Recruitment post recession – Hiring upswing round the corner, are you prepared?
The buzz across the world is that the recession is coming to an end and the worst is probably over. You will see this sentiment being reflected amongst most of the people you talk to. All the major news items across the globe carry 
headlines like “the worst is over” and testimony to this fact is a recent article by MSNBC stated that
“government said the nation’s unemployment rate unexpectedly fell in July for the first time in 15 months and that employers cut fewer jobs“
The unemployment rate has dropped in US for the first time. The reason I am quoting the US market as this is where it all started and the recovery will start from here as well.
The important question is that are you as a person involved in recruitment learnt your lessons from the recession? Each one of us faced several recruitment related challenges during the recession life cycle and since it hit us without any notice we had no option but to be reactive. Most of us thought the best was to beat recession was to cut cost and there are few who took proactive actions and identified innovative ways to tackle the recession period.
I am writing this to urge everyone to look back at what has happened in the last 6 to 8 months and formulate a recruitment strategy so that you are well prepared for the hiring upswing.
Recruitment Scenario during recession
Companies
- Slow down in business lead to slow down and in certain cases freeze on recruitments
- Cost cutting led to loss of jobs for millions of people worldwide
- Delay in hiring due to uncertainty in the market.
- Restructuring of various departments to stay competitive
- Forced Mergers and acquisition led to loss of jobs
- Companies recruiting during recession wanted the best resource at the lowest salary package
Recruitment agencies
- Loss of contracts / contracts not extended - leading to fewer clients
- Lack of requirements led to job salary cuts and job cuts
- No possibility of fresh engagement
- Rising bench cost of companies in temp and contract staffing
- Agencies with higher dependence on a particular sector faced were not able to spread the risk
Proactive measures while coming out of recession
Companies
- Initiate relations with their preferred vendor and provide them with transparent hiring plans so that they can be prepared for your requirement and not your competitors
- Start early that there is ample of highly skilled resources available in the market and are vulnerable about their next move
- Communicate your hiring plan with the junior most person in the HR team as soon as possible and ask them to take corrective actions don’t wait for the economy to get back on track
- Come up with innovative pricing model to pay recruitment agency , something like an pay per performance and not a captive commitment to a particular agency
- Try using social media for attracting talent which save tons of commission being paid out to recruitment agencies.
- Re-negotiate the contractual terms with your vendors; this is the right time to negotiate to your advantage.
Recruiting agencies
- Start building relations with the client and spend quality time understanding their future hiring plans.
- Try connecting and profiling your candidate base and keep them engaged in discussion about their future move, this will help you refresh your database and have them ready for the word as per the hiring plans for your client
- It’s the right time to get into newer sectors as virtually there has been very little interaction between client and their so called preferred vendors over last 6 to 8 months so this leaves a room for you to foster a relation. Beware your competitors might be reading this as well
- Explain your recruiters about the near future and how they need to be smart and be prepared for the upswing.
- Try using social media to attract passive talent
The recruiter mindset - Psychological danger
The world has been through the recession for the most part of last year and everyone is in some manner or the other depressed and frustrated with the situation around. If you are not proactive in addressing the mindset of your people then as they dint see the recession coming they will not see the upswing coming as well. Start talking to your team about how the economy is getting back on track and how you guys need to be prepared this will set the positive mind set and they will be better equipped to tackle the upswing.
Yes the economy is getting back on track and yes the worst is over but it’s going to be a very slow economic recovery. Companies will be cautious and adopt absolute risk free growth strategy. The recovery from recession is going to be painful but unless we prepare well, we will not be able to capitalize when the time is right.
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