No matter how we look at it, 2020 has been a pretty unprecedented year. It’s hard to imagine any other time, where we would have seen anywhere close to 6190 applications for one dishwasher role! But with unemployment rates at 4.5% and rising in the UK, businesses in all industries are facing a new problem, identifying talent in an overcrowded market.
Initially, having lots of applications from a job advert might sound like a nice problem to have. However, the reality for most businesses is they simply don’t have the time to read through 100+ CV’s, let alone conduct a further 10/20 interviews. Some businesses are even having to hire candidates without ever meeting them face to face, a big no in the world of recruitment professionals.
These challenges are presenting issues for businesses that have further strengthened the need for specialist recruitment agencies.
And here’s how.
The challenges affecting internal recruitment
Businesses that are fortunate enough to be recruiting this year are facing plenty of their own challenges in recruitment. The first challenge to consider is overlooking and missing out on the market’s top talent. With so many applications to review and not enough time to dedicate to recruitment, talented candidates are slipping through the net.
As Recruitment Consultants, you are probably aware of the time restraints felt by most hiring managers during the recruitment process. With overwhelming numbers of applicants to consider, the vetting process is unlikely to be as thoroughly executed. While this might level the playing field, quality candidates inevitably slip through the cracks, as their CV’s are skimmed over, or worse, skipped past.
Lots of applications might not sound like a bad thing, but identifying talent in an overcrowded market can be just as detrimental, as recruiting and training the wrong personnel is an expensive mistake that most businesses can ill afford.
How Recruitment Agencies are adding value
There are challenges in recruitment agencies too of course, but in a candidate driven market specialist recruitment agencies are needed now more than ever.
Ian Moriarty is the Operations Director of ethical recruitment agency, Hooray, in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. While he acknowledges that the role of recruitment consultants can adapt through times of economic uncertainty, the need for agencies and recruitment specialists is ever present.
“Good candidates have always been available, during times of economic strength and weakness. While this hasn’t changed, the challenges associated with finding those candidates have.”
For more specialist roles, recruitment agencies still have to ‘hunt’ out the best talent. But with an established network of candidates predefined, this hunt is streamlined and subsequently, so is the time spent filling vacancies. As Moriarty explains.
“When starting a recruitment agency, it is important to have the tools necessary to identify new talent, but when a vacancy becomes available, having a network of candidates you can call upon is priceless. This is the value that separates recruitment agencies from an internal process. We are finding clients, value our services now more than ever.
“For certain types of roles where applications can run into the hundreds, if not thousands in certain cases, they simply don’t have the time or facilities to review everyone. By using a trusted recruitment partner, they take away the mountains of applications, identifying only the most suitable candidates, saving valuable time and resources.”
It is not only established relationships between clients and agencies that are benefiting, but opportunities are still presenting themselves with new clients, as the Hooray team have found.
“A perfect example of this was when we worked with Brace very recently. They wanted to hire in their growing digital marketing team and found the applications coming through, high in volume, but not necessarily what they were looking for. After enlisting our services, we quickly identified a shortlist of pre-registered candidates from our network, introduced them and the successful candidate started a short time ago and is doing fantastically well!”
Recruitment Financing with Simplicity
Given the challenges in recruitment, there are risks associated with starting a recruitment agency in a time of economic crisis. However, the benefits for agents with established networks and drive, are there to be seen.
With a comprehensive range of recruitment finance, back office support and technology access available 24/7, our teams are still on hand to help you on your journey of setting up a recruitment agency. Simplicity is also able to provide recruitment financing for individuals or teams looking to start a temp agency, as the need for temporary staff continues to increase.
For more information on any of our services, please get in touch, or download our financing brochure.