The turning of the tide: Clients are gaining control of the recruitment market

Unemployment rates are at the highest they have been since October 2021 and there are over 300,000 more people unemployed than this time last year!

So how does this affect recruiters that are in a market that is seeing the change? At first read, you may be thinking ‘Great, more candidates, finally!’.  However, what is the reason for there being more candidates?

There are two main causes of this, redundancies, and fewer open jobs.

Redundancies are at the highest they have been since September 2021. So yes, there are more candidates available, but unfortunately, this is because there are more companies decreasing their headcount.

Open jobs are at the lowest they have been since August 2021 and have decreased by 250,000 since May 2023. With more people open to, or in need of work, but fewer vacancies for them to move to, the unemployment levels are now consistently growing. This will have a huge impact on the way that clients look at recruiting.

The recruitment market has been driven by candidates for a very long time, there were more vacancies than there were relevant qualified candidates. This meant that employers had to think outside the box and rework their policies to attract top talent. It made it easy for recruiters to pick up jobs from clients.

In recent years, you have been able to get by in recruitment by finding a good candidate and taking them to market. This would generate enough activity to bring in vacancies and win over clients. There has been very little need for recruiters to do strategic business development. Recruiters have won over clients purely because they were able to source and attract relevant candidates. They were able to leverage this and negotiate good fees.

Now though, with the market flipping, clients once again rule the roost. They now have what everyone wants……..Jobs.

So what is my advice to recruiters going through the change from candidate lead to client lead?

Become more strategic with your business development.

You are going to have to create and implement a strategy for how you are going to attack your market. Who are you going to contact?  How are you going to contact them? How will your service offering be a benefit to them?

Market yourself.

There will be a huge influx of recruiters now doing more business development activity than previously. Every hiring manager in your market will be inundated with recruiters trying to get hold of them. Focus on your marketing strategy. Where will your clients see you? How are you going to show that you are worth their time? How will you differentiate from the crowd?

Become ruthless with your time.

Your day is already hectic and jam-packed, now you have more work to do. You will need to find time to do more business development and create marketing. You will need to budget your time. Which tasks will give you more bang for your buck? What can you delegate?

What can you automate?

Now more than ever you will need to work smarter, not harder to win high quality repeat business. So budget your time, and make yourself the recruiter of choice for your sector.