As increasing numbers of employees leave secure roles to take on new ones, or leave their industry entirely, companies are in need of recruitment market intelligence to help them navigate The Great Resignation.
What is recruitment market intelligence?
Most companies go into a recruitment process with an idea of who they want and how much they want to pay. What they often don’t know is what skills are available in the market and what the market demands for salary.
Recruitment market intelligence tells you what the current market looks like and what candidates are currently expecting in terms of salary, benefits, and culture. This can be specific to industries, locations, or specialities.
Recruitment market intelligence is gathered through collecting and distributing up-to-date data that gives hiring managers and talent acquisition specialists the information they need to make informed hires.
Our team keeps telling me the job market is wildly unpredictable right now. So, I’ve been listening in to some calls to get a better idea of exactly what’s going on. In most of them, hiring managers and talent acquisition teams are saying:
- “We’d secured a candidate and they ghosted us at the last minute.”
- “Candidates are engaging with us, but then they take another role.”
- “We’ve had more resignations this quarter than ever before.”
- “The job market is just so volatile, I don’t know what’s going on??”
It’s happening in science, in tech, and in manufacturing and engineering recruitment. It’s happening in the US, Europe, and the UK. Employees are leaving secure jobs, candidates are behaving strangely, and internal teams can’t navigate the changes.
How have we ended up at The Great Resignation?
We all remember 2020 when the effects of the pandemic and shutdowns came into play and people were laid off across the world. At the time, many businesses insisted it was an employers market, and the economic effects would be long and wide-ranging.
But those who had been in the business for a long time predicted that wouldn’t be the case for long. As the mental effects of the changes taking place began to affect people, they started re-evaluating their lives.
Many decided to leave the “rat race” and start up their own businesses. Others decided to retrain and change careers. Many women had to leave their roles to care for children or older relatives.
Then, as the world began to open up, businesses needed to hire, and hire fast. But the talent wasn’t waiting where they’d been left off.
Candidate behaviour has changed
Because there are so many open roles available now, candidates know their options have improved, even compared to pre-pandemic. As we mentioned before, people have reevaluated their employment options, and found they want more flexibility in their work/life balance.
Recruiters are contacting candidates in in-demand industries like tech multiple times a week with new roles . Therefore, they’re able to command bigger and better salaries and benefits.
They’re more confident they’ll get another role, and anecdotally, many people who engage in one hiring process engage themselves in at least one more.
Four million people in the US quit their jobs in April, 2021, according to Labor Department statistics quoted in Forbes, and there’s no sign “the great resignation” is slowing down.
Businesses are forced to act quickly and decisively to secure candidates. That means they need recruitment process intelligence to help them make the right decision.
Companies need new candidates
Now the markets they’ve traditionally worked in are drying up, businesses are looking elsewhere.
Companies are engaging in new locations because working from home is more prevalent.
- According to The Office for National Statistics, the number of people working from home in the UK doubled in 2020 and stayed steady throughout most of 2021.
- In the US, 78% of executives believe remote working is here to stay for 2021 and beyond.
A FlexJobs survey pointed out that 31% of employees want a hybrid working environment—that’s 96% who desire some form of remote work.
Because of this priority change, employers can tap into more markets than ever before. They can employ people from other cities, or even overseas. And they’re only asking for people to be in the same timezone or be able to work a couple of hours a day on their schedule.
An increase in flexibility also means more women can work in roles they couldn’t before. Women bear the main brunt of caregiving, much as we’d love it to be otherwise. They can work while still doing the school run or watching an elderly relative if they’re not tied to a 9-5 or 8-6 with a long commute.
Previously, people needed to commute for hours daily, be in the office for specific times, and hold meetings in-person. While the pandemic is estimated to have affected up to 40% of working women in some areas, the increased flexibility it’s brought opened up opportunities in others. Opportunities that will grow the further we get from the worst of the pandemic issues.
Businesses need recruitment market intelligence
However, internal teams often don’t have the expertise or knowledge to hire in other ways if they’ve only worked in one country or are used to a specific type of candidate.
That’s where recruitment market intelligence comes in.
At Solutions Driven, we created a new category called Recruitment Process Intelligence. It’s the processes and intelligence we use to get the right people for the right roles, first time every time. Especially during The Great Resignation.
Part of RPI is providing market intelligence for every role undertaken, giving hiring managers and talent teams information on topics like:
- The number of qualified candidates in any given market
- How many of them are gender or racially diverse
- The education/experience of these markets
- Expected salaries in the given talent pool
This A. allows them to be confident the search has been indepth and they’ll get the right person for the role, and B. use this information for future hires they may want to make on their own.
It means if hiring managers want to take advantage of recent talent market changes and overcome challenges, they have the information to allow them to do so.
Recruitment market intelligence in action…
Hiring Manager A is based in San Francisco and are looking to hire diverse talent, but they’re struggling in their area because salaries are just too high. They decide to search in the Ontario region instead as talent seems more plentiful and hires can crossover working hours with their existing team.
The data that RPI provides might tell them that the female candidate pool in that area is small. But the diverse talent in the Boston area is much higher and they should concentrate searches there. They save time and money by not undertaking a wasted search and are able to hit the ground running.
