It's oh so quiet....sssshhhhhhhhhhh!

September should be the busiest time of the year as everyone returns from their summer holidays, rested and ready for a new challenge but 2019 it doesn’t seem to be that way. After attending a Recruitment event last week, thankfully it’s not just me that thinks this and with only 2 days left in the office before I’m away for a week, I’m not stressing too much as it means I can take the opportunity to relax, unwind and completely switch off. But I’m talking to clients for vacancies that have been live for a couple of months now and trying to understand why the market has been the slowest it’s been for a while.

For the last 3 years, there has been talk about “uncertain times” and I think that was true for about 3 weeks in June 2016 when the nation was in shock. (I won’t mention the B word, don’t worry!). But then reality kicked in and people started to carry on again. But 3 years later, this shit really got serious. And it doesn’t matter whether you agree or disagree with what the UK is trying to do, or whether you agree or disagree with the um…..um……not sure of the right word here, maybe we should have a game of blankety blank (showing my age) and you can chose the word….the people who are responsible for making it happen, the questions still remain unanswered as nobody has a crystal ball. Uncertainty about everything still remains. Can we get medication? Will the price of food and fuel rise? Will people want to move home? Are jobs safe? Will we go into recession? And why are gantry signs on motorways already telling us about paperwork in the UK ports from 1st November?  

And as for July and August, it feels like half the world has been on holiday. Great news for the roads but not for people waiting for decision makers to be around to make the decisions. But last summer felt busier, maybe because the weather was glorious, and less people went abroad. We were all happy sat in our garden whereas this year if I’ve sat in my garden which is 5 minutes from a stunning Nature Reserve, I’ve been bitten to buggery by midges and mozzies. Wet weather in April to blame for that one apparently. Then comes September where the people who don’t have children go on holiday, my self included (THREE SLEEPS, not that I’m counting!) so that leaves October for things to pick up.

October…..you just have to put the news on to hear that date. So, we’re back to the start, uncertainty in the economy. And that’s not to say that people aren’t changing jobs because they are. The jobs I had on over the summer I filled, and one candidate summed it up brilliantly. “I was always look for a job in the summer as less people do and therefore there’s potentially less competition.” I loved his confidence, it wasn’t arrogant, it was straight forward talking and something that has worked for him, this summer and 3 summers ago.

So, after a quiet summer for me where yes I’ve made some great placements with some awesome candidates, but I’ve finally caught up with life as January to June was phenomenally busy for me that I don’t really remember having a life outside of work. So this summer I’ve watched too many box sets and not read enough books, I’ve signed up to an initiative called “Postcards of Kindness” (where you send the elderly postcards, please please please check it out, it’s an amazing initiative) and where I’ve finally done the dull jobs like get a new garden fence, change the door handles on  my kitchen cupboards and blitzed my wardrobe (but not lost the half a stone I had promised I would!) I will come back, 30th September fully refreshed and hopefully to a busier market. All but one of my clients are in the food industry. People still need to eat and while that is the case, people will need to recruit. The world will keep on turning so have confidence in your own abilities (I sure as hell don’t have confidence in some peoples right now!) and if you see a job that intrigues you, start the conversation. By chatting to a recruiter about it doesn’t mean to say that you are committed to the process. It is fact finding. Sometimes the perfect job doesn’t exist, sometimes a great job is a new job, and even sometimes the job you had that you thought you didn’t like, can sometimes seem so much better after all.

Email: jo@winhurstrecruitment.co.uk

Tel: 0115 975 6513

@winhurstrec