We have recently discussed in our blogs the changing ways in which we attract and interact with our candidates. Technology has made the world a smaller place and it is far easier to reach out to people and initiate contact with them.
The challenge for any recruiter is still to get those candidates (and potential future clients) to respond to us and see a benefit in working with us. Remembering one of my distant training courses, we talked about WIIFM – What’s In It for Me? Why should they respond to us? How will they benefit? Making sure that what we were offering was relevant to them and worth their time engaging with us was paramount.
As Rob Parkin said in his blog, more and more candidates are viewed as being passive – not actively looking but quite happy to have a chat about opportunities. We have to go to them – they won’t come to us.
How responsive they are is a sort of barometer of `candidate confidence`, as we call it.
At the moment, the word Brexit and Election seem to go hand in hand. The political landscape seems to be changing on a daily basis. How does this affect the jobs market?
People ask us about the market and how many jobs are out there and what clients are recruiting what roles. To fully answer that question, we go back a step and talk about candidate confidence.
It is true that some roles are newly created and don’t need someone to leave a position. The majority of vacancies, however, do come from someone leaving a position and seeking pastures new. If candidate confidence is low, people sit tight and wait to see what will happen. This in turn creates less `new roles` and the market starts to stall.
At the moment, that seems to be the case. As a business, RattrayParkin are still recruiting roles and we are trying to source suitable candidates. The response rate is currently lower than usual, and it does seem that many candidates have adopted the proverbial tin hat, waiting for the Brexit/Election storm to blow over.
There are still good jobs out there though and candidates shouldn’t be afraid to talk to us and explore new opportunities.
The good thing is – no-one needs to panic.