Search And Selection In The Age of Austerity

‘So how’s the market?’ is a frequent question I’m asked. This isn’t just a conversation starter, people have a genuine concern about the recruitment market and, as the suppliers of human capital, usually a businesses’ greatest expense, it’s true that we are generally a good thermometer of its health. But when candidates ask this, what they really mean is ‘Will I get a lot of opportunities to look at, or maybe one or two?’


Certainly, the PR industry seems to have staged a recovery from the recession of 2009 and is in good health. Lots of people are looking to hire and there are a good number of candidates interested in a move as I’ve mentioned before. I’ve found that there has been some genuine under-payment, where people have been promoted but not given a pay rise, and some genuine progress stagnation, with candidates simply not promoted at all due to a lack of funds, or indeed clients! Now that the cloud has somewhat lifted, people are looking at what’s out there, who are the consultancies that are fast-recovering and where they can get a leg-up to compensate for the missed opportunities last year. Not just glad to have a job at all anymore, candidate confidence is returning with the market’s.


But it’s not 2008. In the early part of that year, the height of boom before bust, pretty much anyone who could talk and write was being snapped up by consultancies looking to service their overflowing accounts and skilled candidates were commanding multiple offers, big pay-rises and big counter-offers.


In 2010, it’s a different landscape. 2009 was hard, but it wasn’t another dot.com crash moment. PR weathered the storm well and, in response to client demands for more (for less), adapted to new techniques and strategies. The uptake of social media and digital PR was greater at the end of 2009 and start of 2010 than ever before – ‘The Digital Revolution’ as many dubbed it. Digital and new business roles were pretty much the only jobs on the market that year. Digital wasn’t a new thing, by any means. Marketeers were using digital a long time ago. But the advances in social media, integrated into digital media such as websites, really drove the PR interest.


As a result, the industry has both consolidated and fragmented. Consolidated in the sense that more disciplines have been brought under one roof to give clients a 360 degree service. Fragmented in the sense that the jobs in this environment have become even more specialised. Every consultancy has a slightly different take on what services they offer to clients, and this means they are all looking for different things from candidates. It’s simply not the case that any ‘digital specialist’ can receive multiple interviews from all the agencies looking for that type of person. The agencies are both more selective and more discerning than ever before.


The fear of the double dip recession is still there and the pain (in terms of redundancies from 2009) is still felt. Clients need candidates that fit into their differentiated offering and cannot afford to make mistakes when hiring.


Is this the industry growing up? Maybe. But what it means for candidates is that your CV needs to shine, your interview techniques need to be sharp as a razor and you need to play to your strengths carefully. You also need to brush up your digital. If you don’t have this, look for the opportunities that will give you some of this and think about how to sell yourself into them. Show your potential at the interview, and make every interview an important event. Most of this should be standard advice to anyone going for a new job, but in good times, people get lazy with the basics. Now the basics are everything.


Put more effort than ever before into your new job search. If you do, it will pay off. You may not get a huge pay rise, but you’ll get the leg up you need and, if you’ve chosen carefully, more potential for advancement. Counter offers are still there for high valued employees, but only if their agency genuinely can afford it and after a long spell without a pay rise, can seem a bit hollow. But it’s unlikely to be multiple offers, unless you are like the Swiss Army Knife of PR.