February seemed to be a wait and see month for many recruitment professionals in their roles.  Those recruiters we spoke to were awaiting higher recruitment volumes and greater attrition rates that they expected to see in February and March as people began to leave post-bonus but in many cases this was not as serious as expected.  This appears to be in line with the rather nervous expectations of all communities in moving roles at the moment and as a result the emphasis quickly returned, as with January, to the difficulty of getting people over the line and into the business.

Many recruiters however reported a subtle but significant shift in this experience (in January’s Monitor we reported on how many recruiters were running great processes with great candidates but couldn’t get offers closed).  Whereas before the issue was the latter stages of the process Recruiters in February stated the pressure point moved back to engagement.  With less New Year cheer and ambition pushing people into considering new roles in the first place those who have been considering new opportunities in February across functions have typically been more committed to moving than their January peers but there are far fewer of them compared to the roles.  The big February Front Line trend therefore was around attraction; how do you engage the great candidates and get them in front of hiring managers… But then again is that really a monthly trend, personally I think engagement is going to be the trend of 2011!  Let’s see how we all feel about that next month!

March 15, 2011 at 11:14 am | Candidate, Clients, February 2011, Front Line, Hiring, In-house, Monitor | No comment