October 10, 2022
One of the hottest topics in the news and around the proverbial water cooler is the possibility of a recession hitting the United States this year or next. The primary focus of the concern is the massive number of layoffs that have been happening. To quote Crunchbase...
After a banner year for tech, layoffs are here. In fact, as of late-September, more than 42,000 workers in the U.S. tech sector have been laid off in mass job cuts so far in 2022, according to a Crunchbase News tally.
Despite this, we in the United States are experiencing only a slight rise in unemployment, going from 3.5% to 3.7% this year. Moreover, as of this writing, there are 11 million unfilled jobs.
In this market, despite the uncertainty for some, the need to attract, recruit and retain talent has never been greater. This is why so many companies, across diverse industries, need our services. We validated this assertion recently when we surveyed 141 Human Resources, Talent Acquisition and Recruitment professionals on their hiring status. The overall majority (80%) were "hiring for growth." The next biggest response was "hiring for replacement" (11%), followed by "hiring freeze" (6%) and "making layoffs" (3%).
The data suggests that the market is ripe for the flexible, recruiting consulting services that Proactive Talent provides. However, few (if any) can match our cost-effective, flexible and scalable model that supports your business when it is needed most. A prime example of that is our On-Demand Recruiting service, which allows our professional recruiting consultants to work as an extension of your internal team. In a nutshell, our consultants can be quickly activated to fill your hiring needs and deactivated once your needs are met. And as useful as that is, it is not the only advantage to working with us.
We recently surveyed our On-Demand Recruiters in order to track what they have to offer in terms of experience and expertise, and these were some of the responses.
Our On-Demand Recruiters are highly experienced with 10+ years experience.
Our On-Demand Recruiters have worked in various industries.
Our On-Demand Recruiters average 3-5 interviews to get 1 hire.
Due to the experience of our On-Demand Recruiters, our client’s in-house recruiters are upskilled: learning new ways to produce hires, improving recruitment processes and enhancing the overall candidate experience.
Perhaps the ultimate advantage to working with us is our recruitment philosophy which says that we put our client’s needs ahead of our own. We steer our clientele towards vendor independence and not continual reliance upon us or anyone else, for that matter. Anecdotal evidence suggests that our philosophy is well-received.
“Everyone else is offering symptom relief. We are offering a cure,” said Proactive Talent CEO – Will Staney, “We are the wellness journey, helping you stay healthy verses reacting to an illness you may have.”
Further commenting on our client relationships, Ashley Bennett, Principal Consultant – On Demand Recruiting added, “You know so many of our clients build their full recruiting program with us, graduate from us and then when they go through the next maturity growth phase, they bring us back or when that TA leader goes to the next company where they need to build out a function again, they bring us with them as their secret tool.”
As profitable as our client engagements have been, the partnerships that have proven the most successful are those companies that are going through change, challenge or growth. Perhaps a mid-market company is being challenged by an increasing demand for their products and as a result, there are shifting talent needs? Maybe an enterprise company is going through a growth spurt for several months but said growth will not last long enough to justify hiring additional full-time recruiters? Or possibly, there is a seasonal need to spend up a hiring budget ahead of the new year? Weak candidate pipeline, hard to fill roles, short-staffed in general, these are all reasons our On-Demand Recruiting services have been so highly coveted in the past. That being said, not every customer has proven to be a good marriage.
The partnerships that have proven to be less than perfect tend to be those who treat us like a contingency recruiting firm and not full partners in the recruitment process. They fail to recognize how crucial communication is and pivot the candidate direction without informing us or neglect to have a single source of truth, thus leading to confusion and an unproductive experience. Conversely, those engagements who remain in dialogue with us, consider our advice and detail their expectations are frequently pleased with our results. A few testimonials...
"The results we've been able to achieve since working with Proactive Talent include reducing our cost to hire by nearly 50%, cutting our days to fill by 50% as well, and hiring 1300 people within a 6-month period." -Brent McCombs- Division VP of Human Resources, UT Health East Texas
Wanted to send you a big "Thank You" for helping our IT team bring in the 5 planned team members below. You have been at the epicenter of making these new hires happen. Thank you so much for your focus, partnership, and commitment - we couldn't have gotten this far in building a talented, scalable IT org from the ground up without you. - Stacey Moore, VP of IT
Our recruiter is awesome to work with! She brings in Collibra's core values into every meeting and the work she does. She continues to go above and beyond in her role. We truly enjoy our partnership with our recruiter {name redacted}. - Vidhya Jambunathan, Sr. Director of Corporate IT
{Name redacted} has done an amazing job. She's dedicated, diligent, and a master of client management. She provides a white-glove service for everyone she works with and really jumps in headfirst. She's also been very flexible in terms of the roles she's focused on and regardless of function has created strong relationships with her partners that have led to significant success. She's hired 22 people in her time here, on a 76% offer acceptance rate which has been a massive value add! As evidenced by the quotes below, her work has really provided a great experience for her hiring managers. - John Patterson, Talent Acquisition Lead
As much as we appreciate client testimonials, another leading indicator of success is repeat business. For example, it is not uncommon for a short engagement planned for only a few months, extends beyond that.
"Recently, one of our clients came to us and requested the same recruiter for a 3-month engagement," according to Ashley Bennet, Principal Consultant – On Demand Recruiting. "Our recruiter’s success resulted in 3 contract renewals, with a total of 6 months on engagement thus far. In fact, they said - We definitely want to extend the contract with (recruiter) another month! He is beyond helpful :)”
If you would like to learn more about how Proactive Talent can help you attract, recruit and retain top talent, click here and book time on our calendar. We would appreciate having a conversation with you today.
