How to recruit in the midst of the great resignation

Find­ing a can­di­date who is the right fit for your com­pa­ny is already a hard task. But cur­rent con­di­tions are mak­ing things even more chal­leng­ing for HR chiefs. 

The num­ber of job vacan­cies in the three months to Octo­ber hit a record high of 1.17 mil­lion, accord­ing to the Office for Nation­al Sta­tis­tics (ONS). Mean­while, the unem­ploy­ment rate shrank 0.2 per­cent­age points to 4.3%.

This has cre­at­ed what Insti­tute of Direc­tors chief econ­o­mist Kit­ty Ussh­er has described as a “vacan­cy para­dox”, with record-high job adverts despite the per­cent­age of pay­rolled employ­ees top­ping pre-pan­dem­ic lev­els.

While labour short­ages in the hos­pi­tal­i­ty and haulage sec­tors have been the focus of media atten­tion recent­ly, the cur­rent vacan­cy rates either match or exceed pre-pan­dem­ic lev­els across all sec­tors of the econ­o­my.

The cur­rent con­di­tions are reflect­ed on employ­ment sites, which are wit­ness­ing a jobs boom. Reed.co.uk tells Racon­teur that the num­ber of jobs post­ed on its site in Sep­tem­ber was 143,000, equat­ing to a 150% year-on-year increase, while the num­ber of com­pa­nies adver­tis­ing was at its high­est lev­el since Jan­u­ary 2020. 

TotalJobs has seen a sim­i­lar trend as the num­ber of job adverts on its site sat 29% above pre-pan­dem­ic lev­els in ear­ly Sep­tem­ber and were ris­ing 18% week-on-week. It claims this has caused the com­pe­ti­tion for tal­ent to reach “fever pitch”.

CEO of the jobs search site Jon Wil­son claims that the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion is unlike any­thing he has seen pre­vi­ous­ly in his career. He says: “You won’t speak to any­one right now who’s get­ting exact­ly what they want out of the cur­rent job mar­ket. There’s 10% to 15% few­er peo­ple search­ing for jobs and 30% to 40% more jobs, which means that busi­ness­es are hav­ing to com­pete real­ly hard for those peo­ple.”

A topsy-turvy labour market

The cur­rent sit­u­a­tion means that the jobs mar­ket has now tipped in favour of employ­ees, with some can­di­dates report­ed­ly dou­bling their earn­ings in a sin­gle move. Gaelle Blake, head of per­ma­nent appoint­ments at recruit­ment firm Hays, says there is extreme­ly high demand from her clients at the moment. 

Blake adds: “The num­ber of job open­ings is at a 20-year high and, at the same time, the num­ber of peo­ple look­ing for jobs is at a 24-year low. What we’re feel­ing is a ten­sion between a great amount of sup­ply, in terms of choice of jobs for can­di­dates, while there is also the least amount of peo­ple avail­able to fill these posi­tions.”

Many fac­tors have con­tributed to the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, includ­ing more than 1 mil­lion for­eign-born work­ers leav­ing the UK post-Brex­it and pent-up demand from busi­ness­es for new recruits that built up over the course of the pan­dem­ic. It has cre­at­ed a sit­u­a­tion that many HR man­agers have nev­er had to deal with before.

Nat­u­ral­ly, with more demand for a small­er sup­ply of tal­ent, wages have trend­ed upwards. The ONS esti­mates that annu­al growth in pay was up 7.2% between August 2020 and 2021.

Poten­tial hires are also notic­ing a shift in the pow­er dynam­ic, with 29% of peo­ple recog­nis­ing their val­ue has increased since the out­break of Covid-19, accord­ing to research by TotalJobs. This is trans­lat­ing into increased expec­ta­tions from job seek­ers, with 48% say­ing they are being more selec­tive in choos­ing a future employ­er and 42% pre­pared to nego­ti­ate their terms.

Standing out in a crowded market

The answer for many com­pa­nies caught in the cur­rent recruit­ment para­dox is to improve their offer­ing for prospec­tive hires. But it’s not just in terms of pay that busi­ness­es are com­pet­ing.

Founder of design agency dn&co, Joy Naz­zari, says the busi­ness has start­ed offer­ing a sign-on bonus to encour­age peo­ple to join the team ear­li­er. It is also pro­mot­ing its ben­e­fits offer­ing and the fact the busi­ness is part of an employ­ee-owned trust on job ads.

Naz­zari says: “I’m part of a Slack chan­nel with hun­dreds of design agency founders set up as a pan­dem­ic prob­lem-solv­ing resource, but late­ly the dom­i­nant top­ic is how tight recruit­ment is. Many of us are increas­ing salaries to retain exist­ing staff and, com­bined with infla­tion, we’ll need to increase prices or accept low­er mar­gins as a result, which is not sus­tain­able.” 

It’s a chal­lenge fac­ing busi­ness­es across many sec­tors. Along­side improved pay, gal­va­niz­ing com­pa­ny Cor­betts has moved to a three-day work week and is offer­ing bonus­es in a bid to fill its open posi­tions. The issue fac­ing Cor­betts is also being exac­er­bat­ed by com­pa­nies such as Ama­zon offer­ing a £3,000 start­ing bonus­es for new staff.

Its chair Andy Dod­well claims that the cur­rent envi­ron­ment means the com­pa­ny has to make an instant deci­sion when hir­ing. “The moment you see good peo­ple, you hire imme­di­ate­ly with­out hes­i­ta­tion – you don’t have time to kiss the frogs any longer,” he adds.

Wil­son advis­es com­pa­nies to con­sid­er adver­tis­ing the salary, non-finan­cial ben­e­fits and mak­ing the company’s cor­po­rate social respon­si­bil­i­ty com­mit­ments more promi­nent to help improve con­ver­sion rates on job ads. 

Sim­i­lar­ly, Blake rec­om­mends con­dens­ing the recruit­ment process by cut­ting the num­ber of inter­view rounds, mak­ing deci­sions speed­i­ly and prompt­ly send­ing out con­tracts. “The longer you leave it, the more chance there is that the per­son you want gets offered a job by some­one else,” she adds.

For any busi­ness hop­ing to wait it out, the sit­u­a­tion is unlike­ly to return to nor­mal any time soon. The Bank of England’s Mon­e­tary Pol­i­cy Com­mit­tee esti­mates that the unem­ploy­ment rate will con­tin­ue to decline until 2024, while 80% of UK employ­ers plan to hire over the next 12 months, accord­ing to a sur­vey from Hays. 

This com­bi­na­tion of con­di­tions means that com­pe­ti­tion for tal­ent is like­ly to remain high, or even increase over the course of the year. Blake says: “The longer you wait the more expen­sive it’s going to be and the few­er peo­ple you’ll have to choose from.”

This means the most impor­tant piece of advice for hir­ing man­agers is to put your­self in the mar­ket now and move quick­ly.