Nothing in the last 18 months has really turned out the way people expected.
From the way the public (mostly) embraced the lockdown rules, to the unprecedented speed of vaccine development, to the rapid market recovery, it's been one surprise after another.
And now we have an entirely new puzzle for recruiters and employers looking for talent.
On the one hand, recruiters are experiencing a boom in new business and the unemployed are clamouring for work.
On the other hand, recruiters aren't necessarily seeing a rise in placements to match their frenzied level of work, and employers are struggling to find the talent they need.
Some are even going so far as to describe the problem as a talent shortage.
On the surface, this makes no sense. Lots of people want work. Lots of businesses need staff. And lots of recruiters are only too happy to jump back into the fray.
So, what's going on?
How do we reconcile the expectation of a thriving recruitment industry with the struggle of the reality?
It's all about lockdown...
It's going to take years to fully understand and pick through the consequences of shutting the world down. The physical, emotional and economic damage is going to ripple outwards for a long time to come and the true, overall effect may be something that only future historians will be able to fully catalogue and explain.
For now, all we can do is pull at some of the threads and see what unravels.
And when we do, we discover some fairly logical explanations for the current paradox.
The businesses that have struggled during lockdown but survived, are in a weakened state. So, while they may have hiring needs, internally there may not be full agreement over what new staff is needed or whether it's even prudent to be hiring while there is still some doubt over when lockdown is going to end, whether or not there'll be more, or how well vaccine development can keep up with evolving coronavirus strains.
The effect is that some businesses may publicly talk about hiring, while privately their mindset is one of "let's dangle our toes and see if anything nibbles."
It's almost as if some businesses are really just testing the market to see what kind of talent is available and what salary package expectations are, without really having any concrete plans to hire just yet.
How to Counter This:
When a prospect approaches you about a role you need to put on your consultant hat and dig deeper into the company's hiring plans. Don't just take the role and get to work; talk to the prospect at length and get a feel for how serious they are about making a hire.
Ask questions like...
"Hypothetically, if I was to find you the perfect candidate by this time next week, would you make them an offer?"
The most direct route is to ask the prospect to retain you. If the prospect agrees and is willing to pay a third of the fee upfront, you can be confident that the employer is serious about the campaign.
If you're not accustomed to asking for retainers, this is understandably a tricky step. Especially as employers may decline this option out of habit and not necessarily because the role isn't genuine.
But it's still worthwhile broaching the subject because, at the very least, their response will help you to get a feel for how substantial the opportunity really is.
As is always the case, the majority of the most talented candidates are still in employment. The difference now is that many of them have spent most of the last year either on furlough or in a constant state of anxiety that their employer could go under at any moment.
This means that, if you try to headhunt them, there are a whole range of new emotion-driven reactions that you need to take into account.
In some cases, the employee will feel a great deal of loyalty towards their employer either for keeping them in work during lockdown, or for keeping the furlough payments coming. Some will find it very hard to rationalise taking furlough payments for the last year, only to ditch their employer the moment furlough ends.
Some employees will also be thinking long-term and worrying about future lockdowns and even new future pandemics. With that kind of mindset, the natural inclination is to stay with the employer you know and the employer who has proved to be a safe haven during the storm.
With one of both of those thoughts rattling around their heads, it's very hard to convince those people to even consider a move.
How to Counter This:
When you find a great potential candidate who is already employed, you need to tackle this from both sides.
Agree with them that loyalty towards their employer is warranted, but gently remind them that they also have a loyalty towards their family and their own career progress. At the very least they deserve to take a closer look at the offer.
You also need to explain these patterns of thinking to your client and help them understand that they need to counter these objections right from the outset.
It will help, for instance, if you can understand and communicate things such as...
To lure the top talent away from their current roles, an attractive salary package is no longer enough. The employer needs to recognise the need to directly address the deeper concerns of the people they want to employ.
There's no consensus among employees and employers over whether remote working is a positive move. So, this means a good proportion, possibly even the majority, will want to see this trend to continue.
The challenge for recruiters is that we're going to find some very talented candidates who won't even consider a move if remote working, some or all of the time, isn't an option.
How to Counter This:
If a candidate has fallen in love with remote working, it's going to take one heck of an attractive package to convince them to move to a new employer who doesn't believe in it.
Which means your best move is to address this with the employer.
Make it clear to them that if they are dead-set against remote working in any form, this will limit the talent pool to which they have access.
And if remote working is something the employer is embracing, they should make this one of the role’s key selling points.
However, balance is important. To reach and attract the widest pool of talented candidates, employers will need to have a flexible approach. One that caters to employees who love remote working, employees that hate remote working and employees that prefer a mixture of the two.
Some of the best and the brightest have used lockdown as an opportunity to start their own business.
For some this is about starting a new adventure or taking the cap off their potential earnings. But for others this is all about control.
This goes back to the fear and anxiety that has hit so many during lockdown. A lot of people have never had to experience uncertainty about their income before only to find themselves suddenly out of work and relying on a mortgage payment holiday just to survive.
Either way, convincing a talented prospective candidate to abandon their fledgling business for the uncertainty of a new role is a tightrope walk.
How to Counter This:
There's no point being subtle in this scenario. You need to demonstrate to the prospective candidate that this role is an unbelievable opportunity with great options for career advancement and possibly even stock options.
And if the role doesn't include those things, and the candidate is especially desirable, you should be talking to the employer about enhancing the role to include these things.
Employees that have been laid off or have been on furlough for a long time may decide that, when the moment comes, they don't want to return to work at all.
Some have enjoyed the time with their family so much they're considering early retirement, finding part-time work or even a complete change in profession.
This is going to be one of the most frustrating challenges for recruiters, especially when you have a seemingly perfect candidate who is unattached but simply doesn't want to even engage with the process.
How to Counter This:
Time to put your empathy skills to the test.
Droning on about company perks and career advancement is unlikely to get you very far because, when you encounter this obstacle, you don't really know WHY the individual is feeling the way they do.
You can't do anything to counter this problem unless you did deeper.
Try the "Why" chain...
If a prospective candidate says they're contemplating not returning to work, ask them why, but then follow-up with more "whys" until you get to the root.
Q. Why are you thinking of not going back?
A. A break from work made me realise that I really don't enjoy the job.
Q. Why do you think you weren't enjoying it?
A. I just never had time for family, the daily commute was killing me, and the whole thing had just become a grind.
Q. Why did the work obstruct your family time?
A. The management team just wasn't organised and they were forever demanding overtime on weekends and evenings.
This example exchange reveals that the person may not have lost their love for the work so much as they were fed up with their demanding employer. You've also just learned that the financial benefits of having lots of overtime was not adequate compensation.
So, perhaps you could change the candidate's mind if you had a role for them that was closer to home (or allowed for remote working), and had a management team that had more respect for the work/life balance.
Of course, when you're asking your "whys" you might discover that the reason for the decision to not return to work is insurmountable (health or family problems, for example). But at least then you know and you're not going to waste everyone’s time trying to convince them to change their mind.
***
It seems like the one thing that hasn't changed as a result of lockdown is the fact that employers need to be willing to go to great lengths to get the best talent.
But perhaps, for right now, employers need to be willing to go a little further.
And recruiters need to coach their clients on this new reality.
But this doesn't stop with the salary, the working conditions and terms.
In fact, this is only the start.
Once you've put the effort in to convince the candidates to engage with the process, you need to put the same level of effort into the assessment stage.
In fact, the strategy we recommend, not only makes the decision-making and outcome simpler and more accurate for the employer, it also helps you to figure out how committed the candidate is to the new opportunity, and how likely they are to stay in that role long-term if they win the contract.
But that's a subject for a future article...
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