Cheryl Czach and Sigred Partner Mike Dergis talk about the effect of the pandemic on talent recruiting from the candidates side.
Mike shares some of the trends Sigred Solutions is seeing in talent searches and in their Global Employee Engagement Survey Analysis.
Ultimately,some of the top changes Sigred Solutions is seeing include:
Trends for Candidates
Despite unemployment, good talent still has a lot of options, so it still seems like a candidate's market.
Risk aversion by candidates - candidates that may have been on the market feel like sticking it out in their current situation.
Talent is evaluating employers by how they behaved towards the team during the shelter-in-place.
Work from home mindset. People have gotten used to zero commute time. Candidates seem to be wiling to commute less than previously.
Trends for Employers
For companies looking to upskill, because of the talent shortage, some companies had made do with their current team. Some companies are looking to add team members to take them further, not necessarily replacing but adding to the team.
A shift in the type of search - from sales to operations roles.
Full Transcript
Cheryl Czach
I’m Cheryl Czach from Cheryl Czach Coaching and Consulting and I am here today with Mike Dergis from Sigred Solutions to talk about how Covid-19 has changed the recruiting landscape. Hi Mike, how are you doing today?
Mike Dergis:
Hi Cheryl, I’m doing well thank you.
Cheryl:
I’m curious to know how things have changed from a candidate perspective.
Mike:
It was night and day from early March to now in terms of how rapid the change was. One of the things we are seeing is that while there is a high level of unemployment, good talent still has a lot of options and they still have the ability to be choosy. It is still a bit of a candidate’s market even though unemployment is up.
Three things that we are seeing from the candidate’s side are one: a risk aversion. Candidates are a little less likely to jump to a new employer right now. They may be thinking “I know what I have right now, and I am not necessarily very unhappy. I’m going to stick it out and ride with it a little while. I’m not ready to make a jump into something that is a little more unknown.”
The second thing we are seeing is a question on the part of candidates about how the employers treated their employees during the downturn. Did they lay everybody off, did they fire everyone, did they furlough, did they do some sort of mix. What the talent is doing is looking at that as an indicator of what the company culture is. How well did the employer treat the employees. That will be used to help make a decision about whether a candidate moves or not.
The third thing we are seeing is a work from home mindset. Over the last three months, a lot of candidates have gotten used to working from home and all the benefits, and frankly challenges, that come along with that. They have gotten used to zero commute time. Where six months ago, they may have been willing to look at an hour-long commute. Now they are saying “you know, maybe 30 minutes is about as far as I’m willing to commute.” So that change in mindset might not be permanent, but it is definitely impacting the market right now.
Cheryl:
That is really interesting. I’m curious to know what changes you are seeing from the employer side.
Mike:
We have seen two very quick changes in the market from March to today. The first is where companies are looking to upskill. Over the last couple years with the talent shortage and the difficulty of bringing people in, there were a lot of companies that made do with the talent that they had. Now they are looking at it as an opportunity to not necessarily exit the people that are there currently, but to add talent and add skills to allow them to grow moving forward.
The second thing that we have seen is a real abrupt shift from sales positions: VP of Sales, Business Development Directors, those types of positions, to more operational positions. Engineers, controllers, folks that can help improve the bottom line.
What we are seeing is a little bit of reluctance to focus on revenue growth at the moment, but a shift to focus on operations improvement. So, bringing in the talent on supply chain management to help improve the bottom line, and hoping that the top line doesn’t deteriorate too much.
Cheryl:
That is an interesting perspective. I hadn’t thought about that shift from sales to operations, but it makes complete sense. If an employer wants to find out more about how they should be navigating this new normal, what can they do, where can they find information?
Mike:
We welcome anyone to reach out to us at sigredsolutions.com. We are more than happy to have conversations with folks about what we are seeing in the marketplace and what they are seeing in the marketplace.
Right now, information is really valuable, so that the more employers can share among themselves, and that we can share with employers, that is all a good thing.
Of course, we are here to help employers take the pain out of their hiring process, so anything we can do to make that process easier, we are here to help.
Cheryl:
Awesome. Thank you so much Mike.
Mike:
Thank you. It was a pleasure speaking
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