Most recruitment veterans, not sure if I am a veteran or not (yet), will tell you that as months go, May isn’t that exciting for recruitment. For us at s1jobs some interesting things did take place. For a start the number of vacancies advertised on s1jobs was at its highest levels since February 2009. Another great sign that the Scottish economy is truly moving and there are new jobs flooding the market as companies prepare to sprint out of the recession.
During the last few years direct employers have been looking for ways to control costs, control their employer brand and in tow increase the quality of hires they are able to make. One of the most common tactics used to accomplish this is to bring recruitment in-house. Now I am not going to walk down the path of commenting on its validity but taking February 2009 as a benchmark, the number of direct jobs from employers on the site have grown 240% compared to May 14. This reassures me that s1 jobs has played a vital role in helping them achieve some of these objectives and it’s a pleasure to serve so many great Scottish employers. Regardless of whether your tactics is in-house, recruitment agency, recruitment process outsourcing(RPO) or referral one thing is for sure, in the new market we can see ahead the dominant focus must be on employer brand.
In this new era some things will be the same, some will change. For example we have all probably seen and recruited in candidate driven marketplaces. High skill sets in demand where the number of jobs exceeds the pool of available candidates. However recent studies show me that the candidate has evolved. The millennial or ‘generation Y’ candidate is becoming more company led than job led. A great position is not enough to entice the best candidate. They want to pick the best company first.
Independent research commissioned by s1 showed that 89% of Scottish job seekers are aware of s1jobs.com. 95% of s1 users said they were likely to use s1jobs in the future. And, importantly, 72% of non s1jobs users said they were likely to use s1jobs in the future. This, I would argue suggests that s1jobs is the ideal platform to communicate your employer brand and tap into that allusive passive market.
The research also asked about the perception of s1jobs, in particular what words sprung to mind when people thought about the site. Amongst those listed were words like “easy”, “relevant”, “good”, “local” and ultimately “Scottish”. These results show that s1jobs is as familiar in job seeker dialect as local sayings like “haud yer wheesht!”, “ah dinnae ken” and as my mum had to often say “ill gie ye a skelpit lug”.
Ok, I am getting carried away. Here are some May details about the Scottish digital landscape that may be of interest:
Most Advertised Disciplines During May 14:
Engineering / Manufacturing- 30% increase YOY
IT- 32% increase YOY
Sales- 70% increase YOY
Executive/Managemen-t 39% increase YOY
Admin/Secretarial/PA- 70% increase YOY
Highest Growing Disciplines YOY During May 14:
Legal- 147% increase YOY
Insurance- 110% increase YOY
Distribution/Logistics- 89% increase YOY
Marketing- 88% increase YOY
Finally the last thing for me to say is I hope you have a prosperous Q3 and s1jobs, as always, will be here to serve.
Lang may yer lum reek! – may you live long and stay well.
