In recent research conducted in partnership with Cambridge Network, I noted the need for a more proactive partnership between employers and the city’s workforce. Significant value can be created from strategic workforce planning and investment in skill development by employers is needed to realign the community’s skillbase with growth opportunities in the local economy.
Throughout 2022, Talent Glue has been working in partnership with Cambridge Network and Recrion to run focus groups and surveys with recruiters, workers, and job candidates in the Cambridgeshire region to understand their current experiences of the recruitment market.
In this report, ‘Bridging the Recruitment Gap’, we offer some recommendations on how recruiters and workers can respond to the changing workplace in our current hybrid, high inflation environment.
Many of the people involved in our research have come from organisations in key local industry sectors including pharmaceuticals, life sciences, professional services, engineering, and technology.
Our report, Bridging the Recruitment Gap explores what we have been observing. If you are facing any recruitment and retention challenges currently, we have included some questions in each section of this report to help you reflect on each stage.
Wherever in the process you are personally involved in recruitment, our research recommends that you:
- ‘Keep it human’ by maintaining contact with candidates: human contact matters at various points in the hiring and onboarding process.  As you gather information about the candidate, make sure you’re collecting the right information, not only to make a selection decision but to better understand their aspirations, values, their deal breakers and their attitude to hybrid working.  Attitudes to the workplace have changed in recent years, some candidates aren’t articulate about their views yet, so you may find you need to help them.Â
- “Keep it social’ by involving colleagues in the whole process:  previous opportunities to involve a broader spectrum of colleagues may have been lost as many have shifted to hybrid recruitment. There can be a lot of value in engaging the recruit’s future colleagues from the early stages of the process.  What values might be important for the candidate to have when joining the team? Is there any opportunity to meet team members online during the process? There is so much benefit in building this social contact as it helps the candidate to feel a sense of belonging and make an emotional connection with their new team.  It also reduces the risk of ghosting or surprise attrition.
- ‘Keep it lean’ by developing and maintaining an efficient hybrid process: for those organisations that hadn’t taken the time to streamline and refine their online recruitment activities, they are missing out on candidates who are snapped up by other faster recruiters.  Some report that the hiring manager can sit on the critical path causing delays.  To help better engage managers, some have shared job market data, skills shortages and the size of some candidate pools to help manage their expectations. Â