Candidate Shortage, what candidate shortage?

Although there has been some decline in amount of roles advertised compared to earlier in 2022 , there is still a big requirement for additional staffing across the UK. If you are one of the 1.161 million businesses currently recruiting then it’s likely you are feeling the PINCH of the candidate shortage and struggling with it. With unemployment levels still below pre-pandemic levels , there’s less active candidates and more competition for roles, some reading suggests likely to average somewhere between 4-5 similar roles to yours being actively advertised at the moment.

So what can we do?

All this means is it isn’t as easy to recruit and there is a competition for talent BUT there are things you can do and actually there are great opportunities to improve your recruitment processes. It’s possible to recruit you just need the expertise to do this. Below are some of the top tips to consider to win the Battle for top talent.

Tip 1

Make sure your recruiting requirements are realistic. Start with pay ,comps & benefits and structure of work. A recent poll we ran suggested hybrid working was the most important factor in choosing a new employer, if you don’t have this but rivals do, well that’s not a great place to start is it…… Job boards can give you some insight to advertised salaries and dare I say recruitment agencies should have a good hold on and the tools to quickly help you benchmark.

Tip 2

Look at your employer proposition. What makes you an attractive place to work? Being “a name” no longer cuts it. If you don’t have a strong brand – what can you do to help you stand out? Including video’s in your outreach/advertising can be really key and help sell the picture of working for you.

Tip 3

Look at your interview process, are you grilling candidates or trying to establish if it’s the right match for candidate and client? A 10 stage, jumping through hoops process is not going to cut it. Sometimes you might only need 1 stage. (Yep you might want to understand about candidate, look at some competencies but just because there’s less stages doesn’t mean it has to be less effective.)

Tip 4

Look at job advert design. What is the purpose of a job advert? It is to attract a candidate to express interest in a role. Repositioning or copying and pasting a job description is not going to do this. What is going to hook the candidate? It will be what is in it for them. Salary is key but so is understanding a bit about the company, team and what the employee can expect from the employer.

Tip 5

Route to market. Consider how you are going to reach out to potential candidates. Job boards may play some part but it’s likely that you will need a much larger range of outreach than this. We used to find circa 1 in 50 targeted outreach would generate some interest, now this is averaging 1 in 200. Have you got the tools to be able to do this?

Hopefully you will find some of these tips useful and be able to implement these into your recruitment plan. If you feel you need some more support to do this, we at SELECTiVE offer a recruiter on demand service, where we can support with the strategy around this alongside any recruitment sourcing. For more information visit our website.