With years of serving the recruitment advertising world prior to joining Comms Business, one of the first questions I asked when I started working here was ‘where do Channel professionals look for their next career move?’.
With apparently no specialist portals in the Channel, we launched Comms Business Jobs earlier this year, serving both jobseekers and recruiters alike across the Channel.
Over the last 15 years, jobs boards have firmly established themselves as a reliable online business model for many recruiters.
It began in the early days of magazine publishing where recruitment adverts were placed in the back section of industry journals.
This takes me back to the early days of my career in publishing, and I have seen for myself how much the world of recruitment has evolved with the digital age.
This quarterly recruitment section will help educate our readers on various aspects around recruitment challenges and market trends. To kick things off, I sat down with Ollie Benn, recruitment director at Neoci, to get his perspective.
Moh Lalani (ML) [pictured above, left]: What would you say are the main challenges for recruiters within the Channel?
Ollie Benn (OB) [pictured above, right]: There are four main challenges. Firstly, candidate attraction. Candidates and recruiters use networking sites to engage with each other and it provides a much softer and more transparent interaction.
Next, we have counter-offers. At the start of 2020 when Covid hit us, businesses furloughed and made redundancies. Those employees who were retained have become the most desired by competitors.
This counter-offer culture has driven salaries up dramatically, creating the third challenge of the salary hike. In a candidate-driven market, candidates really know their worth and often have many options, so salary expectations have increased.
Lastly, candidate choice can be challenging. Good candidates have the opportunity to look at a number of roles, so they can choose the best salary, or best benefits. Businesses have to work even harder to present and sell their company as the first choice.
ML: How can those challenges be overcome?
OB: This is about evolution not revolution. Hiring managers should adapt to the market, create a compelling package, and consider that it’s not just about money.
There might need to be flexible working as candidates might want to be in the office, or at home or a real mix. Let them choose what works best for their work life balance.
Ask yourself: how is your culture, values and ethics promoted? What is the candidate experience? How many stages is your hiring process, what is the decision-making process? Have you done enough to pitch your company to the candidate? Why should they choose you over the three other offers they have on the table?
Hire will over skill, and don’t just use the interview process as a tick box exercise.
ML: Is there a skill shortage within the Channel?
OB: There is not necessarily a skill shortage as everything can be trained. The mindsets of hiring managers and their bosses need to change.
Gone are the days of boiler room sales floors and the typical 9-to-5. Candidates and employees have had time to reflect and now know what they want and need from a job.
The workplace is an ecosystem, we all need each other to thrive and it’s not just about dictating how someone works anymore.
ML: How important is company culture in enabling recruiters to attract and retain the best talent?
OB: Candidates who may have previously put up with a so-called ‘toxic workplace’, are now in a position to choose a better working culture, so this has become a lot more relevant.
Comms Business Jobs is an industry-specific consultative platform for jobseekers and recruiters, not just a jobs board. Jobseekers and browsers can search and apply for the latest jobs within specific sectors, by function, location and salary band. If your requirements are specific, you can register to receive email job alerts, so that when relevant vacancies are published, you can easily apply for the best available roles.
For recruiters seeking to attract the best talent, all standard job listings are currently free to advertise until the 31st December. Your vacancies are automatically sent to relevant candidates who match your criteria in our database. Jobs are also searchable by recruiter, making it easy for jobseekers to find your company and latest jobs. We offer tiered packages, designed to suit every need. Featured jobs are listed within a special weekly email, sent to over 19,000 Channel subscribers.