Matthew Chester is Director of HR Resourcing, Digby Morgan’s contingent HR recruitment company focusing on entry to mid level appointments. In this short article, he takes a look at the latest developments and issues in this exciting sector.

“We’ve had a very positive, active and successful year with evidence of significant growth for the HR Resourcing business. We continue to work across many industry sectors and, in particular, have seen some really positive results in the fmcg and retail sectors.

”Generally, you won’t be surprised to hear, that there is a shortage of top talent. There is still a dearth of experienced hire and graduate recruiters, compensation & benefits analysts and strong generalists (with particular focus on ER and recruitment) at the £40-50k level. The market is still more candidate driven and almost touching on the buoyancy we experienced at the back end of the 1990s. As a result, there is more emphasis on effective candidate management as we move across the end-to-end recruitment process. Our clients with the most competitive advantage are those that focus on total reward buying signals (L&D and environment in particular) and move quickly according to the demands of the candidate and without compromising on the quality of the recruitment process. A candidate-centric process is critical in order to attract top talent to an organisation and hand holding the candidate through the on-boarding process is especially important.

”Interestingly, we have seen our clients recruit more on the personality/relationship. At the entry to mid-level, clients are beginning to focus on personality to culture fit as opposed to focusing on relevant industry experience. This offers our clients more of a positive option for the mid and long term development of their teams focusing on potential and career development for the new recruit. An example of this is in the professional services market where we have increasingly seen clients become more flexible on the type of experience they are looking for. These companies have been more open to looking at people from the blue chip talent pool where their personalities offer more of a match (mentor, environment, level of role). Subsequently, these clients have attracted top talent with a fresh perspective on a new industry sector – a breath of fresh air according to some.

”When working in a market like this, we have to be more proactive on the candidate side. Recently, HR Resourcing has introduced a number of initiatives focusing on the depth and breadth of our database and the power of our relationships. This has enabled us to be better placed to help our clients when vacancies become available.

”Going into 2007, we are excited about the prospect of continued growth at HR Resourcing and are looking forward to working with and benefiting from the Vedior acquisition”.

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