The Passive Candidate……a thing of the past?
At the start of Lockdown, I had this list of things to achieve personally as well as professionally. Referring you to my blog “I’m a fixer” where I discuss the personal side of it more, professionally I promised myself I would sense check a figure that I say quite a lot. “I get about 70% of my candidates through LinkedIn”. Have I? Have I heck. But I also did not do 10,000 steps a day, lose a stone and watch some classic films. Hey Ho.
So, on a conference call today with other recruiters, we started about how the market has changed and I cast my mind back to a conversation I had earlier today with a candidate who was not too familiar with LinkedIn. I gave him recommendations on how to improve his profile whilst saying “I get about 70% of my candidates from LinkedIn so you have to make sure your profile is spot on for recruiters finding you”. And then I thought…….do I? I am sure I used to but with the current role I am working on, I am not sure I did get 70% of my candidates through LinkedIn. So, I did what I normally do with numbers, and with 10 years of working as a Commercial Manager in the Food Industry, pencil, paper and a few quick sums.
One of my clients is currently working through the longest of short lists, on a role I recruited before, where the short list was 4 CV’s, not the 2020 9 CV’s! And here is what I found.
2019
Total Jobs 1
Reed 1
Jobsite 1
LinkedIn Applied 0
InMail’s sent on LinkedIn: 91, 27 replied and placed 1 from this.
2020
Reed 4
Recommended 1
LinkedIn Applied 4
InMail’s sent through LinkedIn: 100, 19 replied and none were shortlisted.
Gobsmacked. Completely gobsmacked. And only 2 days ago I said to my client that in all the years I’ve been recruiting, this has been by far, the role I’ve loved working on the most, but also the short list I think I’m most proud of. Every candidate can do the job, everyone is great, every candidate has completed online videos to support their application and we are all just waiting for the client to decide.
But no longer do 70% of my candidates come from LinkedIn, not in this instance anyway. Over half of the CV’s I received came through job boards. About 10% (see, I am at it again, gestimating!) came direct to my inbox, there was 1 recommendation and the rest (just under 40%) came through LinkedIn. And all of those had applied for the job, not one had got back to me after I had approached them about this job. This has NEVER happened before.
So, who is looking for a new job in the Summer of 2020? Out of my short list, 6 out of 9 (I have checked this figure, so it is 2 /3 !) are immediately available. 2 are on a months’ notice and 2 are in 3 months’ notice. All 9 candidates (100%!) applied for the job. Nobody who I approached wanted a new job. Why is that?
The world is bonkers but are people now wanting to take less risks? Are people craving stability in a world where you cannot even control or decide who to hug? And if you are in a job, have been for a while, why would you then risk walking away from that security if we still do not know the impact on our economy and job market? We have all said, “Oh last in, first out.” People are being made redundant all over the place and some have no protection in redundancy pay. Or are people thinking that there are enough unemployed people out there so lets give them a chance to find a job as “I’ve already got a job which is OK actually”?
Whatever it is, it will be interesting to see how the market settles. Applying for jobs will become more competitive and much tougher. Working in recruitment will become more competitive and much tougher. Being a Hiring Manager, well this could be your chance to be really spoilt. My client is currently working her way through the longest short list and I do not envy that. I have joked that they should employ everyone who is immediately available. They certainly have the work to do that, but I am not sure they have the time to get everybody up to speed, never mind the budget!
In the meantime, will get back to the back of a fag packet calculations and see how the world settles in more ways than one over the coming months. And no, sign up to a Maths course was never on the list of things to do in Lockdown. And it never will be you will be pleased to know.
Email: jo@winhurstrecruitment.co.uk
Tel: 0115 975 6513
@winhurstrec