The economic downturn that followed the credit crunch has had a major negative effect on executive recruitment, but recent reports show signs that demand for executives is on the way back up.
Figures from the Association of Executive Search Consultants for Quarter 3 (Jul – Sep 09) showed an increase of 11% in search briefs over the previous quarter. However the recovery is relative; the Q2 figures reflected a low point of the market and this latest quarter’s demand is still well below the same quarter in 2008.
Other broader-based measures, such as information from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, Manpower and Monster, also reported a positive trend, but again that activity remains at a lower level than the same period the previous year.
Coming right up to date, the KPMG/REC survey of the UK labour market showed that, in December, UK permanent job placements rose at their fastest rate since July 2007. A survey of the attitudes of the Top 100 Finance Directors conducted in the same month by the Financial Times also showed that optimism about business prospects is at its highest level since the credit crunch started to bite.
These wide scale measures are also reflected here at Spindler. Our Q3 revenues were more than double those of Q2, but still 15% below Q3 for 2008. The good progress has continued for us right up to Christmas, with a further 9% improvement in Q4.
So the recovery may be on its way, but there are two notes of caution. The first is that employers are still relatively risk averse, so they are playing safe with their hiring decisions. They want proven skills and so stick closely to candidate specifications; they do not see this as the time for hiring someone way off spec to ‘break the mould’. This means that active job seekers need to steel themselves for a job hunt of 4-6 months before they find the right opening. The second point is that public sector jobs, for several years a real growth area, are going to be hit hard by spending cuts, whoever wins the next election. This will have a negative impact on the employment figures and the level of demand for jobs, but is not a factor for those executives firmly in the private sector.
