Our team at Talent Matters have been in overdrive since the start of the year, and we’ve been seeing a noticeable shift in more applications per job ad, candidates reaching out due to redundancy and employers taking longer to make hiring decisions.
Although, even with more challenging conditions, our team have successfully placed these roles in recent months, with majority of these placements made via direct headhunting, our network and referrals, essentially finding candidates our clients wouldn’t ordinarily have access to without our involvement.
Roles we recently placed:
- Senior Garment Tech
- Social Media Manager
- Senior Graphic Designer / Graphic Designer
- Head of Marketing
- Production Coordinator
- Product Buyer
- Head of Retail
- Marketing Coordinator
- Internal Sales
- Country Manager
Employment Hero released a report on the state of the recruitment market in 2023, and they found 17% of candidates do not pass probation or remain in their roles after the first 6 months. This is obviously far from ideal for both candidates and clients and demonstrates the importance of being upfront as to the role parameters and conducting a robust interview process.
Interestingly, they also found hiring leaders spend 39 hours per week on hiring activities, with a significant portion of time taken up by candidate interviewing and screening, as seen in the below chart.
There has also been an increase in job ad responses which is creating more work for hiring leaders to go through and shortlist suitable candidates. As an example, Talent Matters recently had a Head of Marketing role on various job boards, with over 240 + applications…but how did we ultimately place the role? Via headhunting. In fact, in FY23, 89% of placements we made were through headhunting and our network!
Looking more closely at Talent Matters data for number of applications, between January – April 2024, we had 2,457 applications vs January – April 2023 we had 1,671 applications. That is a 47% increase in applications through to our agency, demonstrating competitiveness for open roles and shift in market conditions.
The Jobs Report for January – March 2024, found job postings have fallen again, but the rate of decline is slowing as can be seen below:
Through their analysis of over 6,500 job data sources, they’ve found that “the jobs market to remain soft until interest rates fall and business confidence returns”. This does align to what our team have seen in recent months, with more hesitancy around hiring, pending business performance.
We are also seeing employers taking longer to make hiring decisions, but it’s important to be mindful of candidate engagement throughout the process. Remember, these candidates, even if not successful, could be your future customers and you want them to have a pleasant recruitment experience, regardless of the outcome.
Want to discuss these insights with us in more detail? You can schedule a call with us here.
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