If you are (and I sincerely hope you are) experiencing extraordinary levels of demand for new hires from your clients, you are probably overloaded right now.
For many of those in the recruitment industry, they have never experienced demand like it. Certainly, data like that from Reed indicates that the last time demand was this high, it was May 2008 – before the global recession.
That’s great. But only if you know how to deal with it.
I speak to recruiters all the time who are overwhelmed, hiring more staff themselves, spending even more on marketing and advertising, and yet failing to explain to their clients that the market is awash with vacancies.
What happens?
• They work really hard on multiple requirements, only to discover they are too late. Candidates have already been approached.
• They are in such a hurry to work the job, they take it on with little more than a job title. Then the client rejects their CV submissions.
• They find and engage a great candidate, and then the client is too busy to see them.
Too many of our recruiters are grateful for the work or don’t want to rock the boat. So they don’t explain why the client will need to be available and responsive, or pay more.
I looked at (possibly) the most in-demand group – DevOps.
The majority of companies (64%) are looking to hire up to 50 developers this year.
Other hiring teams have more ambitious recruitment targets: 14.4% of teams plan to hire 50 to 100 developers and 13.5% hope to recruit over 100 new developers*.
At the same time, experienced DevOps specialists are able to work almost anywhere on the planet. So salaries and expectations are levelling up to the highest points which are in Security. Tech, Insurance and Energy*.
This is why I listened in to some calls at one of my new clients – a recruitment business specialising in DevOps. Her experienced consultants were taking incoming calls, promising their clients that they’d “give it a try” and getting very busy with LI and Sourcebreaker.
Has all that “business” mapped into astronomical profit increases for my client? I think you know the answer.
The productivity per head has only increased by 15%, and the fill rate has gone down. By contrast, a competitor (a longstanding client of mine) has seen their GP and NP double when compared to 2019.
You can have better!
*(source: Codingame.com– worth a read if you are in that market!).
For specific, actionable business advice and training that gets you results, contact Alison Humphries: alison@recruitmentleadership.co.uk.