Winter Job Search: Worth A Punt?

There’s a common perception that it’s a bad time to be job hunting around this time of year, with firms winding up their budgets for Christmas and doubly so when you factor in concern over the economic recovery. This was certainly the case last year as the economy was only just emerging from the recession. But this year, we believe there’s everything to play for if you’re trying to bag a new role for the New Year.

The recruitment market overall is still in a volatile period. According to a recent article in City AM, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and KPMG are warning of a ‘double-dip in the jobs market’ on the back of their survey released at the very beginning of October. Their gloomy outlook will have been generally supported by the huge cuts announced in last week’s Comprehensive Spending Review, at least in terms of public sector recruitment.

On the other hand, the three largest listed recruitment firms Robert Walters, Hays and Michael Page remained ‘cautiously optimistic in their trading updates last week, pointing to the slow but steady recovery in business conditions’. Indeed, the main reason for the City AM article was that the perceived precarious position of recruitment naturally posed the question – ‘Are these recruiters worth spread betting on in the current climate?’

The two main comments from analysts were:

“Many firms are likely to try to meet any increase in business through making greater use of the workers they have already, and they will be reluctant to take on any more staff unless they are really convinced that sustained improvement in their business is probable.”

Howard Archer, chief UK & European economist at IHS Global Insight

and:

“Recruitment tends to thrive on confidence – when you get confidence, people are more willing to change jobs and that churn is good for staffing companies.”

Ian Jermin, senior analyst at Merchant Securities

This all sounds very interesting in the overall recruitment market. But what about PR recruitment in particular?

The PR Perspective

Looking at PR and Communications recruitment in particular, there is a generally supported view, as noted on this blog before, that PR has survived well as an industry in this new age of conversation and public relations has benefited from the boom in social media.

At PVR, we have seen quite a lot of activity at the start of the quarter with a fresh round of PR agencies winning new business themselves. The key trends have been:

• An attempt to hang on to prized staff – reflected noticeably in some agencies signing up account managers to three months’, and senior account executives on two months’ notice – something certainly troublesome for recruiters and prospective employers


• Already over-stretched consultancies are hiring to service new business


• This is driven, in part, by consultancies diversifying into sectors that are more profitable, and hiring new skills to allow this

So should I be looking?

Addressing Ian Jermin’s comments, it seems to be the case that there is a renewed activity from PR candidates regarding job hunting. There are three key motivators here:

• In some cases, candidates are overstretched in their positions and are looking for more realistic working again


• Some candidates know that their skills set is highly marketable at the moment, as is the case with digital and social media for example, and feel it’s a shrewd move now to make a transition to an agency eager for those skills


• In many cases, candidates know that the market will be uncertain for a while yet. So rather than making the best of what they have now, they are cautiously looking at maybe one or two opportunities at a time, and simply keeping a toe in the market, waiting for the right job to surface. ‘I’m not actively looking, but…’

Is this confidence? No, but it’s the savvy way to hedge your bets

Winter Blues?

There is a degree of seasonality in the recruitment market around this time, mainly reflective of December’s pre-Christmas excitement and January’s post-Christmas excess. Hiring traditionally dies off at the beginning of December and picks up again at the beginning of February.

This year, however, tradition is out the window. Pitches are being signed off and business won, the need for staff is acute in these cases and consultancies are desperate to get staff in place before the New Year. This suggests that the window of slow progess over Christmas will be tighter than ever this year and, rather than being a bad time to look, this could be the prime opportunity, especially if there is a chance of market stagnation in 2011.