We think that is what candidates are doing at the moment. As we review candidate registrations from Q1 this year, versus Q2, there is a significant trend that candidates in all HR disciplines – apart from ER specialists – are staying put. Whilst there has been a 100% increase in ER specialists registering for work – perhaps expecting there to be additional work arising from the economic landscape changes. The overall decrease in registrations quarter on quarter is 39%. Of course, Q1 includes the spike of new registrations in January – where people have the resolution of ‘New Year, New Job’. Most notably there has been a 54% decrease in reward candidate registrations, a 37% decrease in recruitment specialists and a 25% decrease in talent development professionals.
There has been a parallel decrease in new vacancies registered with us by clients across all of HR in this quarter, quarter on quarter, albeit by only 11%, resulting in a talent-short, candidate driven market, in many cases. Candidate flow is slower, and therefore the availability of talent and the time to source the right talent is taking a little more time than it was, on average, in 2015.
The candidate vs. vacancy ratio is most pronounced in our Payroll division, where the job flow has increased nearly 20% quarter on quarter, but new candidate registrations decreased some 71%. Perhaps Payroll professionals – who either report into HR or Finance – are in the heart of the work environment where there is a little more ‘pessimistic’ talk given the economy…and are most risk averse and so are holding tight in the existing roles. Fortunately our team here supporting the payroll roles have a strong database also of existing candidates who we can approach for new roles.
So, all in all, with job flows still strong – despite a decrease quarter on quarter, we are absolutely focussed on working with our clients to source talent in, what is currently, a relatively ‘talent short’ market place…