The great battle for Talent is on – have you got your solutions lined up?

​2022 hiring and recruitment have come back on the agenda for many businesses. Within the sectors we serve the Further Education and Skills sector is currently in a massive battle for experienced and quality talent. The job market, as such, is rapidly returning to pre-COVID levels. Unemployment levels will naturally follow suit. As we speak, demand is already out-stripping supply at several levels in the Skills sector.

With over 12 months of pent up demand unwinding, record GDP growth forecast, Brexit fears evaporating and the economy opening up we are entering, what appears to be, a goldilocks zone for recruitment – not too hot and not too cold. Perfect conditions for a resurgent job market.

As many businesses and business owners realise, now is the time to speculate to accumulate. Now is the time to invest in your business, to invest in people and bring forward plans to expand and kick-start growth. It figures that short-term supply issues may materialise, as the war for talent at all levels increases exponentially.

This is where we find ourselves at present. Demand levels have been recovering aggressively since Q3 last year. Whilst there was a pause for breath during Q4, January saw a return to volume demand, especially in the delivery and sales talent markets.

What we have become aware of during 2021, as businesses were forced to recruit and on-board remotely, is that recruitment processes have lost their way a little. In a bid to compensate for the lack of face-to-face interaction businesses have (naturally) introduced more layers to the process. We have seen a blurring of the lines between what constitutes the recruitment process and what is the on-boarding process. Often one morphing into another in an attempt to mitigate the risk of mis-recruiting in a pandemic.

More interviews. More stages. More decision makers. More cooks. More time. More spoiled broth.

The market is opening up. Talent is moving quickly. Three and four (and even five) stage processes spanning weeks may be sensible when the outlook is bleak, cashflow is tight and the risks high, but in a recovering growth market, time is everything.

Slick, well mapped out processes, clearly communicated to candidates and recruiters and the ability to move fast and recruit pragmatically will ensure you hire the best people on the market quickly and steal a march on your competition.

As demand increases, reactive recruitment strategies are becoming redundant – advertising response rates are falling, LinkedIn approaches are increasingly failing to pull in the desired results, direct marketing and advertising are failing to deliver.

Proactivity is key.

Network recruitment, headhunting, long-term talent pipelining and mapping, relationship-led recruitment – these are the activities that help you identify, attract, recruit talent before the competition. Now, more than at any point in the last 3 or 4 years, you will need to lean on the expertise of a recruiter such as Coyne Recruitment with a specialist network in the sectors we serve.

If you want to hire the best talent, now is the time to refresh your thinking, refresh your approach and refresh your processes when it comes to recruitment. Now is the time to reassess your recruitment strategy and your approach to talent pipeline. Now is the time to make sure you have a ‘go to’ recruitment partner such as ourselves.

For more insight into the wonderful world of recruitment in Skills & Employability, why not pick up the phone and speak to one of the leading professional recruitment and career consultancy businesses in the UK, Coyne Recruitment.  With a combined 60 years’ experience and extensive network of contacts, we are confident we can add value to your career management, job search and the efficacy of your recruitment processes. Why not find out for yourselves at www.coynerecruitment.com or by calling 0151 294 4431.