In recent weeks many of my clients in the UK and EU area have told me there seems to be a shift from client to candidate focus. That is, there are jobs out there but it’s become difficult to find top talent. Whilst there maybe plenty of candidates on the job boards and replying to advertising campaigns, what is lacking is high quality talent. We think the reason for this quite clear. In uncertain market conditions there will always a flood of candidates on the market. Some have unfortunately been made redundant, some are nervous about their current situation and want to keep their options open so to speak. Logically, when senior management make staff redundant they tend to lay-off their lower quality talent first and try to retain their better staff with promises of security and incentives.

Candidates who are approached directly by an internal recruiter or head hunter tend to respond by saying that they are interested in career opportunities but not at the moment. They continue by suggesting that is it better to stay where they are until the ‘markets’ settle. Last in-first out so to speak! It’s important to build a relationship with your candidates first before trying to convince within a couple of minutes of sales pitch to leave their current employer.

Finally we are not inferring that the markets are better than they are moreover what we are saying is that at the moment it’s not as bad as it seems.