estimated 1900 employees in crypto, today it’s at least six times that) – meaning that importing from other sectors is the only way to fill jobs.

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Post-COVID good news for recruitment agencies

May 12th, 2022 | Industry News

Two recent surveys show that both permanent and contract vacancies increased in the twelve months to February 2022. This has translated into better sales revenue for the sector, increasing 49% year on year for permanent vacancy and a remarkable 80% for temporary and contract vacancies – an obvious response to the hiring landscape created by COVID. Online recruitment software demonstrates that to convert revenue to profit, recruitment agencies need to improve not only their attraction and placement of candidates but also their administrative functions so that they are able to streamline processes, spend less on back office and engage good candidates at the time and place of the candidate’s choosing – combining web based recruitment software with the very best recruitment CRM allows agencies to become the first choice for both candidates and clients.

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Demand for recruitment software grows

April 26th, 2022 | Industry News

A recent international report suggested that the recruitment software market saw a year on year growth of 4.74% in 2020, at a time when many industries were flat-lining due to COVID-19. With a projected market growth of £521 million between 2020 and 2024 and Europe providing maximum growth opportunities, it all sounds good for companies like Recruit So Simple. But what’s driving the demand, and where is it likely to lead?

One consideration is the linkage between the economy and the recruitment industry – low unemployment leads to a decrease in demand for recruiters, but even when unemployment is low, there can still be substantial skill shortages. One of the biggest growth areas predicted in the recruitment software sector is SaaS recruitment agencies, as these have particular appeal for SMEs and companies recruiting short-term expertise, allowing for maximum flexibility in working hours and responsiveness, exactly where SMEs excel.

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Recruitment: trends, ‘talent crisis’ and Ukrainian refugees

March 22nd, 2022 | Industry News

A recent American survey reveals that a third of employees who were consulted, said they are considering changing employer in the next 12 months. It’s clear evidence of the way that people are approaching employment. SAAS recruitment agencies are seeing that candidates are seeking to move companies, a trend that is in line with the talent crisis and which is being driven by the belief (75%) that they are loyal to their employer while their employer, 56% believe, is not loyal to them. Some companies are calling this a ‘talent crisis’ while others are describing it as ‘consumering employment’. In other words, candidates are looking for the same experience in recruitment as they do in purchasing: rapid responses (often automated, like self-checkouts), 24 hour engagement (like chat bots when shopping) and frictionless processes (fewer hurdles, or applications become like abandoned shopping carts).

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Hidden trends in UK recruitment

March 8th, 2022 | Industry News

Every industry is having its recruitment issues – and one that we’re probably not that aware of is the crisis in the security industry. From prison work to door duty to driving, the security industry has faced a crossroads with employees sitting in furlough and looking at the demands of high-risk work and antisocial hours. Online recruitment software has definitely seen this trend, with a high number of security officers registering their interest in a career change.

Problems don’t end there: security personnel also have to maintain Security Industry Authority (SIA) qualifications and undertake compulsory training at their own cost, while many of them have been in the front line, facing a high risk of contracting COVID-19. Finally, many security personnel have not renewed visas and moved/returned to EU countries.

Recruiting and retaining talent has become essential, and key approaches include:

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Recruitment sector by sector and online

February 27th, 2022 | Industry News

In the finance industry, multinational companies have set up bonus policies and bonus parity schemes to try and combat the Great Resignation and to retain talent or attract new employees. Recruitment software is being used to track the bonus schemes offered by rival finance institutions so that bonuses offered have parity, with the addition of a sign-on policy and a loyalty bonus at the end of the first year, they hope this will bring talent to their organisation or keep it there.

In construction, in the USA, where women are 14% of the workforce and ethnic minority representation is a mere 6%, recent research shows that less than a third of individuals believe construction is an industry ‘for them’. Online recruitment software can find individuals with transferable skills and signpost them to sectors they might not otherwise have considered, but industry-wide there’s a drive to create a new perception in social media to help grow recruitment in currently underrepresented groups.

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