We all know the current market is highly competitive and candidate-driven. As per the most recent data from the website of office of national statistics that the labour market continues to recover. Snapshot from the article below.

“The number of payroll employees showed another monthly increase, up 207,000 to a record 29.2 million in September 2021, returning to pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic (February 2020) levels.

The number of job vacancies in July to September 2021 was a record high of 1,102,000, an increase of 318,000 from its pre-pandemic (January to March 2020) level; this was the second consecutive month that the three-month average has risen over one million. All industry sectors were above or equal to their January to March 2020 pre-pandemic levels in July to September 2021, with Accommodation and food service activities increasing the most, by nearly 50,000 (59%). The experimental single-month vacancy estimates recorded almost 1.2 million in September 2021, which is a record high.”

What does this recovery mean for the recruiters?

Of course, it means more business and more jobs to fill. But it also means a highly competitive market that will again be candidate-driven.

This also means there are more jobs, fewer candidates. In a market like this, every organisation is gagging for talent. The rush to fill the positions, make the most of the recovery, and pave the way for future growth.

What is imperative for everyone recruiting is speed. Speed to find candidates, schedule interviews, make those offers, and onboard the candidate at the earliest. 

Shifting gears, refining the sourcing, and recruiting process, and the mindset of Resourcers becomes highly critical when speed is of the essence. Because one of the root causes of placement is the quality and speed at which candidates are sourced. Time to Fill suddenly becomes the most important metric. 

Volume is important. 

Training and rewiring the resourcing team mindset to source profiles that are 70% and above of whatever works for your client is key. 

When the resourcing team focuses on only sourcing candidates that are a 100% match, you are not only spending a lot of time sourcing the best matching profiles, but also losing potential candidates that your competitors are working with, getting clients to interview, making placements, and generating revenue. 

When your Resourcing team is trying to find the best match and given this the volume of CVs sourced is obviously going to be very low. 

This also means that the number of candidates they have to pre-qualify, prescreen and put through the recruiting funnel is also going to be less. 

Another major factor that impacts the time to fill. 

Given the criteria of the closet match and 100% quality. Resources do reject candidates that match the requirement to a certain extent.

Training Resourcers on what will best work for your clients and also giving prompt feedback on the candidates sourced, passing client feedback to them on a Real-time basis only works in your favor to reduce the time to fill. 

Reset the CV qualifying criteria to get the most out of all the sources to find relevant candidates in specific timescales.

Best to put a process in place where they can check the suitability of the candidate with the Recruiter instead of outrightly rejecting the profile.

What Recruiting teams need is a structured candidate qualification process that evaluates the suitability of the candidates in line with the vacancies. Most Important Thing (MIT) for the Resourcers to focus.

Again the objective is the find candidates that fulfill your minimum criteria against outrightly rejecting the CVs. 

Don’t reject CVs, talk to the candidates

CVs are not candidates. Not all the CVs will have every possible information matching the vacancy. Resourcers should be trained on reviewing the CVs carefully and making the attempt to prequalify a candidate where they believe more information can be extracted after talking to the candidate. 

Processes to work on

Metrics to work on:

1. CVs sourced per vacancy.
2. Number of candidates pre-screened per week.
3. Number of candidates submitted per vacancy.
4. Number of interviews per week.

Finally 

The right approach in this candidate-driven market is to adapt and meet the rapidly changing landscape. Rethink the traditional methods of recruitment and reform outdated practices. It’s more important than ever to creatively approach potential candidates and to build a strong jobs pipeline. The major difference in today’s dynamic job market is sourcing candidates that not only meet the job description, but organisations also align with the candidate’s requirement.

It makes it very important to not just understand job requirements but also the organisation’s culture and future roadmap.

The conventional talent pools that recruiters try to leverage are fast becoming outdated.

Now, highly skilled candidates can be found outside the clusters, developing skills outside their day jobs virtually. Look for new places and communities to identify candidates.