How to recruit in a candidate-driven market?
The world’s economy is strongly recovering from the 2009 financial crisis. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), 190,000 jobs a month have been created in the US between March 2010 and June 2017. This phenomenon has also occurred in the UK, which boasts an estimated employment rate of 76.1% for the 2019 May-July period. Such a low unemployment rate has not been recorded since 1974 by the Office of National Statistics (ONS).
Despite the uncertainty caused by Brexit, confidence in recruitment remains high in the UK. In contrast, the Labour Market Outlook, produced by the Adecco Group UK & Ireland as well as the CIPD, shows that 67% of companies undergoing recruitment processes have struggled to fill several vacancies.
Consequently, we can argue that we are in what is referred to as a candidate-driven market. As this trend is likely to continue, SAINOO’s mission is to assist you and facilitate your recruitment process to connect you with your next hire.
What is a candidate-driven market?
In a candidate-driven market, there are more job vacancies than there are qualified people to fill them. Consequently, companies are fighting over a small pool of ultra-qualified candidates. Inevitably, these skilled professionals can readily hop jobs from one company to another, forcing employers to be creative in offering newly attractive incentives. Indeed, in today’s working culture, salary is not the only factor when it comes to choosing a job; career progression, company image, flexible working patterns all figure highly in an applicant’s final decision to accept a job offer.
How to recruit in a candidate-driven market?
There is no clear warning to such a phenomenon. Recruiters realise that they are in a candidate-driven market when they face difficulties to fill a position. As long as companies will recruit as they did in 2008, it will not get easier to hire top talents. In addition to the fact that Millennials and Gen-Zers are real “job-hoppers”, companies have to adapt to attract candidates and to retain their talents.
1- Act fast
The ideal recruitment scenario consists of comparing a good number of candidates to be able to make an informed decision. In a candidate-driven market, companies have to speed up their recruitment processes or they risk losing a high-quality candidate. It happens quite often that the best talents are engaged in several recruitment processes. Moreover, if they really are excellent, they will receive an offer from your competitors.
Of course, we are not telling you to rush into offering the job to the first candidate in the first interview. But if you take more than 2 weeks after the final interview to make an offer, you take the risk of losing your candidate to another company and to lengthen your recruitment process.
2- Go mobile or go home
According to Talentnow, 90% of applicants use a mobile device when seeking a new opportunity. In 2019, the number of employment searches on mobile devices exceeded one billion a month and is expected to continue to grow. Therefore, employers must communicate on those devices. Recruiters have to step in the young talents’ preferred playground, using responsive websites, apps and other mobile-led communication.
Yet, according to Sonru, 87% of talent acquisition professionals believe that their companies have not sufficiently invested in mobile applications. Even more alarming, Indeed found out that only 10% of the Fortune 500 companies offer an application process accessible via a mobile device, lacking the very tool needed in today’s ultra-competitive recruitment environment.
3- Develop a strong Employee Value Proposition
Overall, in this type of market, employers are often fighting for the same talents. An Employee Value Proposition (EVP) is the compilation of benefits that an employee receives in return for what they bring to a company. EVP is part of the company culture and brand.
As the EVP comes from everyone working in your company it will give an accurate image of what it takes to work with your teams. Once the EVP has been carefully defined and implemented in your teams, you can advertise it. When the EVP appears on hiring offers, on the company website, during the recruitment process etc. the candidates can effectively assess if you are a good fit for each other.
4- Networking is key
In a candidate-driven market, it is the candidate who chooses the job and the company. Implementing an employment referral-system rewarding both the referent and the referred within the company is instrumental in finding these hidden gems in the employment market. Indeed, when hiring referred personnel, less time is spent in creating job descriptions, screening unsuitable CVs and the interview process can be brought forward meaning that a candidate can start sooner.
Another non-negligible factor is that a referred applicant already knows the company’s culture, strong points and mission, and therefore will be able to better integrate within the company and ultimately, stay longer. A win-win! Nonetheless, the referring process must not drive employees out of their usual work. Such a program must be simple so it doesn’t become an extra-duty.
5- Rethink the interview process
Recruiting processes are evolving. More and more interviews are done via video call or telephone. Face to face interview is time and money consuming for both recruiters and candidates. The interview process must gain flexibility and new technologies are here to help.
Given that candidates have more power in today’s job market, interviews have become much more than a bare presentation of a position. Recruiters need to adapt to this changing environment and promote their company’s ethos during interviews.
6- Master Millennials codes and anticipate Gen-Zers’ expectations
By 2025, 75% of the global workforce will be composed of Millennials. Companies are adapting their codes and processes to answer their needs. Millennials are not only rejecting the notion of infinite growth but also the idea of pyramidal hierarchy. Those individuals are collaborative and appreciate a fast and fluid work culture. (Our article on How to work with Millennials here)
Attention must also be paid to the habits of the Gen-Zers. Generation Z is composed of individuals born after 1995. More pragmatic and preferring to work individually rather than in a group, their habits dramatically differ from their elders’. Companies must meet Millennials’ expectations to be competitive in today’s market. They must also anticipate and prepare the arrival of Gen-Zers to be competitive tomorrow.
7- Embrace flexible working roles
This is probably what has changed the most in the working industry since 2000. Working from 9 to 5 is long gone in most applicants’ minds. Flexible working regroups all the arrangements that differ from the company policy. It includes changing from full-time to part-time, adapting working hours, allowing remote working…
These dispositions are taken into account by applicants and it also boosts employee productivity: your people feel less stressed, less monitored and tend to be happier.
This is confirmed by a survey conducted by Julian Thompson and Prof. Edward Truch for Vodaphone, in which 83% of 8,000 employers recognised that implementing flexible working improved the company’s productivity. 61% of them also stated that it increased their profits.
Evolving in a candidate-driven market can be the perfect opportunity to challenge its recruitment processes and to innovate. This situation can benefit candidates as much as employees and companies. If a candidate-driven market is great for job seekers, it is the time for companies to focus on developing new strategies for the whole workforce and on innovation.
About Sainoo.com:
Based in London, Sainoo is a trusted hiring marketplace. We offer a solution that is a faster and more affordable alternative to using a recruitment agency.
We take the best from the recruiting and technology worlds by connecting employers and talents through a curated marketplace of vetted candidates. We came together to change the recruiting landscape, celebrate Monday mornings, and help everyone find a job they love.
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