
Addressing a Challenging UK Recruitment Market
How can recruitment be more effective in the UK? Looking beyond just hiring...
The employment market in the UK is in a situation where there are a lot of workers who are struggling to find jobs as well as a lot of open vacancies with companies struggling to find the necessary workforce. The great mismatch.
A Challenge and Opportunity for Recruiters
There is an abundance of recruitment agencies in the UK that aim to match workers with companies for a commission of 15-25% of the yearly pre-tax salary on average. All work the same, leveraging a database of contacts without any innovative features or aims at tackling the bigger issue.
Given the situation, some greatly profit from the mismatch and do well if they have an up to date contact list and strong relationships with large companies that will simply use that agency always for their recruitment needs.
A Dire Experience
From surveys conducted and feedback received, working with recruiters as candidates or employers is not the best of experiences. The databases are often outdated and the methods are very manual and subjective.
Often younger candidates receive the worst experience with recruitment agencies that have rare communication and no feedback. For them, using a recruitment agency is like playing the lottery, maybe something will come through but the chances are against you.
A Missed Opportunity for Recruitment Agencies
As mentioned above, all agencies work the same. But given that they compete with each other, it would make sense to differentiate between them and create a brand. In essence, these agencies are needed for a match to happen, that's it. The next hope for business is when there's another open vacancy, and that's where key opportunities are missed.
What if these agencies thought beyond just the match and sought to address the wider scale problem facing the country today. As you can see from the stats, there is a huge gap of skilled workers and rather low participation in economic activity, which is still declining year on year.
A Potential Solution
Thinking long-term, recruitment companies could expand from their standard operations to upskill their list of candidates. This would have the following key benefits:
Differentiation from the standard matchmaking service
Greater brand loyalty from candidates as they receive value residually
Greater trust from employers as ultimately, they see that the agency is making an effort to improve the quality of their candidates that they're offering
How could this be done?
There is no need to employ teachers and think that this solution requires a multimillion pound setup. It can actually be done via a web and/or mobile platform. It can focus on the younger generation to be actively engaged with the company by completing skill tests and online learning. This would reduce the 'lying on your resume' case used by far too many.
Furthermore, resources used to upskill can be integrated into the solution from a 3rd party. The candidates would have a journey to complete on the app thus they would use it regularly, starting from their studies and be interacting with a particular recruitment company. This would in turn create a brand while not disturbing the current operations of the business.
Which company will be the first to try this method? Being a UK company, it saddens us to see these statistics and we fully support any initiatives taken to secure the economic competitiveness and wellbeing of the country.
Power in Numbers
2.5 Million
Shortfall in high-skilled workers
£6.6 Billion
Yearly cost due to skill shortage
27%
Unemployed or Economically inactive