Culture & Brand Building
April 2025
Some grim reading in The Times this morning about the state of the job and recruitment market in the UK, France, and Germany.
Across the board, recruiters are feeling the effects of low employer confidence to hire, less attractive job packages, and a fear of 'last in, first out', with many people preferring to stay put.
The temp market is faring better than perm, with a 'try before buy' attitude.
As the CEO of SThree, a recruiter in London, puts it: 'it's the first time we're seeing such prolonged softness [in the hiring market]; usually it goes down and back-up...now it's just going sideways'.
The situation is affecting the financials too, The Times reports. Fees earned by Michael Page, Robert Walters, and SThree in Q1 were down a quarter on a average compared to Q1 2022. Share prices have suffered more - down between 50-70% today compared to this time three years ago.
All of which makes the Nxt Level Recruitment Network meeting at the back end of last week even more relevant and essential. I was delighted to be a keynote speaker at the event, Smarter Financial Strategies for Recruitment Leaders (Beyond Billings), alongside Nives Feely and Daniel Healey, and organised by Sam Hardy and George Bristow.
Our focus was how to best navigate the market in these uncertain times and how to plan effectively for success through smart financial thinking and strategy. And to ensure that the fundamentals of recruitment and good business leadership beyond billings are not forgotten:
➡️ the importance of culture and brand building
➡️ 360 stakeholder relationshps
➡️ differentiate your business from the rest of the field
➡️ be memorable
➡️ over communicate and communicate more
➡️ ensure fresh market intelligence to shape your decisions and strategies.
Thanks to everyone who came along - I think there 50-60 people in the room and it made for a lively and constructive sets of conversations.
Good luck to all the agency leaders out there. Now is the chance to win competitive advantage and be in pole position for the return to growth.
#UKrecruitment #UKeconomy #RecruitmentTech MJS Partnership #MJSPartnership #JoSellick #Hays #MichaelPage #SThree #RobertWalters