Market Signals (Week 31)

Because of how we work when supporting our clients, we have a very unique “glimpse” into how over 5000 Executive Search companies and almost 20 000 decision makers react – the majority of which being located in Europe; and we collect and analyze how they respond; and we observe if and what kind of trends there are to leverage them into better career management & more effective job search methods.

Before there are trends, there are signals which we usually keep to ourselves. But these are not usual times, so we decided to share those market signals by the end of each week. If the country / context is important, we’ll add them. Otherwise, we’ll keep it general for confidentiality.

This is not a full version of this week’s report. View the complete presentation here:

We’ve continued reaching out to CEOs, HR Directors, investors, board members and candidates that we know personally, to take the temperature. Below you’ll find their shortened quotes in no particular order.

However, we’ll start with a KPI that gives a quite good feel of the overall trend on the job market:

Number of published job ads on LinkedIn

Note: some job ads might have been taken off LinkedIn, not because the recruitment process was put on hold or canceled, but because they are costly, especially if you have dozens of them. A company might have wanted to simply cut costs and move to more cost effective alternatives. Some local job portals are offering substantial discounts.

Initial list of 18 countries

Sorted

Extended list to 38 countries 

Sorted

Note: the numbers are collected at the beginning of each week, on Monday afternoon. In the full version of the report you can find separate data for regions such as: Visegrad, Baltics, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Iberia, SEE, BENELUX, DACH, Western Europe and EU.

Worth mentioning

First an overview of the indices:

Index18: This week, 7 countries published more job ads on LinkedIn than in Week 13: Estonia, Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Latvia, Denmark & Slovenia.

Index36: 56% of the countries published more job ads in Week 31 than in Week 15, which is a -2% decrease compared to last week. Since last week, 47% of the countries saw an increase in the number of published job ads.

The European Union: The EU has kept the number of published job ads above the initial level for the last 5 weeks (265,562 more job ads in Week 31 than in Week 17).

Winners of the week: Sweden has snapped back after weeks of constant decrease and experienced a significant +44.55% increase since last week. In the comparison of Week 15 & 31, the country with the best result was Norway (+103.68%). When it comes to regions, since last week, the most job ads were published in Northern Europe (+19,451 / +23.22%) due to Sweden and Norway noting the biggest increases. Baltics & Visegrad have kept their winning status for the fourth week in a row (Week 15 & 31).

Losers of the week: After having maintained a rather stable number of job ads for the past few weeks, Albania saw a significant decrease of the number of published job ads between Week 15 & 31 (-40.70%). It also placed last in the Week 30 & 31 comparison. Southern Europe has held the last place for the past weeks and still hasn't reached the initial job ad level. Between Week 15 & 31, 85,429 job ads disappeared (-20.27%) from LinkedIn. Southern Europe noted the biggest decrease since last week as well.

Collected Quotes from CEOs and HR Directors:

The vast majority of executives are with market leaders in their respective industries. By default, the board members are members of local boards; if not, we’ll indicate the exception.

New Technology: Some of the start-ups in our industry need to restructure their business model in order to adapt to the current situation.

Manufacturing / Automotive: Our business results are down and we are making a considerable effort to keep staff and avoid reductions.

Design: The CV-19 has had a strong negative effect on our company. Many projects have been canceled and we are not sure what the future will bring. On the other hand, some projects have started to slowly unfreeze.

Production: We have definitely started to work more since the pandemic – sometimes we are forced to reply to emails with a two week delay because of our workload. Industry and construction branch have been well supported by the government actions, so fortunately we never had to cut the budget or freeze any projects.

Executive Search: Several international Executive Search companies have started to reduce their personnel across all countries. While some are currently doing really well.

Finance: There are more people on the job market at the moment because of the second wave of CV-19 prognosis. The job market has therefore become more competitive.

And a candidate quote:

Business Unit Director / Real Estate: I received a job offer in strategy entertainment after a two-month job searching process, but I stay open for other opportunities.

Useful observations & tips for candidates from one of our contacts:

Head of Talent Acquisition / International public organization

Before CV-19, sometimes we'd have only 20 applicants for a post. Now, there's a massive increase. For some roles it's double the amount of candidates – for HR roles, even more! A recent posting received 50 applicants within 12 hours! I can see that online interviews are more stressful for candidates because of all the technical challenges. Consequently, their performance is different. The overall candidate experience is also different – not worse, just different.

I still see two struggles for now and beyond CV-19: to formulate proper remote working policies, and to design appropriate digital onboarding processes.

About the future: everything will depend on the success of developing a vaccine. However, there are definitely elements that are here to stay: remote work if physical presence is not required (it currently saves me 5 hours per week, 20 hours per month on commuting – why would I voluntarily want to go back?) and online interviews!

Tips for candidates:

• Cover the basics: our ATS "enforces" as complete applications as possible. Having said that, it still surprises me that approximately 30% of the candidates still don't get the absolute basics right!
• Don't apply to everything. Constant rejection affects your motivation. Keep applying to the job ads where you see a fit and don't give up!

If you want to discuss your professional situation confidentially or if you are considering hiring Career Angels for support, contact [email protected] who will personally match you with the most appropriate consultant. For efficiency, add your CV and availability for a Skype call.

If you want to contribute, email your signals to Sandra (everything will be kept confidential).

Market Signals published thus far:

• Week 30
• Week 29
• Week 28
• Week 27
• Week 26
• Week 25
• Week 24
• Week 23
• Week 22
• Week 21
• Week 20
• Week 19
• Week 18
• Week 17
• Week 16
• Week 15
• Week 14
• Week 13