HRLife’s Market Reflections

HRLife

9 weeks in… 

Not that we are counting but they do say time flies when you’re having fun!

We’re both known to be ones for a bit of structure and process; and both have been told over the years that we love a spreadsheet, and to be fair this hasn’t changed. The other thing we’ve found that hasn’t changed over the years, is the desire for people (both candidate and client side) to want to meet face to face to start to build the relationship and establish those personal interactions.

Having met many HR and business professionals since our launch, we’ve been asked lots of questions about HRLife. Typically, these range from is it going well? Have the first few weeks been what you thought they’d be? What’s your focus and target market? What’s your best piece of advice to someone thinking about launching their own business? Through to what’s the plan for 2018?

I guess if we were to sit back and reflect (not that we’ve had masses of time to do so) we’d probably admit we didn’t 100% know what to expect or what we’d achieve in the first 2 months, but we had some personal and business goals that we wanted to achieve and we’ve ticked all of those boxes and more!  

The ’big’ question that continually proves to be a talking point is ‘How are you finding the market?’ A question every candidate and hiring manager asks in anticipation to either work out how long it might take them to find their perfect role or to find that perfect person and really establish what they will need to do to ultimately achieve this.

It’s always really hard to put a specific timeframe on how long it might take, as it’s dependant on a whole host of different things; such as how specific the search criteria are, or how flexible they can be. It will be impacted by how they are going out to market – have they applied directly to a business or are they using consultancies and if so, have they met the person representing them? What kind of relationship they have with that individual and in turn what relationship that person has with their client is crucial.

If we do look back and give a synopsis of the market over the last 12 months – an understatement would be to say ‘it’s certainly been an interesting one!’ Some that we’ve met have used the words ‘it’s an incredibly fragmented market’ and we’d have to agree. By that, they are referring to the fact that there still remains a sizeable number of companies looking to source directly alongside a large number of agencies (some smaller, some bigger) doing similar – which in essence means a lot of ‘networking’ for candidates! We met one candidate who brought her spreadsheet of over 45 HR recruiters with her and said how things have changed since she last looked for a role when all she had to do was approach 2 or 3 of the bigger brands and they would have had a large suitable selection of roles! 

So, what does it mean from a client’s perspective? Well from what we’re hearing, they’re having to be more proactive and really tap into the passive market place. As we all know when a market proves to be ‘interesting’ many candidates opt to remain where they are. Dare we reference ‘Brexit’ at this stage? It would be foolish not to think that it’s had an impact and contributed to these challenging times!

We’ve all read various articles and numerous blogs over the years on great employee collaboration, how work-place culture affects engagement and productivity, millennials will be taking over the world and how technology has transformed the work place, all of which are things HR Professionals get involved with every day. Whilst we need to be aware of the things that impact us, it’s important not to lose sight of our day job.  If we were to offer one last piece of advice, it would be something that is perhaps really pertinent to us as recruiters – building relationships and adding the human element to every HR recruitment process!. Long gone are the days where you could post an HR advert and get your shortlist from the responses. Building networks and knowing your market is absolutely key! Something that is close to our hearts.

After all, we are People people! #HRLife_recruit

To find out more about HRLife and how we can support you; please visit our website www.hrlifegroup.com or call Kerry 07881 933 272 or Jemma 07796 332 565

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