It’s a seller’s market

Right now, recruitment in the UK is a seller’s market. Reading that, you might be thinking “Hasn’t it always been?” We have, after all, been reading about the ‘skills gap’ for years in the UK job market.

But this time, it’s a little bit different. From healthcare workers to shelf stackers; from fruit pickers to truck drivers, there is a profound staffing shortage at present. It is a lack of labour force that is hitting every corner of the job market. And it is leading to a candidate-led marketplace.

At the same time, there is a sense of greater activity, too. Agencies are reporting being busier than ever. 77 per cent (77%) of UK workers are actively engaged in finding new work.

It means that recruiters and employers are having to provide not only greater incentives, but better experiences, too. This may mean improving your candidate attraction and experience, while managing record-high volumes of work.

It’s decentralised

We’ve spent nearly 18 months working from home. Our offices have been, for the most part, deserted. And, you know what? A lot of people liked it.

There are undoubtedly lifestyle pressures that come from working from home. But there are enormous benefits, too. And many workers are are enjoying those benefits for the first time.

This factor does not just impact your hiring, but your own enterprise, too. When placing candidates, you may find that more than ever before are keen to obtain flexible or remote work allowances. And your own staff are no different.

So, while you may be eager to get the team back together, you should also consider the impact of that – and whether there are better alternatives?

Setting up remote teams can be easy. With cloud computing and a few security considerations, you can enable decentralised workplaces for your own enterprise. If doing this is the difference between retaining and losing top talent, then it’s usually entirely worth the effort.

It’s faster

The staffing shortages and higher workloads are not the only factor for recruiters to contend with. The heightened competition means that everything is getting faster, too.

But this can be good.

Faster recruiting doesn’t mean slapdash searches or rushed form filling. It means efficiency.

Every process is being improved with incremental time-saving technology. From the way you upload and store talent, to the methods of writing and publishing jobs listings over multiple channels. The way you source sales leads and develop your business is getting faster, too. And all of this is feeding in to an improved candidate and client experience of your enterprise.

Whether it’s 24/7 help bots for service delivery, or automating your admin, you can improve your recruiting speeds. And if you think you’re fast enough already, we’ve got news for you: you’re probably not.

It’s fairer

A seller’s market might be leading to increased wages and incentives, but that’s not the only change we have seen. Workplace culture has been evolving over many years. But the hard break created by lockdowns has almost inevitably forced modernisation in even the oldest of dinosaur organisations. A new generation of professionals is keen to ensure there is no return to “the bad old ways” of workplace cultures – with biases, unfairness, or even outright hostile working environments.

For recruiters, the downtime of the last year has afforded agencies time to adapt to this. Anti-bias hiring is now available with the application of software tools and anonymisation software. Being able to boast your equality credentials will undoubtedly assist your agency to attract new candidates.

It’s more flexible

And we don’t mean remote work and decentralised offices again.

We mean that employers are becoming more flexible in their list of requirements to find any candidates at all. Hiring organisations are aware that many of their “Nice to have” requests for skills are actively inhibiting their true hiring goals.

Be prepared for shorter job briefs and more precise lists of key requirements and duties. Organisations that are under-staffed now are no longer seeking unicorn candidates. They just want people to meet the minimum requirements. It means that recruiters have the opportunity to find placements for applicants at every stage of their careers. And that, undoubtedly, will assist in creating unique and better candidate experiences.