The CC/CX Update - Volume 53
James Parkin

The CC/CX Update - Volume 53

Hi Everyone,

Another two weeks have passed and here in the UK we're in the crucial and much celebrated return to school season! The people I really feel happy for at this time of year are the people that collect recycling from our homes. With the kids back at school they'll no longer suffer back problems from those overly heavy glass bins filled with wine and beer bottles! So whilst the physios of the UK go into their quiet season lets celebrate with the refuse collectors the coming of September and the return to business as usual.

First off, an apology, I had an excellent interview coming for this edition but this has been delayed by a fortnight. When you're interviewing experts that are in demand you have to go with the flow sometimes. The good news is I now have exceptional interviews coming up for the next 2 editions so that just means even more great content for you!

This edition I'm going to be looking at the results and discussion around a recent LinkedIn poll I ran asking my network at which career stage they found finding employment the hardest, what this tells us about the CC/CX recruitment market and what can be done to help.

That plus all the usual news, trends, in demand skills and industry events for the rest of 2024!

Lets dive in!

For previous editions of the CC/CX Update, click here

Current Recruitment Trends

Quicker Processes. At the beginning of the summer I talked about the impact that the holidays have on hiring. We are now seeing people pick up the pace and finish off recruitment processes that have been open for far too long. What do I mean by too long though?

My general guide is this.

  • A few days (2-3) to review a CV and respond although same day ideally
  • To organise a Teams/Zoom/Video interview should take a few working days (2-3)
  • To organise an in person interview may take up to 5 working days
  • You may have 2-3 interview stages in a process so you can reasonably expect 2-3 weeks for an interview process to complete
  • 1-2 days for a decision if multiple candidates made it to final stage
  • In total you can therefore expect around 15-16 days for a slick, 2 stage interview process and up to 21 days if it includes 3 stages or 2 in person stages.

After the summer break there are plenty of vacancies that have been open far longer than 21 days and are now being closed quickly.

Higher Fees. Independent recruiters, like myself, are seeing a change in the way we are being engaged with by hirers. An influx of cheap (and mostly ineffective) "GenAI" driven tools, cheaper advertising costs and redundancies have meant that companies can attempt a lot of their recruitment through a direct to market campaign. You can partly see the effects of this if you check out the average number of applicants on almost any LI advert and the point I make above about vacancies taking longer to fill than they should!

However that aside, this means they are coming to independent recruiters for more specialist roles again and that means increased fees for those more targeted searches. Why is this important for you to know as a job seeker?

Well, if a recruiter is working on a role that seems fairly straight forward to fill you might find that the process is very slow and that the application to interview ratio is poorer than it's been before. However, if you see something niche, that fits your skills being marketed by a recruiter then the chances are that the hirer really values their service and is paying properly for it. In short you want to use the right tool for the job as a job seeker. Independent specialists for specialist roles, direct channel for more open positions.

Personal Branding. It might be a buzz phrase but the reality is that in a congested candidate marketplace this has become very important. How your LinkedIn profile and CV look/read, how you present yourself visually at interview and how you prepare intellectually for interviews are all being scrutinised. Candidate comparisons are the hardest feedback because you may have played your A Game on the day and just come up short against someone else but on a different day you would have aced it. Later this week I'll be releasing some YouTube content on getting your branding right on LinkedIn and this will probably be part of a short series on the various elements you need to be confident on when going into an interview to give your best performance. Subscribe to my YouTube channel, link below, to see this as it comes out and improve your personal brand as a result.

Click here and then Subscribe #NoSpam


Hot Skills in Demand


  • Genesys Cloud Engineering - Global (back to the number 1 spot again after a few months)
  • CX Account Leadership/Growth - Global (slight change on this as the market has shifted)
  • Entry Level/Early Careers SDR/Lead Gen - Europe
  • CX Complex Solution Sales (Enterprise) - Europe
  • AWS Connect Architecture - North America
  • Customer Success - Europe

CC/CX Industry Events

Sept 5th-7th - CX Festival - Kiessee Ruhlsdorf, Germany

Register here

Sept 17th-19th - Dreamforce - San Francisco, California

Get this in your calendar

Oct 1st - Oct 2nd - Customer Experience for Financial Services Summit 2024 - Toronto, Canada

Register Here

Oct 7th - 9th - Customer Contact Week Europe 2024 - Amsterdam, Netherlands

Register Here

Nov 13th -14th - Digital Customer Experience Summit 2024 - Toronto, Canada

Register Here

Nov 27th - 28th - Call & Contact Centre Expo 2024 - London, UK

Register Here (I'll be attending as always)


Unsplash

Article: When is it hardest to get hired?

In August I ran a poll on LinkedIn asking my network, who are global and of varied career experience within the contact centre and customer experience market, when they found it hardest to get hired. I broke our careers down into 4 sections;

  • Early careers
  • Mid skilled level
  • Senior skilled level
  • Leadership

Going into this I suspected that people in their early careers phase would have found it the hardest (whatever stage they are at now) and then probably Senior skilled. However a clear 50% of responders said that Senior skilled was the hardest stage at which to find a new role. In a market where we hear "talent" is hard to find, how can this be true?

LinkedIn - The Audience

First off LinkedIn is predominantly used by people over 25 so people currently in their early careers phase are not as well represented. The platform is over 20 years old so the professional audience is more Mid - Senior in their skill level. But that doesn't mean that those people couldn't have found it hard to get their start too and that now they are up and running it's much easier.

Interpreting the Question

At what stage do different people view themselves as Mid or Senior skilled (perhaps a poll for another day?) and how does this effect them answering the question. It's absolutely a fair point but it still remains that the data shows skilled people are finding it harder now (August 2024) to get a job than early careers or leadership professionals in a market where hirers say the talent isn't out there.

Ageism

The first thing that comes to my mind when I see these results is ageism. Are older people finding it harder because companies are not hiring them based on their age? Was it easier for them to find roles when they were Mid skilled because they were younger? I definitely think this is a factor based on my experience.

An Aging Talent Pool

Within the UK contact centre and CX consulting space there is a wealth of talent that has been operating at the top level for years. Therefore the market has relied on them and companies have not developed people as well as they should have done to replace them in the longer term. With more Senior skilled people in the talent pool they will make up a greater percentage of the overall responders and with the recent turbulence in the employment market they will perceive it as harder to find work now than before.

Recruitment has Changed

The proliferation of cheap, direct to market recruitment channels has led to an increase in adverts and applications. This has not improved the applicant experience at all, definitely the opposite! Someone that has been used to one level of service is bound to find the high volume, low quality, "AI" driven models being sold today as a poorer and therefore harder experience to navigate

What Do We Do To Improve This

On a platform that is currently skewed towards more Mid and Senior skilled people, in a talent pool that is established and not being replaced, in a market where mass volume cheap hiring techniques and ageism work against you. How can we make things easier?

For a while now I have been talking to people about broadening their view on what work looks like to them. Consider the Mii (multi income individual) approach and trade on your value and knowledge rather than purely time. Can you consult on a daily or hourly rate on a fractional basis for various organisations? Could you provide training in what you do as well as the practical application of your skills? Can you advise end customers on products, strategies and operations within contact centre and CX? You'll no doubt see people on LinkedIn that seem to have really engaged networks that support them, speak to them about how they do that. Your network is invaluable to you in this world of work.

Fight back against what works against you and your experience by playing a smarter game that values the things you cant build overnight, knowledge and a track record. Rather than seeing the money in one pot (a permanent employer) consider that the money is out there in many different pots and you can access it by diversifying your approach to work.

I'll be providing more info and advice on this over the coming weeks and months so Subscribe to this newsletter and also the YouTube channel if you like short form video content. I'd love to hear some success stories from people who have done this and maybe I can interview you for The CC/CX Update! Comment below

Source: below

Thank you

Thanks for reading, liking and subscribing!

I am now offering opportunities for paid advertising in some future editions of The CC/CX Update. If you have a relevant product, organisation, vacancy or event that you would like to advertise to our thousands of CC/CX subscribers, the wider connected audience and our global YouTube audience then contact me for details.

James

Click here to see all our interviews and advice videos so far!


Craig Reading

Chief Inspiration Officer / Technical Director | Contact Centre Technologies

2 个月

I agree

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