Kate Ross: If you're not fast you will, literally, be last

Kate Ross

The recruitment market is moving at an incredibly fast pace and if you aren't on the ball when it comes to the recruitment process you follow then you'll miss the best candidate on offer every time.

The good candidates available in the market currently are keeping their options open, considering numerous positions at once and they are getting multiple offers as a result. They have choices.

We find that, unless they have been recruiting themselves, clients often call us before they are ready to move quickly and be decisive. We find ourselves short-listing for a new role and a week later short-listing again because employers don't move fast enough to snap up the small number of fantastic candidates coming through and they aren't waiting around.

It's a juggling act. We move quickly and advise our clients to do the same. However the trick is to pace it so employers feel that they have a choice and enough time to make a good decision, and for the candidates that they feel they have been given enough time to find out about their future employer and weigh up the pros and cons of their new job.

Why is it like this when we have huge volumes of people in the market looking for work? Unemployment is at 7.3 per cent after all.

We are finding now that for most employers, quality and experience is a must and rather than hiring at 60 to 70 per cent capability which has been the norm in the past, they want to employ candidates with proven experience who can literally walk into the role and hit the ground running.

As we all know, staff turnover is costly. With companies consistently telling us that things are looking up, it is important that they remember to thank the people who got them to here and give something back.

Existing staff and teams are still carrying heavy workloads due to roles being absorbed internally over the past year. You can be sure that these employees, overworked and underappreciated, are now sending their CVs to us. While everyone was happy to help out during the tough times of 2009, they can't continue to carry the same workload indefinitely.

Unfortunately, many employers still wish to keep head count as low as possible and this can cause problems. An extra pair of hands is needed. A good example of this is the Human Resources department, currently lean and mean in many organisations.

Now that recruitment, which we know is very time consuming, is back on the board, this is stretching HR considerably. 2009 was a year of staying put; 2010 is a year of change and progression. Employers are trying to recruit themselves, however many cannot deal with the "high volume, poor quality" response to online advertising and they revert to an agency for assistance.

We get an urgent call and results are expected immediately - to do our job properly we need time. It isn't good enough to settle for the first person who comes along who can do the job - we want to find the best person possible every time to avoid turnover in the short term. We work closely with our clients to ensure they understand what our process is and the benefits of working with us collaboratively.

The temporary and contract market have greatly improved. We have seen a 37 per cent increase in temporary business over the past 7 weeks across our Auckland and Wellington offices. The majority of assignments are for eight weeks or longer and again, temps are being offered multiple roles daily.

Is the future looking bright? From where I sit, it absolutely is. In the time I have spent typing this article today, my team has managed to place eight people in permanent positions - that has to be a positive sign.

Kate Ross, Director of Kinetic Recruitment