Supply and Demand
The struggle is real
For those working in the Recruitment industry, we are currently riding another type of wave. We of course have been riding the COVID Wave for the last 18 months, but for the past 6 months we have been riding the Supply & Demand Wave, actually, I think I would rather call it a Tsunami.
The struggle is real folks and for our industry in the recruitment world, this means that right now client and candidate are stuck in a battle, with the Recruiter placed somewhere in the middle. Now we are not fazed by such challenges, as Recruiters are faced with resourcing challenges all the time, but this is something much more different and the global pandemic has changed this.
The market has shifted so far to the right that the left hand isn’t speaking to the right hand at the moment, so how do we fix this?
COVID-19 changed recruitment overnight and the recruitment industry will go through 4 significant market shifts by the end of 2021. Since the pandemic hit us, between March – July 2020, we saw a recruitment freeze, where most companies stopped recruitment spend whilst we all got our heads around what was happening, so businesses froze their assets and bank balances.
Then we entered the ‘dip the toe in the water’ phase between July and December 2020 and whilst recruitment consultants got really excited about new vacancies coming into their organisations, often than not vacancies went on hold, and we all had to let candidates go. This was because we were being optimistic (let’s face it we had to be), despite going into lockdown #2.
Right now, we have the elastic band effect, where businesses that were holding back from recruiting for such a long time, are now releasing all their vacancies within a ball of slight panic. They now urgently need staff to get back to the operational levels they were at before March 2020.
The next market shift will be in September 2021. If we could look into our crystal ball (seriously there is no science to this) we already know that when the Furlough Scheme stops, there will be a huge rise in redundancies, as the safety blanket from the government to protect the worker will vanish.
Companies will then be faced with the tough decision as to whether they can afford to keep those workers on their payroll.
So, what are the current recruitment challenges between client and candidate? Right now, we are in a ‘Supply & Demand’ crisis. Quality candidates are staying with their employer and sitting tight, whilst they see what happens over the next 6 months, so naturally, there is a serious lack of movement in the job market.
That means the demands for skills and experience are higher than ever, so a candidate with good credentials have slightly higher demands at the moment, but as salaries have not increased in a business, we find ourselves in a recruitment checkmate situation, because the offer by the employer hasn’t changed. Therefore there is a lack of new talent resourcing.
If you have a quality candidate – an MPC (Most Placeable Candidate) then they will be working with several recruitment agencies and on average have possibly 3 – 5 interviews already arranged. These interviews will be for similar roles within similar industry environments, so it will come down to the salary at the end of the day and who offers the best package. If the employer is not prepared to raise the salary in order to meet the demand in the current market, you will time and time again miss out on the candidate you want.
In most cases, this could only be £1k – £2k, which is enough for the chosen candidate to accept your position. Companies are now seriously looking at their ROI on spending another £1k – 2k on a position within their business, but most are concluding that acquiring such talent, will increase profit by more than £2k, so it is well worth the investment.
When you next engage with your recruiter and they make this suggestion, I guarantee they are truly not trying to be too greedy. What they are trying to do, is secure and protect the candidate that you want and have been closely safeguarding this person for you, so you can grow your business again, we ultimately all want the same outcome.
Your Recruitment Partner should be offering you a market insight throughout the recruitment process, so you can make a decision on what salary the business could offer, so make sure you ask them for this information.
If you would like an insight into the current market conditions for a salary in a certain skillset, then Project Start will offer a no-obligation free consultancy service to discuss this in more detail. Just call our team of knowledgeable Recruiters on 01454 529009.