It’s an Employers Market

It’s an Employers Market

Long gone are the days where you may only receive ten applications for a new position.  Now days you will be hard pushed not to hit triple figures in the first week of your ad going live, of course this is based on the principle that you advertise on Seek, Australia’s number one job board.  

I recently advertised for a store person/forklift driver and I had over 200 hundred applicants in the first week and only one position available.  Every single one was qualified to do the job and some were even over qualified.  With this many applicants it allows you to be picky, you can find the ‘perfect’ candidate, rather than just picking one that will do.  

With so many candidates available in the market, it can be considered good and bad.  Good because you have a choice and can be choosey, but it can be bad as you are inundated with phone calls and emails which is extremely time consuming.  Then you think about an hour long interview process with suitable candidate, then a second interview, reference checks, etc.  

There is the argument at the moment about using recruitment agencies.  A lot of companies feel that is it is waste of money using an agency when they could easily recruit themselves.  Well yes this is true, but consider the cost and the impact on the business.  Most companies are running with minimal staff these days who are normally stretched to full capacity.  Therefore by adding the extra work of recruiting a new person to their workload can be over whelming.  It can set them back up to a week on the work schedule once they have gone through the hundreds of applications, answered dozens of phone calls, then conducted interviews, second interviews, etc.  

That’s where we can help, as a recruitment agency we have the time and capacity to sift through the applications, answer the phone calls, conduct the interviews and then send the top three candidates (or however many you would like to see) through to you to interview, therefore reduced your time from 40 hours to 3 hours and all for a fee that is negotiated with you before the process starts.  The other benefit with using an agency is you can hire someone as a casual to help out and then you can consider taking them on permanently if they work out well and you have the work.  If they don’t work out or you run out of work then you can finish them up without any problems.  There is also the temp to perm option that means you can try before you buy, so to speak.  

We all know it’s an employer’s market at the moment and as a job hunter this is far from good news.  Whether or not as a business you feel the current market is a good thing will depend on your business and its needs.  Just remember Concept Engineering is here to help if you need it.