Written by Andrea Frith

The shortage of good recruiters may well be down to the immediate and possibly knee-jerk reaction to the pandemic. It was predicted that Covid 19 would place most economies into a recession and businesses simply closed their doors. Many organisations made redundancies or used Furlough schemes and most would definitely have put recruitment on hold.  With all hiring on hold, recruiters were no longer needed.  Thankfully the recession was not as bad as many predicted in fact in some cases growth is greater than pre-pandemic.

The knock-on effect has been after a short period of time of recruiters not being needed and in some cases, entire recruiting teams were been laid off, that organisations are currently behind with their recruitment targets and it destroyed any hiring strategy for the future.

2021 saw hiring demands exceed those of the pre-pandemic times and growth and hiring plans for 2022 are moving forward aggressively.  The pain of recruiting recruiters is being felt as the teams are rebuilt and strategy is put back in place. The overall shortage is making businesses relook at the recruitment practices and means they are having to offer higher salaries, better benefits, referral bonuses and the use of agencies. This will help initially but is not sustainable in the long run.

The drive-in recruitment will mean companies are having to review hiring practices to attract talent. CVs alone will not cure the shortage. Companies are using skills assessments to test a person's suitability for a role and this can be aided substantially by using AI-driven assessments that can test whether a candidate has the skills needed.

Recruitment teams will also need to broaden their talent pool. The working remotely revolution has been created since the beginning of the pandemic. The recruitment strategy will have changed to take this into account and if used correctly should allow access to a larger talent pool.

This is not the time to be complacent with recruitment strategy, the growth and success of an organisation have to rely on the talent it recruits.

To find out how Pertemps Managed Recruitment can help, please contact hello@pertemps.co.uk